The Smurfette Principle: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}{{outdated}}<!-- Doctor Who and The Order of the Stick both need updating, and maybe other entries as well -->
[[File:SmurfSexRatio.jpg|link=The Smurfs|frame|Take note of the Male-to-Female ratio.]]
{{quote|"''You're not as smart as [[Hot Scientist|Stewart]]. But, you're the only girl in town. ''"
|'''Taylor'''|''[[Planet of the Apes]]''}}
{{quote|"''
▲{{quote|"''I'm the only girl.''"|'''Marzipan''', ''[[Homestar Runner]]''}}
''For any series not aimed solely at females, odds are high that only one female will be in the regular cast.''
'''The Smurfette Principle''' is the tendency for works of fiction to have exactly one female amongst an ensemble of male characters, in spite of the fact that roughly half of the human race is female. Unless a show is purposefully aimed at a female viewing audience, the main characters will tend to be disproportionately male.
In many series, men will have various different personalities, but women will always be [[The Chick]]. Thus, by the [[Law of Conservation of Detail]], you only need one.
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This trope has lessened over time, but even now it often applies to animated fare aimed at boys or a general audience. This is especially serious when the regular cast is full of synthetic entities or other species which have a voice or are sufficiently humanoid; these will always be more masculine than feminine, with any feminine examples receiving special attention, [[Men Are Generic, Women Are Special|suggesting that women are merely an unusual subtype of men]].
Why does this trope happen? Often, the problem lies with the source
When the time for merchandising comes, unless the cast is all female, manufacturers won't create as many figures of the female members as they would males of the franchise even if the series is [[Merchandise-Driven]] (or at least, until the mid-90's). This creates a vicious cycle in which The Smurfette Principle is upheld by both toy manufacturers and TV writers, each reasoning that the other will enforce it anyway. This may be because, statistically, companies believe that action figures of female characters don't sell as well as the male ones, all evidence to the contrary. Of course, the shortage of female action figures to base those figures on can lead to another vicious cycle.
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As noted in the examples below, this trope is nearly universal in all forms of media. Most writers try to balance this out with [[Positive Discrimination]], [[Girls Need Role Models|making the girl]] more intelligent and [[Women Are Wiser|level-headed than everyone else]], but it still doesn't change the simple fact that there's only one of her. Usually, all it does is turn her into a [[Mary Sue]] for [[The Scrappy|everyone to loathe]].
Writers who recognize the problem after a season or two may expand the cast with [[Affirmative Action Girl
Interestingly, this can extend to [[Mooks]] and the [[Monster of the Week]] with [[Mono-Gender Monsters]], to avoid the [[Unfortunate Implications]] of violence against women.
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The name of this trope was first coined by [http://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/07/magazine/hers-the-smurfette-principle.html an article in the New York Times printed April 7, 1991, called "The Smurfette Principle"]. The article discussed the negative message which this trope gave its young audience: that males are individuals who have adventures, while females are a type of deviation [[Never a Self-Made Woman|who exist only in relation to males]].
Contrast [[Two Girls to a Team]], [[
{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Dragon Ball]] Z'' is notorious for this; Bulma is the only female character through nearly its entire run with any significant screentime. This might also reflect the small yet vocal fanbase for Pan, a female Saiyan descendant.
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** There has recently be ''one'' recent group that is an exception: the Cloud village team taught by a man named Killer Bee ({{spoiler|the host of the eight-tailed beast}}) is the first to have two girls (Karui and Samui) and one guy (Omoi), although arguably, that squad is one person short since Samui is the squad's leader, a position equivalent to Kurenai/Kakashi/Gai's.
** Although this can be read as there being a 2:1 male to female ratio, thus making 1/3 of the main and secondary characters female and therefore averting this trope - 1/3 of [[Loads and Loads of Characters|a large cast]] is much more than one.
* Similarly, in ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'', there has only been one female on the main team out of three or four. For a long time, this was Misty, who always took a backseat to Ash's adventures. The other two token females, May and Dawn, are somewhat like female versions of Ash, and have a plot similar to Ash's but heavily feminized. This might be intentional, as the latter two are supposed to represent the otherwise identical protagonists you can choose in the ''Pokemon'' games, with the show itself noting that May was copying Ash's battle-style too much. Black and White plays this straight considering only the main trio (the usual [[Two Guys and a Girl]]) but the trope is averted if the various [[Rival
** Before catching Snivy, Pidove was the only female on Ash's Unova team. Because of this, Pidove was the only one who could get close to Snivy without being affected by Attract.
** The various manga series are typically better at this.
* ''[[Pokémon Special]]'' has this in the whole first arc...{{spoiler|then at the end of the yellow arc, we discover that ''he'' is a ''she''}}.
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* Between the two fighting groups in ''[[X (manga)|X 1999]]'', there is only one woman ([[Hollywood Nerd|Satsuki]]) among the Dragons of Earth, as opposed to three ([[The Ingenue|Yuzuriha,]] [[Hooker with a Heart of Gold|Karen,]] and [[Defrosting Ice Queen|Arashi]]) among the Dragons of Heaven.
** {{spoiler|Although [[Ambiguous Gender|Nataku]] could count as a girl}}
* ''[[Record of Lodoss War]]'' has a typical fantasy adventuring group which is mostly male. The sole female main character is a blond elf named Deedlit (keep in mind that this series was based on an actual [[Tabletop Games]] campaign played by a bunch of Japanese college fraternity brothers in the late
** The sequel ''Chronicles of the Heroic Knight'' averts this. The "new generation" of heroes consists of three (or four) male and three female characters. As with the previous heroes, Shiris was given a bigger role, and former [[Faux Action Girl]] Deedlit was [[Action Girl|markedly more competent]]
* Inverted in ''[[Azumanga Daioh]]'' - there are only ''two'' male characters (three if you count [[The One Guy]]) with a notable role in the series. Every other main character in the series is female; the gender ratio is 1:5 or 3:10.
* In ''[[Saint Seiya Omega]]'', Aquila Yuna is the only girl among the Bronze Saints.
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* ''[[Voltron]]'' (''Golion'') also has one heroine in a squad of heroes. ''Dairugger XIV'' didn't have that much better a ratio either, with roughly three females in ''three'' squads. Notably, Princess Allura originally only joined the team as a replacement after one member of the all-male [[Five-Man Band]] was killed. Even then, it was over everyone else's objections, and only because they couldn't form the Giant Robot without a fifth member.
** That said, Princess Romelle could be seen as an additional female character, even though she doesn't make her debut until Episode 17, and a more kick-ass one than Allura. (Unlike the former, Romelle actually 'fights back' against would-be attackers.) [[Ensemble Darkhorse|Queen Merla]] was added by the American writers/editors of the series for the second season that got distributed to the Western market.
* ''[[Uchuu Senkan Yamato]]''
* ''[[Digimon]]'' tends to vary drastically in how well it handles the problem. The worst was ''[[Digimon Frontier]]'', which was 1 out of 5 on both the good ''and'' evil sides (at least they were [[Ms. Fanservice|cute to look at]]). ''[[Digimon Tamers]]'' did best, with 3 out of 8, the same ratio as ''[[Digimon Adventure]]''. For the record, ''[[Digimon Adventure 02]]'' was 2 out of 6 (though girls were fairly well-represented among the international Chosen), ''[[Digimon Savers]]'' was 1 out of 3 (later 1 out of 4) among the main cast, and ''[[Digimon Xros Wars]]'' spent most of its time at 1 out of 3 as well, with two different girls being the "1" at separate times. [[It Got Worse|Then]] came its followup, ''[[Digimon Xros Wars:
* ''[[Gundam]]'' uses this to varying degrees from series to series. Examples:
** ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam Wing|Gundam Wing]]'' has a roughly 1:1 male:female ratio, but few of the woman are pilots and even fewer are main characters.
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** ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam Ecole Du Ciel]]'' is so far the only ''Gundam'' work with a female as the main character.
** While not the main character, Chris Mckenzie of [[Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket|War In The Pocket]] was the only female pilot, but is also the best one in the series, being a test pilot for the Gundam Alex.
** Yoshiyuki Tomino reportedly ''wanted'' the main character of ''[[Turn A Gundam
* In ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh (anime)|Yu-Gi-Oh]]'' the only female character to be around during the show's entire run is Anzu among a group of Yami Yugi, Yugi, Jounouchi, Honda, Kaiba, Mokuba, and to an extent Bakura and Otoji. Mai and Shizuka put in appearance now and then but are really secondary characters.
** The Toei anime added [[Ascended Extra|Miho]], the [[Tomboy and Girly Girl|Girly Girl to Anzu's Tomboy]].
** In the spin-off ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX (anime)|Yu-Gi-Oh GX]]'' it gets even worse - Asuka is the only girl among Judai, Sho, Ryo, Manjoume, Daichi, Ed and Tyranno. The only other female cast member to get more than a few episodes was Rei, who didn't join the cast until the third season and even then didn't get a lot of screentime in comparison to the rest of the cast.
* The director of ''[[Mai-HiME (manga)|Mai-HiME]]'' claimed in an interview that he deliberately wanted to invert this trope. Indeed, the important male cast is considerably smaller than that of the female cast. But considering that this a [[Magical Girl]] team show, the effort's [[
* ''[[One Piece]]'' has two female Straw Hats (with one temporary member), one female Supernova, and one female Warlord of the Sea. Most of the evil organizations have exactly one female member, [[Designated Girl Fight|whom Nami tends to fight]], with the notable exception of Baroque Works (half its Officer Agents are female, although most of the Mooks are male), and '''all''' of Amazon Lily is female. The Marines are almost entirely male, except for Hina, Tashigi, Tsuru (the old woman who's sometimes seen with Sengoku), and Bellemere (in the past).
** Also one female Giant, who is also a Marine, and one Celestial Dragon.
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* Riza Hawkeye is the only woman in Roy Mustang's group in ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]''. Somewhat justified in that there are fewer women in the military than there are men, and the reason she's in the group in the first place is because she's Mustang's aide, confidante, and bodyguard. She's [[The Chick]] only in the sense of being the sole female and dearly loved by her male counterparts; fact is, she's more badass than any of the other four subordinates. This may also be justified, as the country that the series mainly takes place in is an alternate-universe version of pre-World War II Germany, an era where seeing women in the military was a lot less common.
** Among the homunculi, Lust is the only female in the manga/Brotherhood anime (though Envy is genderless according to [[Word of God]]), but the first anime replaced the male Sloth with a female one.
* Heeello, ''[[Bio
** Presumably it's especially glaring because they're teenagers, which heightens the difference between girls and boys more than in elementary school. Bonus points for two of the boys, especially Shinko, having gotten pretty, and the fat one being less absurd-looking than before.
* ''[[Revolutionary Girl Utena]]'' inverts this trope with the Black Rose Duelists (as opposed to the regular duelists chosen by {{spoiler|Akio}}). Discounting the man manipulating them, Mikage, there are five girls that were chosen, and one boy, Mitsuru. Another boy, Tatsuya, was lured into becoming one but was rejected.
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* In ''[[Tantei Gakuen Q]]'', Minami Megumi is the only female student in the Q-class, and her role is mostly limited to memorising and recollecting scenes with her photographic memory.
** Possibly subverted with the A-class, because although Yukihira Sakurako is the only female {{spoiler|until another female member joins}} in the group, she is the only one in the class who gets significant screen time, other than [[Comic Relief]] Saburomaru.
* This trope is scaled up for ''[[Legend of Galactic Heroes]]''. It's pretty conspicuous that there are only five notable female characters among a ''literal cast of HUNDREDS'' in a 110 episode saga, {{spoiler|one of whom dies early on}}. The Alliance has an [[Action Girl]] and [[The Chick]] among its ranks, while the Empire has another Chick and the one woman who even comes close to the [[Magnificent Bastard
* Casca is the only woman in the Band of the Hawk from ''[[Berserk]]'' and mainly serves as Griffith's [[Number Two]]. She's quite respected by pretty much the entire band, at least some of whom refer to her as "anego" (sister). In time, she becomes the [[Love Interest]] of Guts. When the Eclipse goes down, {{spoiler|she becomes the victim of a horrific [[Break the Cutie]] ordeal, culminating in her rape at the hands of Femto right in front of Guts}}. Two years after the horror, she and Guts form the core of a new group of [[True Companions]] later on, which is fairly evenly split between four guys (Guts, Serpico, Isidro and Puck) and four girls (herself, Farnese, Schierke and Evarella), but because of her traumatized post-Eclipse state, she's not the combatant that she used to be.
* ''[[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure]]'' is severely lacking in the female department until Part 6. Most of the women up to that point are either secondary characters or love interests with no real role in the story, and almost all the antagonists are men as well.
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* ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' inverts this, Tuxedo Mask and Artemis being the only male (non-villain) primary character.
▲== Board Games ==
* [[Chess]] has only one female character, the queen, which makes sense since the names are inspired by medieval warfare. However, [[God Save Us From the Queen|she is also the most powerful piece.]]▼
* The ''Guess Who?'' game (in the late 80’s) had exactly 5 girls and like 35 guys. This was a game of yes/no questions about appearance. If you drew a card w/ a girl on it you were almost sure to lose that round. Women were truly an “unusual subtype”. They were rarer than bald people, people with glasses, and gingers.▼
== Card Games ==▼
* The [[Star Wars Customizable Card Game]] has exactly ''one'' female Imperial: Mara Jade. Female Rebels are half as rare: Leia and Mon Mothma. Female aliens are far more common, though.▼
== Comics ==▼
* [[Trope Namers|Named for]] Smurfette, the only female [[The Smurfs|Smurf]] for years out of a population of 100.
** Ironically, ''The Smurfs'' [[The Smurfs (animation)|cartoon]] actually toned this ''down'', a little. While you could argue Smurfette is as much a stereotype as any other specific smurf, Peyo (their creator) caught some flak by admitting she was not intended to be a real heroic character at all, describing her in mostly childish ways. The [[Hanna-Barbera]] show only played this up in her origin, where she was created by Gargamel to disrupt the lives of the Smurfs. Otherwise, Smurfette is typically a strong-willed type who is often ready to take charge when necessary in Papa Smurf's absence.
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** Although, as noted in ''[[Donnie Darko]]'', as a creation of Gargamel Smufette wasn't a true Smurf. Originally, the Smurfs were all male (or possibly asexual).
** This was later spoofed in ''[[Fables]]'' the founders of Smalltown were members of an [[Gulliver's Travels|Lilliput]] army (i.e. all men) until [[Thumbelina]] showed up so had to go find more magic barley seed that was used to made her because of mass riots fighting over her.
* ''[[Bloom County]]'''s cast had a series of strips dealing with the necessity of introducing a female character after the Supreme Court declared male-only clubs unconstitutional. ("Nothing's more 'male-only' than Bloom County! We've GOT to introduce a WOMAN!") Before, the comic strip had several notable reoccurring female characters including the feminist schoolteacher Ms. Harlow, who actually ''did'' [[Does Not Like Men|like men]]. Eventually, Ronald-Ann was created as a regular, who subverted the trope by ''not'' being [[The Chick]]. {{spoiler|Rosebud the Basselope}} was also revealed to be female, much to the surprise of the cast. Unfortunately, it looks like this was [[Retcon|retconned]] to oblivion.▼
** Even more directly addressed in the not-a-sequel-series-I-swear, ''Outland''. In the strip, a woman asked why all the well-known animal characters in comics and animation are all male; any female animal characters were just [[Distaff Counterpart|The Girlfriend]]. Opus announced that the strip was just about to hire the first major female animal character star to join the main cast, Hazel the Hedgehog. In a brilliant sequence that ran for ''weeks'', she lampshaded ''why'' most animal characters are male. (Are we asking girls to identify with a "little pig-rodent"? Can she participate in a slapstick pie fight if depicting violence against females is taboo? Is she still her own distinct character if we ''have'' to [[Put a Bow On Her Head]]?)▼
* In Hergé's ''[[Tintin]]'' comics, just about the only recurring female character is Bianca Castafiore, who's an impossible diva. Oh, and her maid.
** [[Word of God]] says that Hergé had a lot of trouble drawing adult characters that weren't ugly or ridiculous (Tintin doesn't count, as the character design is almost childish and very simple anyway) - something that didn't bother Hergé when it came to men, but annoyed him greatly when drawing women. He actually started to get better at it in the latter albums, and a cute female character with a major role was introduced in "Tintin et l'Alph-Art", but this effort suffered [[Author Existence Failure]].
* Alison Bechdel's ''[[Dykes to Watch Out For]]'' initially inverted this, with scarcely any male characters, partly as a response to the Smurfette principle (as discussed in ''The Indelible Alison Bechdel'') and partly to force male readers to identify with the female characters, as women often have to identify with male characters. Over the last several years, more male characters have appeared; one of the main characters, Sparrow, had a long-term relationship and a child with a man named Stuart. This may have also been her accommodating what has become to be known as [[
* When the ''[[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Fantastic Four]]'' started in 1961, the Invisible Girl was the only female member, and she was the weakest of the four (her force fields weren't invented till later).
* When the ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]'' started in 1963, Jean Grey was the only female member, and the weakest (it was a decade before she got Phoenix powers).
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*** Averted during the "Sisterhood of Evil" era, when the three female members of the team carried on in the absence of the then incarcerated male members.
* When ''[[The Avengers (Comic Book)|The Avengers]]'' started in 1963, [[The Wasp]] was the only female member, and the weakest. Then all the original members left in 1965, but there was still only one female, the Scarlet Witch, who was the weakest...[[A God Am I|at the time]].
** [[Took a Level
** The Wasp herself eventually became a badass hero in her own right and she even led the Avengers.
* When the ''[[Justice League of America]]'' started in 1960, [[Wonder Woman]] was the only female member, and though not ''necessarily'' the weakest, was certainly the most resembling. At least the early Gardner Fox stories treated her like the other members, and not like [[The Chick]]. Though she soon became the secretary at the JLA's meetings, taking minutes and so on. It took almost a decade before [[Black Canary]] became the second female member (and that was only after Wonder Woman had resigned; it would take several more years before there was more than one woman on the team).
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*** Actually, there wasn't even ''one''. They were looking for a [[Token Minority|token girl]] and they saw that a character called "Wonder Girl" had already been published, so they decided to use her. Somehow they (not to mention their editors!) missed the fact that "Wonder Girl" was actually just Diana as a teenager for something like ''four or five years'' real time. She was finally given the first of way too many origin stories in an attempt to fix this mistake. [[Continuity Snarl|And thus began a grand and glorious tradition of no one having any idea who she is or where she came from.]]
* ''The [[Doom Patrol]]'' started with one woman, Elasti-Girl.
* Inverted in ''[[Y: The
* Silk Spectre II from ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]]'' is the only female super-hero of the second generation. Furthermore, her central importance to the plot is that of her role as a woman, being a kept-girlfriend to Dr. Manhattan and then the love interest of Nite Owl II. However, this is a [[Deconstruction]], so it may be intentional to demonstrate the usual roles female characters play in the comic book genre.
* [[Rupert Bear]] had few female characters - Ottoline Otter (introduced about a couple of decades ago) and Tiger Lilly, not counting the mothers of the characters - and the main cast was mostly male. The CGI adaptation saw it fit to [[Gender Flip]] Ping Pong and Freida Fox.
* With the occasional exception of Xavin, ''[[Runaways]]'' inverts this by having, at most, 2 male characters in any team roster. Of those characters, only Victor has had superpowers constantly.
* ''[[100
* According to Norwegian Scholar Jon Gisle, the population of [[Disney Ducks Comic Universe|Duckburg]] is about 80
* In ''[[Scott Pilgrim]]'', one of Ramona's evil ex-boyfriends {{spoiler|is actually a girl.}}
* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in ''[[Youngblood: Judgment Day]]'', where Glory is keen to the idea of re-forming the Allies of Justice because she enjoys being the only woman in a team of
* Platnium was the only female member of the [[Metal Men]]. Tin later created Nameless, who didn't really do much other than act as his girlfriend. Right before the [[Cerebus Syndrome]] [[Retool]], [[Team Dad|Doc Magnus]] created [[Distaff Counterpart
* The newspaper comic ''Tumbleweeds'' had two Smurfettes -- Hildegarde Hamhocker among the townsfolk of Grimy Gulch, and Little Flower among the Poohawks. Aside from Hildegarde's little niece Echo, other female characters are extremely rare (if not non-existent) in the strip.▼
== Fan Works ==
* Averted by the Warriors, the superteam to which Douglas Sangnoir of ''[[Drunkard's Walk]]'' belongs in his home timeline. Judging by the names dropped at various points in the story, it numbers less than a dozen, but at least five female members have been mentioned -- one of whom is the team leader. And when he summons simulacra of the team's "heavy hitters" in ''Drunkard's Walk II'', ''all four'' are women.
== Film ==
* 7 is the only female ragdoll in ''[[9
** They were made from the brain essence of a man, so it's surprising there are ANY females among them.
** Made fun of in [http://mad-but-happy.deviantart.com/art/Pick-of-the-Litter-140004585 this] comic.
* The Smurfette Principle was dissected and explained with disturbing precision in ''[[Donnie Darko]]'' as being a non-existent issue, because all Smurfs are asexual.
** While it's true that they reproduce by stork, this doesn't stop them from falling in love with Smurfette. More on this issue in Comics, above.
* In ''[[Fight Club (film)|Fight Club]]'', Marla Singer is the only major female
** The movie is about universal frustrations. By portraying these frustrations as male and implying that few females could relate to it, it invokes the trope even further.
** The movie is in fact concerned with male frustrations, being narrated by and about a frustrated and idealised masculinity. Specifically, how modern consumerism has an inherent effeminacy (e.g. "the Ikea Nesting Instinct" & "we used to read pornography: now it was the Horchow Collection..."), versus the classic masculinity of the pre-historic "hunter / gatherer" ideal that Tyler Durden advocates. The Gender Binary is destabilised both by the sexually aggressive, non-feminine Marla; and Bob who has his testicles removed and grows breasts. The Narrator (and therefore Durden) are consumed by the implications of (post-)modernity for the masculine subject, hence why the Fight Club is male only.
* In ''The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'' (both [[The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (film)|the film]] and [[The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen|the graphic novel]]), Mina Harker/Murray was the Smurfette in the otherwise all-male League. However, she is by no means [[The Chick]]
* In [[The Film of the Book]] as with [[The Lord of the Rings|the book]], ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Lord of the Rings]]'' has very few female characters. The film tries to combat this trope by giving Arwen the roles of Glorfindel ''and'' her brothers Elladan and Elrohir, and writing up her part in other ways. However, by cutting out the whole Tom Bombadil section it also leaves out Goldberry, one of the few other female characters.
** In the [[Ralph Bakshi]] [[The Lord of the Rings (animation)|animated version]], the only female character with a speaking part is Galadriel. The only others to even appear are [[Action Girl|Eowyn]] (who gets a few seconds of standing behind Theoden's shoulder) and a pair of unidentified women in the background of The Prancing Pony.
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** In the British Godzilla knock-off ''[[Gorgo]]'', the ''monster'' (the big one at least) is female, but there are no female human characters ''at all''. In the ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' version, this made it difficult for the bots to complete their "Women of Gorgo" calendar.
* ''Bimbos in Time'' inverts this by having only one male character in the hero team (referred to as "the male Bimbo"); indeed, the only other male character with a major role in the story is the villain.
* Dorothy Lamour in the [[Bob Hope]]/[[Bing Crosby]] "[[Road To|Road]]" movies (''[[Road to Morocco]]'', etc). [[Roger Ebert]] referred to "[[Dorothy Lamour Syndrome]]" in his Little Movie Glossary; when two men and one woman have a dialogue in a movie, the woman is usually reduced to looking back and forth between the two men as they talk. Lamour had an excuse, as Hope and Crosby were frequently off-script and adlibbing.
* ''[[Ocean's
** The second movie averts it by bringing in Catherine-Zeta Jones, and the third movie plays it straight by dropping [[Julia Roberts]] and Jones and bringing in Ellen Barkin. It should be noted that all three of these women were a love interest for one of the main (male) characters.
* ''[[Prince of Persia: The
* ''[[Inception]]'' has a crew of around six guys and one girl. There is one other important female character, and {{spoiler|for most of the film, she's a projection of the main (male) character's subconscious.}}
* The casting for ''[[The Avengers (film)|The Avengers]]'' is even ''less'' balanced than the Sixties teams. While the original team had a 4-1 ratio (Hulk left almost as soon as Cap joined) and the second had a 3-1 ratio, the movie's inclusion of Fury and Agent Coulson as "title" characters currently puts the central cast at ''7''-1. Needless to say, some chunks of fandom took note. Maria Hill was added to adjust the ratio a little.
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** Arcee was cut at the last minute from the first movie and was replaced by Ironhide because of negative fan reaction to her. Also, it was decided that there wasn't enough time to discuss why there were female Transformers in the first place (not that it stopped them from appearing in the second movie). There are a handful of female human characters, though most are simply eye candy.
* ''[[The Matrix]] Trilogy'' is an interesting case. True, Trinity is the only female in the [[Power Trio|main group of characters]] throughout the trilogy, but incidental characters are far more likely to be female.
* In ''[[
* With the exception of Kelly, the female characters in ''[[Mystery Team]]'' play very little part in the story, and are only in a few scenes each.
* In ''[[Predators]]'', Isabelle is shown to be the only female cast in the entire film.
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* In the 2011 J.J. Abrams' film [[Super 8]], Alice Dainard is the only female in a group with 5 young boys making a film and navigating their way through their adventure. In fact, she's pretty much the only female in the entire movie, other than one of the boys' mothers.
* [[Salt]] was the only known female CIA agent and Russian spy.
* Sif is the only [[Action Girl]] in [[Thor (film)|Thor]]'s gang of warriors. This is [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in the film, where it is noted that Sif is the only girl in Asgard to want to become a warrior, and must do so in the face of entrenched sexism. Anyone who knows about Norse history or mythology will find this odd, since Scandinavian women enjoyed more freedom than women almost anywhere else in the world during the medieval period, and Norse Mythology features several [[Action Girl
* All three main characters in ''[[The Hangover]]'' films are male and so are nearly all substantial supporting characters but Jade from the first film comes closest to being a female lead. The second film effectively has ''no'' important female characters in terms of screentime - even Stu's fiancee has only a few lines.
* Like its source material, the 2011 film ''[[Tintin (film)|Tintin]]'' exemplifies this trope. It has only a handful of female characters, and only two of them (Tintin's landlady Mrs. Finch and opera singer Bianca Castafiore) have names, dialogue, or any importance to the plot.
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* In ''[[Mystery Men]]'', The Bowler.
* The [[Men in Black (film)|Men in Black]] don't have many female agents.
== Literature ==
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** The ''[[Discworld]]'' Watch books feature only two non-dwarf female Watchmen. They're even [[Twofer Token Minority|Twofer Token Minorities]] (one is a [[Our Werewolves Are Different|werewolf]], the other a [[Our Vampires Are Different|vampire]]). There ARE other female Watch Officers- a Constable Jolson may have been vaguely referred to as 'she'- but they don't get screen time.
*** Leave us not forget Corporal Cheeri Littlebottom, the unfortunately-named one-dwarf forensics department of the Watch. Of course, it's not obvious that she ''is'' a she until the end of the book in which she's introduced, but that's par for the course for Discworld dwarves. Littlebottom later starts a sort of feminist movement for female dwarves by making it obvious that she is female, which is apparently a serious taboo for dwarves.
** Subverted with a vengeance in ''[[Monstrous Regiment]]'', of course.
** Kirsty from the ''[[Johnny Maxwell Trilogy]]'' is the only girl, but does not accept her status, going so far as to call the others 'four token boys'.
** ''[[Only You Can Save Mankind]]'' inverts this trope: the Gunnery Officer on the ScreeWee ship is the token male on a ship crewed by females.
** In ''[[Good Omens]],'' [[Tomboy|Pepper]] and [[Lady of War|War]] are the only girls in their respective groups (a gang of children for Pepper, the [[Horsemen of the Apocalypse]] for War). There are, however, several other female characters in the story.▼
*** Well,
* ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]'' averts this to the extent that it seems deliberate. The Baudelaires are one male, two female; their counterparts the Quagmires are one female, two male. Count Olaf's theater troupe contains two men, two women and "a person who [[Ambiguous Gender|looks neither like a man nor a woman]]".
* R.A. Salvatore's ''[[Icewind Dale]]'' series (of the [[Forgotten Realms]]) originally did not have any major female characters. But soon he learned that [[Executive Meddling|further books of his would be rejected if he didn't add one]]. And thus Catti-Brie was given the literary equivalent of [[Promotion to Opening Titles]].
* In the [[Forgotten Realms]] stories starring [[Lady of War|half-elf warrior Arilyn Moonblade]] and human mage Danilo Thann by Elaine Cunningham, aside from Arilyn herself, it seems like ''every single female character'' winds up [[Women in Refrigerators]] at some point. Aside from the [[Big Bad]] of the week, the males survive and get larger roles (including Danilo, as well as fan favorites Elaith, Foxfire, etc.) [[Most Gamers Are Male|Considering the tabletop RPG market]], this may be due to [[Executive Meddling]].
* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' features very few women. The actual Fellowship is completely male, and the only female character to take an active role in the sprawling thousand-page plot is Eowyn. Galadriel is powerful and important, but mostly "offscreen". Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, Mrs Maggott, Goldberry, Ioreth, Mrs Cotton, and Rose Cotton are trivial. Arwen barely has a speaking part. Everyone else is male.
** Tolkien does point out that her people have a tradition of warrior women. Peter Jackson's films are actually much better examples of the Smurfette principle than the books.
* ''[[Fate/Zero]]'' has a bit of this with Saber, {{spoiler|a [[Gender Bender]] version of a traditionally male character to start with}} and the only female amongst individual servants. It repeats again with the Assassins with one female and three males on the team.
▲* In ''[[Good Omens]],'' [[Tomboy|Pepper]] and [[Lady of War|War]] are the only girls in their respective groups (a gang of children for Pepper, the [[Horsemen of the Apocalypse]] for War). There are, however, several other female characters in the story.
* Beverly Marsh is the only female in The Losers Club in ''[[IT]]''. [[Deconstructed Trope|This has its]] [[Squick|consequences later]].
* From 72 demons featured in ''[[Ars Goetia]]'', only Marchosias, Vepar, and Gremory are female. And that's only from their usual forms on manifestation (respectively: [[Mix-and-Match Critters|gryphon-winged, snake-tailed she-wolf]]; mermaid; camel-riding noblewoman); the text itself still uses male pronouns for all the demons. Marchosias, Vepar, and Gremory included.
* The only female disciple of Aldur in ''[[Belgariad]]'' is Polgara. Well, also Poledra, but she's a [[Missing Mom]] most of the time. And these women are Belgarath's wife and daughter, so apparently to be a female member of the group [[Never a Self-Made Woman|you have to have a connection to a male member of the group]].
* [[Isaac Asimov]], until he married his second wife, had issues with women due to relations with [[My Beloved Smother|his beloved
* ''[[Of Mice and Men]]'': There are a total of eleven characters mentioned in any capacity in the book. Two are women. One, Lennie's Aunt Clara, deceased, is never seen and is only a part of Lennie's background. The other, Curley's wife, doesn't get a name. {{spoiler|And she dies anyway}}.
* ''[[Cthulhu Mythos]]'':
**
** The
* A subtler version is at play in Zamyatin's ''[[We]]'': everyone in the society is issued with an alphanumeric designation instead of a name, with one letter followed by several numbers. Men get consonants; women get vowels. Note the ratio.
** Except in Russia, the ratio is about 2:1 - 10 vowels, 20 consonants, so it's not as extreme.
* In Sharon Creech's ''[[The Wanderer]]'', Sophie is the only girl among the surly crew of the titular sailboat, made up of her three uncles and two (male
== Live-Action TV ==
* Almost all [[Panel Game
** Only two episodes of ''[[QI]]'', the Domesticity episode and the Girls and Boys episode, have featured two females on the same panel; this was lampshaded in the latter, which included a question on why there weren't more women as guests on the show (the excuse was that test audiences laugh less at female comedians). Out of approximately 69 different guests over 7 series, 17 of them have been female, and only 6 of those have made more than one appearance. Jo Brand pretty clearly serves the role of the token female, having appeared 24 times (the most appearances of any guest panelist), whilst the other repeat appearances have only appeared two to three times.
** ''[[Mock the Week]]'' has never featured more than one female comedian on the same panel; out of 51 guests to appear on the show, 16 have been women.
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** ''[[Sesame Street]]'', on the other hand, has an almost evenly split human cast, but for a period had almost no female Muppets. Even now, there's only a few significant ones, such as the mild-mannered Prairie Dawn (and Betty Lou, who was actually the same Muppet), Snuffy's little sister Alice, and the more recent characters of fun-loving Zoe, earthy Rosita, and girlie-girl Abby Cadabby.
** The spinoff ''[[Muppet Babies]]'' added Skeeter, Scooter's [[Half-Identical Twins|"identical" twin]], to balance the sexes.
** ''[[Fraggle Rock]]'' has a fairly even gender balance, with over seven reoccurring Muppet female characters, of which five are regulars: [[Action Girl]] Red, [[Cool Big Sis]] Mokey, levelheaded Ma Gorg, [[Shorttank]] Cotterpin, and wise Trash Heap. Furthermore, the series has an excellent age balance as well, with [[Cool Old Guy
** ''[[Bear in the Big Blue House]]'' had Ojo as the only female in the main cast.
* ''[[Stargate SG-1|Stargate SG 1]]'' suffers from this: Samantha Carter is the only woman on the team (although there is a very prominent female doctor who eventually ends up {{spoiler|getting [[Killed Off for Real]]}}). Can be justified by the fact that, even in modern times, the military is hardly the most gender equitable of places. Due to [[Executive Meddling]], a sexy female thief gets added to the team in the final two seasons. ''[[Stargate Atlantis|Atlantis]]'' is a lot better at balancing out the roles.
* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] on ''[[3rd Rock from the Sun]]'', where the aliens, having learned their ideas about Earth from its popular culture, decided that only one of them needed to be "[[The Chick|The Woman]]".
* [[Justified Trope]] on ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|Mash]]'', given it's set in a military installation and most surgeons at the time were male. Only one, Margaret Houlihan, maintained a major role at all times (and not as [[The Chick]]), with a number of other recurring and once-off nurses (most notably, Kellye Nakahara/Yamoto, Ginger Bayliss, Janet Baker, Nurses Baker, Shari, Jo Ann, Bigelow, and Able) typically playing the role of [[The Chick]] where necessary. Gender issues were explored in the
* ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' featured almost no women, but then again most of the roles were played by the same six actors anyway, regardless of gender. By their own admission, the Pythons brought in women like "[[Sixth Ranger|Seventh Python]]" Carol Cleveland only when they needed a female character to actually be attractive, otherwise, they'd just get into drag.
** Both Python precursor series, ''Do Not Adjust Your Set'' and ''At Last the 1948 Show'', featured five person casts consisting of four men and one woman.
* Possibly lampshaded during the fourth season of ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'': The title character has two slots for doctors to work under him, and four prospects, two of each gender. He {{spoiler|kicks one of the women out, and tells the other, nicknamed "13", that he'd hire her if he had a slot}}. Later, his boss, Lisa Cuddy, informs him that he has to {{spoiler|hire at least one woman, and tells him to hire 13}}. Cuddy starts to walk away, then realizes that she had just {{spoiler|[[Batman Gambit|given him exactly what he wanted]].}}
* On ''[[Star Trek: The
** This was due to [[Executive Meddling]]. The original pilot had a female ''second-in-command''. The network couldn't fire her fast enough (even if she managed to sneak back on set anyway in a blonde wig and a nurse's outfit).
*** The network might also have resented the fact that she was [[Gene Roddenberry]]'s [[Casting Couch|girlfriend]].
*** According to [[William Shatner]] at least, ''women'' in the test audiences found the female second-in-command "pushy" and "annoying". Maybe [[The World Is Not Ready|The World Was Not Ready]]...
**** It's also been said that [[NBC]] gave Roddenberry a somewhat [[Sadistic Choice]]: either keep the female second-in-command or keep Spock, but not both. Years later, Majel Barrett would quip that he "kept the Vulcan and married the woman, 'cause he didn't think [[Leonard Nimoy|Leonard]] would have it the other way around."
** For a world with supposed complete gender equality, this applies to most ''Trek'' series. ''[[Star Trek: The
** Much improved in ''[[Star Trek:
** Further improved in ''[[Star Trek:
** ''[[Star Trek:
** Interestingly [[Equal Opportunity Evil|villains don't suffer this problem]]: ''[[Star Trek:
* ''[[Chouseishin Gransazer]]'' has twelve Gransazers (transforming superheroes), divided into four "tribes", each consisting of two guys and a girl. The two guys of each tribe can be quite clearly categorized as an "alpha male" and a "beta male". The girl is invariably [[The Chick]]. Ai of the Water Tribe is the chickiest of the four, though. (Her name means "love". It doesn't get any more cheesy and girly than that.)
* The [[Five-Man Band]] in ''[[Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future]]'' included Captain Power, Hawk, Tank, and Scout, all male. Sometime before the start of the show, they rescued Jennifer "Pilot" Chase from the Dread Youth. She was an awkward mix of skills and talents: she was on par with Power and Scout in combat and infiltration, but the former could easily (and often did) replace her at the helm of the Jumpship, and most of the time she was there only to be [[The Chick]]. Worse, at the end of its [[Cut Short|only season]], she was [[Killed Off for Real]] in a [[Heroic Sacrifice]]. Leaked scripts for a proposed Season 2 would have brought in a more [[Action Girl|Amazonian]] replacement.
* ''[[Kamen Rider]]'' has always been quite the wiener party, with female Riders being few and far in between. ''[[Kamen Rider Ryuki]]'' introduced the first official female Rider. Her title was "Kamen Rider Femme". Go figure. ("Femme" is French for "woman"...) She only appears in a movie, thus being non-canon. Oh, and she {{spoiler|dies after like 30 minutes}}, but not before {{spoiler|killing the most evil Kamen Rider apparently.}}
** ''Ryuki''{{'}}s Western Adaptation ''[[Kamen Rider Dragon Knight]]'' expanded the role of Femme's counterpart Kamen Rider Siren with original footage; making her a [[Sixth Ranger]] and forming a [[Power Trio]] with the two male leads. She's still the only girl out of thirteen Riders, but points for doing what they could.
** Furthering the point on the rare female Kamen Riders, Shuki from ''[[Kamen Rider Hibiki]]'' was the first female Rider to be in a TV series rather than a movie-only character. The tragic [[Executive Meddling]] that ruined the show in an attempt to make it more like other ''Kamen Rider'' series {{spoiler|killed her off.}}
** On a few occasions, women have "borrowed" Rider powers (including [[Kamen Rider Faiz]], [[Kamen Rider Kiva|IXA]], and the ''[[Kamen Rider Decade]]'' incarnation of [[Kamen Rider Den-O|Den-O]]), but this is always temporary.
** Preceding all of them was Electro-Human Tackle (yes, that was her name) from ''[[Kamen Rider Stronger]]'', who had all the qualifications to be considered a Rider, but wasn't. The manga ''[[Kamen Rider Spirits]]'' addresses this by saying that {{spoiler|following her [[Heroic Sacrifice]], Shigeru/Stronger wanted her to rest in peace as a normal woman.}}
** ''[[Kamen Rider Decade]]'' tries to redress some of the issue by having Natsumi temporarily become [[Kamen Rider Den-O|Den-O]] and later {{spoiler|becoming Kamen Rider Kivala in the [[Grand Finale]] movie (Keyword: "Finale". Go figure.)...and '''not''' dying, unlike the previous female Riders}} as well as giving ''[[Kamen Rider Hibiki|Hibiki]]''{{'}}s Akira full-fledged powers as Kamen Rider Amaki (in ''Hibiki'', she only ever assumed a middle-stage transformation).
* Both the U.K and U.S versions of ''[[Whose Line Is It Anyway?
** Lampshaded in one episode during a game of ''Scenes From A Hat'' in which the scene was "Bad Times to Kiss Someone". Since all the players were male, when the game ended, Colin Mochrie asked if they could get some women on the show.
** This is a common issue on similarly structured comedy shows. The most [[Egregious]] offender is probably ''[[Mock the Week]]'', since all four recurring panelists (out of six) are male and the host is as well.
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* ''[[Big Wolf on Campus]]'' had Stacy for Season 1, who basically served to be Tommy's love interest and [[Damsel in Distress]], getting kidnapped by various monsters of the week. She left and was replaced by Lori who was much more active in the monster fighting escapades. The show also used a number of female villains (or at least villains in the sense that they introduced conflict, some weren't evil), though mostly they were used for supernatural girlfriend plots.
* In ''[[Angel]]'', Cordelia is the only female main character for the first 2 seasons and Fred/Illyria (and while Illyria is in Fred's body, she likely has [[No Biological Sex]] anyway) is the only one for most of the fifth season before Harmony was thrown in the last few episodes. Note that this is basically the inverse of the show it spun off from, ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''.
* ''[[Scrubs]]'' started off with two females (Elliot and Carla) out of a cast of
* An interesting case is the BBC's ''[[Robin Hood (TV series)|Robin Hood]]''. For the first four episodes, Marian was the only female character, not so much because of The Smurfette Principle, but simply because there was no other reoccurring female character in the legends. This was solved with the introduction of Djaq, a [[Sweet Polly Oliver]] in the [[Gender Flip
* ''[[Human Target]]'' will be adding a female character in its second season. The main characters are all guys. Please welcome this trope.
* ''[[Homicide: Life
* The new version of ''[[Hawaii Five-O]]'' has Kono [[Gender Flip
* ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]'' has five main characters: the four male nerds, and [[The Chick]] who lives across the hall.
** However, in seasons 1 and 2, there was often Leslie Winkle acting as a female [[Sixth Ranger]]. As of Season 4, the odds have improved considerably, with Bernadette and Amy both being upgraded to main cast status for all the episodes they appear in. They still have a ways to go though: the two don't appear in every episode. Priya is also a major character, and mothers of the main characters (particularly Howard and Raj) are frequently involved.
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** For the majoirity of Nine's run Rose Tyler was the only companion, although the very popular Captain Jack Harkness came on near the end. By the end of the Russel T. Davies era all the companions from the period came back, including Martha Jones, Donna Noble, Sarah Jane Smith and Jackie Tyler for the girls, with the guys including Jack and Mickey.
** The Eleventh's Team TARDIS could be considered 50/50, so far: You've got the Doctor and Rory, but also Amy and River.
* ''[[Mission: Impossible (TV series)||Mission Impossible]]'' (both the original and revival) never had more than one female regular at a time (though missions could and did have more than one female agent involved) - the original had Cinnamon in the first three seasons, then a revolving door of replacements in season four, Dana in season five, and then Casey for the final two seasons; in the revival Casey came first, and she was replaced by Shannon.
* Two episodes of the original ''[[Outer Limits]]'', "The Chameleon" and "The Invisible Enemy", have all-male casts.
== Music ==
* Unlike other genres, it is still rare for a hip-hop label to have more than one female rapper at the same time, especially for solo acts. These women generally wind up falling into two roles: hyper-sexualized [[Ms. Fanservice
* In [[The Protomen]]'s ''[[Mega Man (video game)|Mega Man]]'' [[Rock Opera]] (also known as ''The Protomen''), Dr. Light's girlfriend Emily is the only female character to have lines.
▲== Newspaper Comics ==
▲* ''[[Bloom County]]'''s cast had a series of strips dealing with the necessity of introducing a female character after the Supreme Court declared male-only clubs unconstitutional. ("Nothing's more 'male-only' than Bloom County! We've GOT to introduce a WOMAN!") Before, the comic strip had several notable reoccurring female characters including the feminist schoolteacher Ms. Harlow, who actually ''did'' [[Does Not Like Men|like men]]. Eventually, Ronald-Ann was created as a regular, who subverted the trope by ''not'' being [[The Chick]]. {{spoiler|Rosebud the Basselope}} was also revealed to be female, much to the surprise of the cast. Unfortunately, it looks like this was [[
▲** Even more directly addressed in the not-a-sequel-series-I-swear, ''Outland''. In the strip, a woman asked why all the well-known animal characters in comics and animation are all male; any female animal characters were just [[Distaff Counterpart|The Girlfriend]]. Opus announced that the strip was just about to hire the first major female animal character star to join the main cast, Hazel the Hedgehog. In a brilliant sequence that ran for ''weeks'', she lampshaded ''why'' most animal characters are male. (Are we asking girls to identify with a "little pig-rodent"? Can she participate in a slapstick pie fight if depicting violence against females is taboo? Is she still her own distinct character if we ''have'' to [[Put a Bow On Her Head]]?)
▲* The newspaper comic ''Tumbleweeds'' had two
== Professional Wrestling ==
* This is especially glaring in [[World Wrestling Entertainment|WWE]] where of course there are far more men than women on the roster with several different divisions devoted to the men while having a separate single women's division. For a while they had two different titles for the women (one for Raw, one for Smackdown) but they have since been unified leaving the women with just one title to fight for.
** In [[TNA]] they have a singles and a set of tag team titles for their women but in contrast to WWE, not enough women on the roster to have full fledged divisions for both. Indeed for the majority of 2010, the same woman (Madison Rayne) held the singles title and was one of the tag champions. While she was built up as a strong singles champion, the tag titles were mostly forgotten about and three months went by without the belts being defended at all. When new champions were crowned, one of them actually did not appear on TV at all after winning them and left the company a few weeks later while the other appeared once before also leaving.
* It's a problem in both WWE and TNA that each episode of their show typically features one women's match. Often, Impact and Raw will feature two women's matches (usually the three hour Raws where there is more time) but mismatched rosters means that Smackdown has about five women while Raw has about eleven and in 2010 most of the time the women were only featured in backstage segments on Smackdown since they had to avoid being too repetitive with matches. Then of course there's the odd time where there won't be any women's matches at all.
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* PPVs also fall victim to this since there will often only be one women's match per PPV (apart from Night of Champions when they had two titles so they had two matches; they skated around this in 2010 by having the unification match at Night of Champions) and indeed, as is often the case on the regular TV shows, a mixed tag match will often be counted as the token women's match despite the women usually taking a backseat in those matches.
* In fairness though, while episodes will normally feature only one match, WWE and TNA do generally try to feature all their women on TV regularly. There have been cases where multiple storylines for the women have taken place at the same time with backstage segments and pairing the women with male Superstars. WWE have recently been quite good at making sure all their Divas are featured on TV regularly (without throwing them all in a multi diva tag match). NXT has been a big help with this.
== Radio ==
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* When Sandi Toksvig first appeared on ''[[I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue]]'' in the 1990s, she remarked how proud she was to be 'in the long line of women who have appeared on the show' (she was the third, and the show had been running for about twenty years at that point.) This provoked considerable laughter from the audience, and a sort of 'oooh' noise from Tim Brooke-Taylor.
** Barry Cryer proceeded to make the apologetic comment "Well, they were all [[wikipedia:Rosie the Riveter|in the factories]] [[Long Runners|when we started]]!"
== Tabletop Games ==
=== Board Games ===
* While the ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' fluff contains a good number of female characters, there are very few of those that can be used in-game.▼
▲* [[Chess]] has only one female character, the queen, which makes sense since the names are inspired by medieval warfare. However, [[God Save Us From the Queen|she is also the most powerful piece.]]
▲* The ''Guess Who?'' game (in the late
▲* While the ''[[Warhammer
** Also, although a number of armies (in particular the Imperial Guard and the Eldar/Dark Eldar) are said to contain large numbers of women, up until recently unless a unit was [[Amazon Brigade|overwhelmingly female]] the models wouldn't reflect it. More recent miniatures have started to correct this pattern, with female torsos being available in the Eldar Guardian box sets for example.
** Space Marines cannot be female. This is handwaved, badly.
* The fantasy origin of ''[[Warhammer
▲=== Card Games ===
▲* The ''[[Star Wars Customizable Card Game]]'' has exactly ''one'' female Imperial: Mara Jade. Female Rebels are half as rare: Leia and Mon Mothma. Female aliens are far more common, though.
=== Tabletop RPG ===
* ''[[Infinity]]'' seems to be going out of its way to avert this - most troop types have male and female miniatures available.
* In [[AT-43]], most armies appear to be equal-opportunity employers going by the background story, but there are basically no models of female regular troops. However, about half the special characters (who are all officers) ''are'' female, as are two out of the three released models of medics and one of the three scientist models.
* In the ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' game, [https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Elemental_HERO_Burstinatrix Burstinatrix] was originally the only female Elemental Hero, the original version of her card claiming she is "the only woman among the Elemental Heroes". Eventually, however, others like [https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Elemental_HERO_Poison_Rose Poison Rose] and [https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Elemental_HERO_Lady_Heat Lady Heat] were introduced, and a reprint of Burstinatrix's card changed this, labeling her "the first Elemental HERO woman."
== Toys ==
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* [[Transformers]] series' toy lines. All of them. [[Fridge Logic|Though one could argue why alien robots conform to human genders in the first place]].
* Most action toy lines in general follow this trope, generally on the basis that boys won't buy action figures of female characters. This was the reason Katara from ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' never got an action figure despite being an [[Action Girl]] on the main cast, while a male character, Jet, who only appeared in a few episodes, managed to get one.
== Video Games ==
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* The ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' series has played with this trope throughout its entries:
** Of the six character classes in ''Final Fantasy I'', only the [[White Mage]] looks female (and the original White Wizard [http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110109223549/finalfantasy/images/b/bc/White_Wizard_%28Final_Fantasy%29.png graphic] confirms White mage as a male [[Bishonen]]). It's possible to see all of the characters as androgynous to be female and the remakes give most classes both male and female names.
** ''[[Final Fantasy II]]'' only has two female playable characters out of ten, Maria and Leila, with the latter being one of the seven [[Guest Star Party Member
** The original version of ''[[Final Fantasy III]]'' stars the all-male Onion Knights; the remake for the DS make one of them a girl.
** Notably, every game since ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]'' has had exactly three female characters in the playable cast, regardless of the total cast size. This is explicitly referred to as the [[Rule of Three|Three Females Rule]] in Squaresoft fan circles. This even extends to entries that don't follow The Smurfette Principle, like ''[[Final Fantasy V]]'' (three women, two men) and '' [[Final Fantasy X]]-2'' (an all-female party of three). Note that more recent games have gravitated toward a total playable cast size of 6, thus equalizing the gender balance while still following the rule.
** This is obvious in the crossover ''Dissidia''. [[Final Fantasy VI|Terra]] is the only female on the protagonist side in the main storyline, besides the goddess Cosmos herself, entirely because the roster is composed of only the main characters of each game, and ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]''
* In the first ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]'', all of the Seraphim (Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel) were presumably male, but the second game reveals Gabriel is a girl, and all subsequent SMT and [[Persona]] games featuring Gabriel retain this.
* ''[[Wild
** Heck, Virginia is considered [[The Hero|The Main Character]] of Wild Arms 3.
** [[Wild
** [[Wild
* Overall, the major ''[[Pokémon]]'' characters tend to lean in favor of males; only in ''Diamond'' and ''Pearl'' was a female Champion introduced, and it took until ''Black'' and ''White'' to introduce a female Pokémon Professor. In spite of this, the Gym Leaders and the Elite Four are normally reasonably balanced and the player has been able to play as a boy or a girl since ''Crystal''.
* ''[[Ape Escape]]'' series, Pink Monkey is one of the Freaky Monkey Five.
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*** Billy Hatcher also only had one female chicken elder. The rest were male. In fact, her being the only female elder is [[Lampshade Hanging|noted by an NPC]].
** ''[[Crazy Taxi]]'' has four playable drivers, one woman.
** Capcom's ''[[Dungeons
** ''[[Final Fight|Final Fight 2]]'' and ''[[Final Fight|3]]'' has Maki and Lucia respectively. Both are [[Fragile Speedster]] naturally, but Lucia is actually a bit stronger than Guy (the token speedster in that game).
** ''[[Gauntlet (1985 video game)|Gauntlet]]'' has three male (Warrior, Wizard, Elf), one female (Valkyrie). Sequel ''Gauntlet Legends'' averts this by changing the androgynous-looking elf to a female elven Archer. ''Dark Legacy'' falls back in when adding four more characters to the exisitng four: three male (Dwarf, Knight, Jester) and one female (Sorceress). As well, the breasts on all the women became about [[Gag Boobs|twice the size of their heads]]. ''Seven Sorrows'' then goes back to the original four characters.
*** ''Get Medieval'', a [[Spiritual Successor]] by Monolith Productions, kept a 2:2 ration by turning the Wizard into a naughty sorceress whose every line was a [[Double Entendre]]. (Okay, some were even single ones...)
** Both ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' games have one female in a group of three males. In the sequel, the two groups meet so it's two girls with six guys. All the [[Non-Player Character|NPCs]] in the game are male, including the zombies until the female version of the Boomer was introduced in the sequel.
* In the ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' games, while there are a small handful of important female NPCs, when it comes to the playable characters, the three main characters are all male, and there's only one female [[Guest Star Party Member]] in each game; Ariel of ''[[The Little Mermaid]]'' in the first one, and [[Mulan]] in the sequel.
** This is partially due to the constraints of the setting. How many female Disney characters could believably be adapted to combat? Even Ariel was a big stretch...though given that this is a game who managed to make {{spoiler|Mickey Mouse}} a [[Badass]], it's not impossible.
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** The main characters of ''[[Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep]]'', Terra, Ven(tus), and Aqua fall victim to this. 2 males, one female. {{spoiler|Then it turns out that due to their fates and how the endgame plays out, Terra and Ven become [[Decoy Protagonist|decoy protagonists]] to Aqua somewhat...}}
* Most ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' games allow the player to choose between an equal number of male or female original characters. While this doesn't quite help the ratio among the licensed games, it makes for a more or less even mix among characters in the ''Original Generation'' series.
* The ''[[Mega Man (video game)|Mega Man]]'' series, as a whole, does this constantly.
** The [[Capcom vs. Whatever]] games have their own different [[Unfortunate Implications]] concerning Roll. In ''[[Marvel vs. Capcom 2]]'', she was such an awful [[Joke Character]] that she got her own [[Character Tiers|tier]]. In ''[[
** In [[Mega Man (animation)|the Ruby-Spears cartoon]], Roll was more of a [[Faux Action Girl]] than a generic housekeeper. There was still the "vacuum-for-an-arm" complex she seemed to have developed, though...
** The ''[[Mega Man X|X]]'' series has only a couple, mostly in noncombat roles as
*** ''X8'' changes this slightly, as the three female operators are unlockable as bonus characters, each one emulating one of the main (male) characters to varying degrees of success. Alia isn't all that useful as she lacks X's ability to use different armor parts, but Layer is every bit as powerful (and badass) as Zero, and Palette lacks only Axl's ability to copy enemies (which is mostly used for the purpose of finding items rather than combat).
** The ''[[Mega Man Zero|Zero]]'' series began to turn the tables. The series had Ciel (the most important non-player character), Leviathan (one of the four Guardians, a [[Quirky Miniboss Squad]] that evolved), Neige, and many of the bosses and Resistance [[Non-Player Character|NPCs]] are female.
** Finally, each of the ''[[Mega Man ZX|ZX]]'' games has one male and one female
** The ''[[Mega Man Battle Network|Battle Network]]'' series inherited the same problem as the original, since most of the Navis are based on original-series Robot Masters and it's really difficult to tell which generic navis are supposed to be female (though [[Japanese Pronouns|somewhat]] [[Keigo|easier]] in Japanese). However, there are ''lots'' of female human characters to make up for it.
** The
* ''[[
▲** The upcoming ''Rockman Online'' has four announced characters: X, Zero, Duo, and Cinnamon. Guess which one's the token chick.
▲* ''[[Starcraft]]'' had exactly one named female character: Sarah Kerrigan, who is [[Left for Dead|betrayed]] but rapidly becomes the [[Big Bad|queen bitch of the universe]] as the Queen of the Zerg. The expansion set added the Protoss matriarch Raszagal (the only female Protoss for the next ten years). ''[[Starcraft II]]'' expands the universe a bit, including adding supporting female human characters, but with Raszagal dead, the role of "only female Protoss" is inherited by Executor Selendis, who will be the protagonist of the second expansion set.
** Starcraft: Ghost's main character was to be a female Ghost, not unlike Kerrigan. In its cinematic, she sits in the shadows of a Dropship on the way to the battle area. A macho Marine makes a sexist comment, and is silently stared down as she leans out of the shadows and is revealed to [[Samus Is a Girl|be a woman]].
* Many early computer games would let the players choose their gender (as well as, often, other attributes like name, race and age) at the start of the game (unless you were a [[Featureless Protagonist]], of course). As the amount of assets (graphics, voice acting, and sometimes even onscreen actors) needed to portray player characters increased, many studios discreetly dumped this feature. Modern games that let you choose a gender offer varying amounts of plot and gameplay branching as a result of the choice.
* ''[[Fallout]]'' allowed you to choose your character's gender, but of the four recruitable NPCs only one was female. In ''[[Fallout 2]]'' it got worse, with eight recruitable males, four dogs, a robot... and one female human, who was literally worse than useless (useless in a fight, can't gain levels, takes up a party slot and ''won't leave unless you kill her or sell her to slavers''. The being said, [[Femme Fatale|some quests in the game were more easily completed if you were a woman]]. It is debatable whether this helps, but it certainly won't pass [[
** ''[[Fallout 3]]'' is somewhat better in this regard, having two female recruitable NPCs who are relatively useful. However, they are still in the minority (there are three male companions, as well as a genderless (formerly male) super mutant, a male dog and a robot with a male voice).
*** Many fans believe Fawkes was a human female.
** ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'' has two recruitable female characters of comparable use with a formerly female nightkin supermutant (which used to be a sweet old granny.) Four of the remaining five are males, among them a ghoul and a cybernetic mutt.
** The [[All There in the Manual|Fallout Bible]] mentions Vault 68, populated with 999 men and only one woman, and Vault 69, with 999 women and only one man. It is never mentioned what happened in these vaults, but considering the [[Crapsack World|tone of the games]] and the other vaults, they probably didn't end well.
* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' applies the trope quite
* ''[[Age of Empires]]'' later added in female villagers to the series (villagers may be either gender) in response to a lack of females in the first game. [[Justified Trope]] otherwise since virtually all other units were combatants, and everyone knows that very few past cultures allowed women to fight.
* Rather smurfy is the ''[[Warcraft]]'' series, especially ''Warcraft III'': Out of ''twelve'' heroes, only one, the Priestess of the Moon, is female, and the consensus is that she is [[Character Tiers|the worst]] of them all. You mean they couldn't ''at least'' squeeze a Jaina Proudmoore lookalike in there, given that she's already a custom model representing the hero type? At least there are actually female units, so that ''could'' be a step in the right direction.
** Looking at the races themselves, only the Night Elves have a significant amount of female units. The humans have the sorceress, orcs have nothing at all and the undeads have the banshees. And there are no female neutrals either, unless you count the High Elven archers. Oh, and in the game, the Priestess's icon is a portrait of her ''tiger'', not the Priestess herself, unlike all the other male heroes who have portraits of their faces.
** A few bones are thrown to the gender-equality crowd in the expansion ''The Frozen Throne''. Three female
** The earlier games in the series had ''no'' female characters in the game. At all. Until ''Beyond The Dark Portal'', and then you got only one: Alleria Windrunner, a unique unit and Sylvanas's elder sister.
*** ''Warcraft 1'' had a half-orc, half-human (who was later retconned into half-Dranei) girl. Garona Halforcen was present in one mission of ''Warcraft 1''. The Smurfette Principle in full force.
** The Orc gender balance was also acknowledged in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' in that the orcs actually ''were'' sexist. Despite being every bit as aggressive and strong as the men, women were denied combat roles. Thrall changed that between ''WC3'' and ''WoW''.
** And that is before getting into their [https://web.archive.org/web/20121103024510/http://www.wowpedia.org/images/thumb/7/7e/Sylvanasstatuee.jpg/180px-Sylvanasstatuee.jpg outfits.]
* Contrast ''[[EverQuest]]'', where female characters seem to outnumber male ones. Both ''Everquest'' and ''Everquest 2'''s main characters, Firiona Vie and Antonia Bayle respectively, were female. Firiona's nemesis, Lanys Ty'Val, was female as well.
* The ''[[Star Fox (series)|Star FOX]]'' games follow the principle. [[Star Fox (video game)|The original game]], and its remake, ''[[Star Fox 64]]'', featured an all male membership in the title team (bad jokes about Slippy's [[Ambiguous Gender]] notwithstanding) and only one female character
** The [[Vaporware|unreleased]] ''Star Fox 2'', however, would have added two female characters to the roster - [[Genki Girl]] Fay and [[Action Girl]] Miyu.
** And in ''Command'', there are a solid 4 females: Krystal, Kat, and newcomers Lucy (Peppy's daughter) and [[The Scrappy|Amanda]], Slippy's ''female'' love interest. There is even an all-girl mission.
** Then we have the 1993 [[Nintendo Power]] comics with [[Badass Damsel|Fara Phoenix]], Fox McCloud's future [[Love Interest]].
* All three entries of the ''[[
* Four main playable characters in ''[[The World Ends With You]]'', and you can count how many of them are female on the single hand of a blind butcher.
* ''[[Sengoku Basara]]'' spinoff fighting only had Oichi as the only "true" playable female character of the sausage fighting fest. The rest of the girls are delegated to backup.
* The first iteration of ''[[Street Fighter II]]'' had only one female warrior out of twelve fighters, Chun-Li. This gradually changed through the course of the series with the introduction of Cammy in ''Super Street Fighter II''; Rose, Sakura, R. Mika, Karin, Juni and Juli in the ''[[Street Fighter Alpha]]'' series; Ibuki, Elena, and Makoto in the ''[[Street Fighter III]]'' series; and Crimson Viper and Juri in the ''[[Street Fighter IV]]'' series.
** One of Chun-Li's win quotes in ''[[
** The cast of crossover characters from ''[[Final Fight]]'' initially featured four characters, all male, but this changed with the addition of Maki (from ''Final Fight 2'') in the portable versions of ''Alpha 3''.
** ''[[Final Fight]] Revenge'' features an all-male cast, excluding ([[She's a Man In Japan|or including]]) Poison. As made fun in one fansite, "Ohh, and there's only one girl...Ohh wait, Poison is a transexual. Yep, there's no girls in this fighting game."
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* The ''[[Fatal Fury]]'' series introduced its first female fighter with the ninja girl Mai Shiranui in ''Fatal Fury 2''. Blue Mary was introduced in ''Fatal Fury 3'' to balance things out, followed by Li Xiangfei in ''Real Bout 2'' and Tsugumi Sendo in ''Wild Ambition''. ''Mark of the Wolves'' only had two female fighters (B. Jenet and Hotaru) out of a roster of 14 characters.
* The ''[[Art of Fighting]]'' trilogy has a total of only five female fighters in the entire series. In the first installment, King, the sole female fighter in that game, [[Bifauxnen|is disguised as a male bouncer]] [[Clothing Damage|until her shirt is torn in battle]]. [[Fan Service|Wonder why her gender was revealed that way?]]
* Despite being the flagship [[Action Girl]] of the video game world, Samus Aran of ''[[Metroid]]'' fame managed to become the Smurfette in ''her own series'' in ''[[Metroid Prime]]: Hunters.'' Six new bounty hunters were introduced, all of them male or [[Pronoun Trouble|ambiguously so]]. She's also the only Hunter without a unique weapon, unless you count the fact that her missiles
** If we've learned anything from the series, it's [[Samus Is a Girl|don't assume the guy in the all-encompassing armor...is.]]
* In ''[[Bully (video game)|Bully]]'', each social clique has only a single female member versus about half a dozen male members.
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** Diablo I was either more or less balanced with the inclusion of the Hellfire expansion depending on how you approach it. It added the male monk class by default, plus mildly altered remakes of the Warrior and Rogue that could only be unlocked by futzing with a system file.
* ''[[Torchlight]]'' has the same gender ratio as ''Diablo I'' (not surprising, considering the similarity between the two games and many of the same developers). Also like ''Diablo'', the lone female happens to be the physical ranged damage dealer.
* Every ''[[Warhammer
** Somewhat misleading also, as female Farseers in lore are actually a minority, and howling banshees are 50% male (though they still wear female armor and refer to themselves as the daughters of...some elder crone chick from their mythology. Reverse is true for the other aspect warriors, it's just not obvious.)
* ''[[Nezumi Man]]'' has Wave Nezumi, the only female boss of the eight. Kind of a coincidence then that her powers are the same element as Splash Woman's.
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* The only females in the entirety of ''[[Half-Life (series)|Half-Life]]'' are the black-clad assassins that never speak and only appear in two areas. ''Half-Life 2'' however has an equal distribution of genders amongst the random civilians and [[La Résistance]] members as well as the inclusion of Alyx, who with ''Episode One'' and ''Episode Two'' has been elevated to Main Character status alongside Gordon.
* The playable characters in both ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' and its sequel consist of three men and one woman - neither is [[The Chick]], however, and they are both distinctly different from each other. This is explained as {{spoiler|the gene to be resistant to [[The Virus]] is recessive and carried on the x-chromosome. Women need two copies of the gene, while men only need one, explaining the genetically sound 3:1 ratio.}}
* Let's see, [[Mortal Kombat]]... For [[Mortal Kombat (video game)|the first game]], the creators realized they didn't have any female fighters in their roster, so they changed the character of male Kurtis Stryker into female Sonya Blade (Stryker would become a fighter after all in the third game). This made her the only female out of 7-8 playable characters and 10 fighters overall. Later games have made sure to include female playable characters from the start, with the ratio male:female about 5:1. As for the various factions and species, most of the time there are more (known) male characters than females, the exceptions being the saurians (1:1 or 1:2), the demons (2:5), and the vampires (0:1 or 1:1). Interestingly in case of the vampires, initially there were supposed to be a female and male vampire introduced in ''[[Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance|Deadly Alliance]]'', but the male was dropped because of time constraints.
* ''[[Drakengard]]'': Aside from professionally [[Damsel in Distress]] Furiae, the only female character of note is Arioch. Who is a deranged, barren elf who [[Eats Babies|eats children]]. She isn't even the worst person in the party, which includes a sociopathic mass murderer who routinely kicks his own allies in the head, a senile, racist old man, a pedophile, and a six-year-old boy {{spoiler|who dooms the world out of petty spite}}.
* Several of the [[Ultima]] games have a less-than-favorable ratio. While the eight "Companions of the Avatar" had a 4:4 ratio, the females generally had worse stats. (By design in Katrina's case, as Shepherds by design aren't supposed to excel.) The trio of Iolo, Dupre and Shamino (all male) also kept gaining prominence over other characters as the game went on. The 8th and 9th games even disallowed playing as a female main character!
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* The ''[[Ace Combat]]'' series is a pretty bad offender (but then again, they are gaming equivalents of ''[[Top Gun]]''):
** ''[[Ace Combat 2]]'' had a single significant female character, namely the optional wingwoman Kei Nagase. The other potential wingman was a [[Scary Black Man]] and the [[Player Character]] [[Featureless Protagonist]] is referred to as male.
** The
** ''[[Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies]]'' gave us Yellow 4, the [[Cartwright Curse|Doomed Love Interest]] of the hero's rival, and the only female in her squadron.
** ''[[Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War]]'' featured the ''other'' Kei Nagase, the only female in the entire game until the brief late-mission appearance of Bartlett's old flame.
** ''[[Ace Combat Zero:
** ''[[Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation]]'' tried to address this issue by showing a part of the story through the eyes of Melissa and Ludmila, two female refugees wandering the war-torn Emmeria, looking for their daughter and fiance, respectively. Also, it had a Token Enemy Female, Irena Dvornik, as well as allied pilot Lanner.
** ''[[Ace Combat: Assault Horizon]]'' follows the suit with only one female character of [[Nominal Importance]] and speaking role, Janice Rehl. A Nagase lookalike is present in some cutscenes but that's sadly just a non-speaking cameo.
*** On a more meta level, Janice is so far the ''only'' playable female character in a twenty years-old series. And only for half a mission.
* Noble Team in ''[[Halo: Reach]]'' has only one female Spartan, unless you make Noble Six female.
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* Of the gang of playable characters in ''[[Borderlands]]'', three are male, with a fourth man driving the truck, and one is female - introduced as "The Siren," which is barely a gnat's whisker away from simply calling her "the token girl." The vast majority of enemies will be male, too. Or arguably, in the case of the skags, not sexually dimorphic.
* A pub in ''[[Dishonored]]''. ''[[Cracked.com]]'''s [http://www.cracked.com/article_20657_the-6-most-bizarre-ways-to-lose-popular-video-games.html The 6 Most Bizarre Ways to Lose Popular Video Games] describes it as containing "Havelock the leader, Piero the geeky inventor, and Callista the woman."
* [[Real Life Writes The Plot]]; the reason ''[[Super Mario Wonder]]'' averts this Trope by including Daisy as a playable character is because, as the developers claim, their own daughters (who beta tested the game) would argue over who would use Peach in multi-player mode. They later decided to add Toadette too to the roster, making the playable cast five guys and three gals.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
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* ''[[Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name]]'' has an almost all-male cast, with only one of the main characters a girl and another woman being a recurring villain.
* Erin is pretty much the only female character in the ''[[Magic: The Gathering|Magic the Gathering]]'' webcomic ''[[UG Madness]]''. Then again, it IS a webcomic about a game with a predominantly male player base. Erin herself is very much aware of this, and thus has a very strong drive to prove herself.
* Inverted in ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20180721220127/http://amazoness.co.uk/ Amazoness!]'', which is set in the mythical Amazon city of Themiskyra in which men are not allowed to step foot. The only men who have shown up so far are nameless mooks who exist only to be killed by the Amazons in battle. There is the matter of {{spoiler|Eutropia who is biologically male but psychologically female.}}
* The entire cast of ''[[8-Bit Theater|Eight Bit Theater]]'' contains a grand total of four female characters (White Mage, Kary, Bahamut's witch girlfriend, and princess Sara), only one of which is a major one. She is also the [[White Magician Girl]], not quite a main character and by a wide margin the least powerful character. However, this is almost undoubtedly a result of the source material or a deliberate parody thereof.
** {{spoiler|However, in the end she kills the [[Big Bad]] without the help of the men, who were too incompetent to do it themselves. This does not change the fact that every other important character is male, save one villain.}}
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** The Cheat Commandos, as a parody of '80s cartoons, do this explicitly with "Foxface", whose action figure boasts "Lady Type!" and "Not One of The Guys!!" The latter is a direct reference to the token females of ''[[G.I. Joe]]''. Even then, Foxface has never had a speaking part (though Crack Stuntman's girlfriend got a brief speaking part as a character in one episode.)
* In ''[[Red vs. Blue]]'', Tex is very much aware that she's the only girl, until another is introduced in the fifth season. She also gets notably huffy when Donut is mistaken for a girl because of his [[The European Carry All|new pink armor]], and her teammates imply that she's not a "real" girl. She's also, undoubtedly, the biggest [[Badass]] of the show.
* [[The Nostalgia Chick]] talks about this in a video titled "[https://web.archive.org/web/20140830043656/http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thedudette/nostalgia-chick/16616-the-smurfette-principle The Smurfette Principle]". At that point, she was also an example of it, though two other women joined the site at the same time, and [[That Guy With The Glasses]], as a site, has gone on to build a larger female cast.
* Most videos on ''[[Cracked.com]]'' have a single female.
== Western Animation ==
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** ''[[Jonny Quest]]''
*** In the original series, Jezebel Jade was the only female character to appear in at least two episodes. Several episodes had all-male casts.
*** The 1980s version introduced Jessie Bradshaw to the all-male cast of the original series. She was meant to be a recurring character, but only appeared in the last episode before the series' cancellation. She would return in the two follow-up made-for-TV animated movies, which [[
**** Unfortunately, it also reinforced the stereotypes about women as motherly and men as inept parents when it turned Dr. Quest from a loving, nurturing father into an odiously stereotypical "clueless male" dad who could not possibly be nurturing specifically because he was not a female.
* In most series in the ''[[Superfriends]]'' franchise, [[Wonder Woman]] was the only female hero. The creators of ''[[Justice League (animation)|Justice League]]'' tried to rectify this by adding Hawkgirl rather than Hawkman in the opening season. When ''Justice League Unlimited'' rolled around, the writers made sure the new, obscure characters included were both male and female.
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** That's not to say that there were no female characters originally. Tweety's owner is always referred to as Granny. In fact, she had a classic WB cartoon named for her, "Tugboat Granny". So, she is a named character and is an important part of the Warners mythos. Most notably, in modern adaptations, she's the caretaker of the [[Baby Looney Tunes]].
** Poor Penelope Pussycat. No one ever remembers her name...
*** That's because she didn't have a name in the original [[Pepe Le Pew]]
*** The only time she was named Penelope during [[The Golden Age of Animation]] ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' was in 1954's "The Cat's Bah" (which is where they got the name of Penelope for her when she was brought back in "Carrotblanca.")
** Don't forget Witch Hazel!
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** Then there's Mama Bear in [[Chuck Jones]]' "Three Bears" series (there pretty much had to be.) She's passive and deadpan (compared to her violent husband and idiot son), but that's what makes her hilarious.
** More success was found with its successor shows, ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'', ''[[Animaniacs]]'', and ''[[Histeria!]]'': The first has Babs Bunny, who was Buster's equal in every way, as well as Shirley The Loon, Fifi LaFume, Merrie Melody, and so on. The second had Dot Warner (who was, of course, the only female Warner sibling, but she went to some effort to make sure she was not forgotten by adding "...and the Warner sister, Dot!" whenever an opportunity came up), and Slappy Squirrel. (Interestingly enough, the Warner Brothers were originally supposed to be a trio of ''brothers'' (Smakky, Wakky, and Yakky), with a mischievous little brother character instead of Dot, who was only supposed to be a minor recurring character of "the Warner Cousin". A woman on the production team finally asked that the characters be two male and one female and Wakky and Smakky were merged into Wakko.) And the third had Miss Information, Charity Bazaar, Aka Pella, Pepper Mills, Cho-Cho, Susanna Susquahanna, Lydia Karaoke, and the World's Oldest Woman in their regular cast.
*** A first season episode of ''Tiny Toons'', "Fields of Honey", actually revolved around Babs trying to find a female Looney Toon who could serve as her mentor. It turned out to be a black-and-white era character, Honey, whose comic schtick was not unlike hers; she had simply been forgotten. But note that in [[Real Life]], Honey
** Still around, though not really successful: Lola Bunny, introduced in ''[[Space Jam]]''. Most classic ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' fans have a lot of not-so-nice things to say about her, mostly because her addition into the otherwise all-male Looney Tunes roster feels so forced. ''[[The Looney Tunes Show]]'' [[Rescued
*** Her predecessor, Honey Bunny (no relation to Bosko's girlfriend Honey), was a staple of the old Gold Key and Whitman Looney Toons comic books for years and years. Sadly, Honey seems to have been largely forgotten since Lola was introduced.
* Most of the older [[Disney]] cartoon canon are male, and the females are often just [[Distaff Counterpart|stereotypical female versions]] of existing male characters, such as [[Minnie Mouse]] and Daisy Duck. Minnie's [[The Chick]] alright, but Daisy is pretty cool for her time, kinda [[Tsundere]]-like.
** In the 1980s, Disney briefly tried to revive the classic Disney characters through such madness as [[We
** Minnie got revamped again for the ''[[House of Mouse]]'' series, and while Mickey was still the "boss", as the club's owner and emcee, more often than not Minnie was the one giving ''him'' orders, being the show producer and club accountant, and very competent at the job. Sadly, again, this didn't last, and once the next series came around, she was ''again'' [[The Chick]]. ''[[House of Mouse]]'' also resurrected Clarabelle Cow as a recurring character, and commonly featured female musical guests, though the ratio was still heavily in favor of the guys.
* In ''[[Transformers]]'', you can count the female Transformers who appeared more than once in a series on both hands. [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/List_of_female_Transformers A list of all female Transformers can be found here].
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** The [[All There in the Manual|Allspark Almanacs]] have added a few more girls, but they also include the Omega Sentinel roster - out of twelve "Greek-letter-Supremes", only one confirmed female, and she was assigned to a rearguard action for most of her lifespan.
* Despite the fact that market research indicated that the female characters were among the most popular characters in ''[[G.I. Joe]]'', a project to add a black woman to the team was dropped when Hasbro decided that [http://www.yojoe.com/archive/unproduced/prototype10.shtml "female action figures would be poor business"]. In the end, the character ''didn't even get a name''.
** However, the ''GI Joe Reloaded'' comic series did have a black
** Devil's Due's ''G.I. Joe: Declassified'' series also (sort of) added a black female member to the Joe team. One of the early Marvel G.I. Joe comics showed someone looking at a list of team members on a computer, including the never-seen "Shooter" (an in joke based on the name of Marvel's then editor-in-chief, Jim Shooter). Over 20 years later, the ''Declassified'' series [[Retcon|revealed]] that Shooter was actually a black woman, who was the original G.I. Joe team's sniper. Her presence on the team was so top secret that even the other Joes didn't know about her...and consequently didn't realize they were leaving her behind as they fled an about-to-explode Cobra base at the end of their first mission. (She got shot moments before the base exploded, so the Joes weren't directly responsible for her death.)
* The only female in ''[[Winnie the Pooh]]'' is Kanga, a mother, who isn't seen nearly as much as her own son. [[Justified Trope|Although this makes perfect sense, given the fact that it's based on a little boy's stuffed animal collection.]]
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** In the original book, the gender issue was dealt with as just the way rabbits ''think''. They're not human. They can't wrap their minds around a board that floats on the water. They pass countless dangers and finally locate the perfect new home, settle down to start a colony, and realize, "Oh, damn, we forget to bring any women." Which is the impetus for the second half of the story ("Shoot, we better find someone to bear our kits").
** It's also worth noting that in the sequel, ''Tales from Watership Down'', some females do get larger roles. A story about a doe-led warren is told, and the doe Hyzenthlay {{spoiler|becomes co-leader of the ''Watership Down'' rabbits}}. This was author Richard Adams' specific response to complaints that the first book was too testosterone-centric.
* For all their [[Emotional Torque|perfection]], one major complaint about [[Pixar]] is the lack of films that have passed
** ''[[Toy Story (franchise)|Toy Story]]''{{'}}s main cast includes a young boy's toy collection, with predictably male-oriented rather than girls' toys. Bo Peep was the only female in the cast, a domestic woman and [[Shallow Love Interest]] with no part in the main action. The second and third films even out the gender inequality, though not by much.
*** Even though Toy Story 3 had many more female characters than the other two, I think it should be worth mentioning that {{spoiler|Andy got rid of Bo Peep}}.
** ''[[A Bug's
** The only major female characters in ''[[Monsters, Inc.]]'' are a little girl with limited dialogue, the forgettable love interest Celia, and {{spoiler|Roz the undercover CDA agent}}, who has little screen time. The ratio is 4:2.
** ''[[Finding Nemo]]'' has 9:3.
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*** In the first film, [[Viewer Gender Confusion|the racecar sponsoring RevNGo]] is actually the only female competing in the Piston Cup, and in the sequel, Carla Veloso, the Brazilian racecar is the only female competing in the World Grand Prix.
** There are no female rats in ''[[Ratatouille]]'' (at least not any with a speaking role). Remy's family consists of a father and a brother. The major human female character, Colette, is very much aware that she is the only female chef in the restaurant and in a definite minority in the profession in general. She was forced to claw her way up and as a result, feels that she has to be tough and defensive to succeed in a career she worked so hard for. However, when her protégé, Linguini (and secretly Remy the Rat as well), make it clear that they deeply respect her expertise, she [[Defrosting Ice Queen|softens]] to become a good friend and more later on.
*** [[Truth in Television]] for the culinary
*** A female rat does speak to Remy at the end of the film. She only gets one line, though.
** ''[[WALL-E]]'' has 4:2, plus a male-sounding text-to-speech program for the autopilot.
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* The 80s cartoon series ''[[He-Man and the Masters of the Universe|He Man and The Masters of The Universe]]'' followed this trope, having only two females (Teela and the Sorceress) in the main cast of heroes (the villains had one too: Evil-Lynn). They were also the only inhabitants of the planet immune to the steroids in the water supply.
** Heck, in the original comics that came with the toys, before the cartoon series, Teela WAS the Sorceress.
** Its spinoff series ''[[She-Ra:
* On ''[[Dragon Booster]]'', the main cast is made up of three males (Artha, Parm, and Lance), and one female (Kitt). Though initially a rival to Artha (and with potential to grow as a character), Kitt eventually devolved into a cheerleader for Artha who was consistently beaten in any kind of race (despite the fact that she had more experience at racing than Artha, who ''didn't want to race at all'' at the start of the series) and only ever did anything plot-wise by getting mind-controlled or kidnapped. There were other female characters, including a few crew leaders, but, like Kitt, they took a back seat to the males.
** The "Kitt can never win" issue might have some strange connection to the advertising trope where you can't show a girl winning a board game, for fear that it'll be less appealing to boys.
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** However, coaches such as Annie and Clarabel were always female. Which, given that the coaches couldn't even move without an engine's help, [[Unfortunate Implications|made things worse]].
* ''[[Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!]]'' began with Nova as the sole female, adding Jinmay later. But this may have been intentional as the show was a partial [[Homage]] to super robot anime's [[Five-Man Band]] style, and [[Squick|Chiro's love interest couldn't very well be a monkey]].
** This led the fangirls of the four monkey males (especially Antauri) to pair themselves up with them by creating robot monkey [[Author Avatar
* ''[[Captain Planet and the Planeteers]]'' had up to five female main characters: Gaia the Spirit of the Earth, Eastern European Planeteer Linka, Asian Planeteer Gi, [[Mad Scientist]] Dr. Blight, and [[Evil Poacher]] Mame Slaughter.
* ''[[Legion of Super-Heroes (TV series)|Legion of Super Heroes]]'' started the show with female Legionnaires Saturn Girl, Phantom Girl, and Triplicate Girl. And then, in Season 2, [[Executive Meddling|the powers that be]] decided that male viewership would be put off by so many girls, so the girls were incapacitated and/or inexplicably sidelined for many episodes. Particularly irritating, as the Legion has [[Loads and Loads of Characters]] with a fairly even
* The final season of ''[[The Batman]]'' featured the [[Justice League of America]], so every other episode was a crossover with a League member. Unfortunately, the League was a boy's club; no [[Wonder Woman]], [[Black Canary]], [[Vixen (comics)|Vixen]], [[Huntress]], or any other DC heroine. Worse, Batman always brought Robin along on these adventures; never Batgirl, despite her being his first sidekick (in this show anyway), and older to boot. Granted, they at least ''wanted'' to have Wonder Woman, but the rights to the character were not available.
* ''[[Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light]]'', which had Galadria on the heroic Spectral Knights, and Virulina on the evil Darkling Lords.
* In ''[[The Land Before Time]]'', the ratio of male to female was originally going to be 4:1. The character Cera was originally going to be male, thus being a basic rival for Littlefoot, while Ducky would have been the only female and a fairly stereotypical one at that. However [[George Lucas]] realised that Cera's gender had no real bearing on the plot and asked if Cera could be a
** In ''[[The Land Before Time]] [[Sequelitis|IV]]'', a guest character called Ali is introduced who is the same species as
** In the TV series, an old male character returned as a permanent member, but then a new female character was added, making the ratio 4:3.
* ''[[Rocko's Modern Life]]'' had no major female characters outside the wife of the [[Cranky Neighbor]], Bev Bighead, until [[Affirmative Action Girl]] hook-for-a-hand-pirate-style Dr. Hutchinson was created as a love interest for Filburt. They wanted a female with a hook, you see.
* Cheetara of the ''[[Thundercats]]''. There was also Wily-Kit, but she was a pre-teen Wondertwin, one of a pair of [[Tagalong Kid
** Another female, Pumyra, was added in Season 2...along with ''two more'' male characters.
* In ''[[Spiral Zone]]'', the heroic Zone Riders and evil Black Widows have one female member each.
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* In ''[[Back at the Barnyard]]'', there are only two cow characters that are biologically deserving of the udders they all retain. Naturally, they're left out of most of the action, instead mainly offering [[Positive Discrimination|level-headed]] advice that no one takes to.
** As well as Ella, Maddie, and a number of female extras.
* ''[[The Fairly
** Sometimes it [[Depending on the Writer|depends on the writer]], since some episodes show Timmy as [[The Hero]] but Wanda as the one who gets to say "I told you so!" Besides, with the many girl characters for Timmy to be paired with (Tootie, Trixie, Veronica, Vicky for some people), Timmy's mom, the principal Ms. Waxoplax, the ratio is probably about even (if anyone was willing to count it!)
* ''[[Ōban Star-Racers|Oban Star Racers]]'': Odd example played straight. The only prominent female character is Eva/Molly, the main character. This is somewhat justified among the humans because of Race Manager Don Wei's belief that [[Stay in the Kitchen|women shouldn't be racers]]. However, Eva is strong willed and independent, and the few flashbacks we see of her mother show us that Eva's mom, {{spoiler|a star racer killed in a crash}}, was also strong willed.
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** The jury is still out on whether {{spoiler|Insectosaurus is female or not, since he/she has eyelashes in his/her final form as a butterfly}}. Even so, the ratio of female monsters to male would still be 2/5.
* ''[[Storm Hawks]]'' has one girl (of the [[Closer to Earth]] variety) on the [[Five-Man Band]]. However, it mitigates the trope with a female recurring character who has been invited to join the team several times (she's something of a [[Sixth Ranger]]), and a ''female [[Big Bad]]'' as well as one major female minion (but the male Dragon gets the most villain screentime).
* ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' is actually pretty good about balancing the main and/or important characters between genders. We get the males Danny, Tucker, and Jack. The female range are Sam, Valerie, Jazz, and
* ''[[Street Sharks]]'' had Lena, who acted as a spy and collected information for the guys (and sprung them from traps whenever they got kidnapped). She mostly vanished towards the end though.
* ''[[El Tigre]]'' is ''really'' bad about this. The only regular female character is the considered highly annoying [[Genki Girl|Frida Suarez]], and all the male characters frequently display cliche Latino machismo in all its glory. (For example, "Rivera men never back down", [[Berserk Button|'''COWARDS?!'']], and of course, the "Rivera...Super...Macho...'''BLITZ'''!") Maria is either a timid, hyperventilating [[Damsel in Distress]] or a crazy [[Knight Templar]], [[Dark Action Girl|the Flock]] all pine over the Rivera man of their particular age group, and no one honors the female Riveras in Dia de los Muertos. [[Better Than It Sounds|It still rocks, though]]. And I guess it gets points for [[Big Bad|the most powerful villain]] being a (long dead) woman.
* ''[[Xiaolin Showdown]]'' - Kimiko is the only female on the Xiaolin side, while Kannappe, Wuya, Clay's sister, and the evil mermaid make up the Heylin (evil) side. This almost seems to imply that Kimiko is the only female member because she is the exception to the rule of females automatically calling for the side of evil.
* ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' sort of counts: despite a half-dozen [[Scout Out|Fireside Girls]], [[The Chick|Isabella]] is the only girl in Phineas and Ferb's group with any significant personality. The creators have since developed the Fireside Girls a ''bit'' more, and there are plenty of other notable female characters, particularly [[The Cassandra|Candace]], [[Asian Airhead|Stacy]], [[Hot Mom|Linda]], and [[Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter|Vanessa]].
* ''[[
** ''[[Action League NOW]]''{{'}}s only main female was Thundergirl, and Justice (the dog) since it switched from male to female in some episodes.
* The cartoon adaptation of ''[[Redwall|Martin the Warrior]]'' averted this by changing the normally 3:1 ratio to 2:2, by making Pallum the Hedgehog a girl.
* On ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes|Jimmy Two Shoes]]'', Heloise is the only regular female character. This is noteable in the title sequence, where she's the ''only'' female in the final group shot at 5:1. Recurring characters [[Crazy Awesome|Saffi]] and [[Rich Bitch|Jez]] ease this a bit, but they still tend not to have much of a role.
* The extent to which the principle is used in ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' is debatable. The family itself definitely doesn't suffer, with more females than males. However, aside from the Simpsons and Bouviers, Mrs. Krabappel is the only female character whose development and importance in the overall series (e.g, the number of episodes in which she is a main character) is on par with the dozens of supporting male characters. All the other women are wives, mothers, or classmates of more important characters. This can be overlooked, though, as there are a lot of female guest stars and one-time characters.
* ''[[The BOTS Master]]'' has this too. The good guys have two girls in their ranks: Blitzy, ZZ's kid sister, and Swang, the only (confirmed) female [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|boyzz]] out of twenty. There was once another female introduced, Momzz, but she semi-died by the end of the episode. The bad guys are a bit better in that respect. With only three individuals in the core group, the one female among them has a relatively bigger input.
* ''[[Hero: 108]]'''s Mystique Sonia is the only confirmed female member of First Squad.
* Played straight on ''[[Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers]]'', as Niko was the [[Action Girl]], and had the stereotypical [[Psychic Powers]]. Series creator Robert Mandell attempted to compensate by keeping the [[Distress Ball]] evenly passed and by throwing in some awesome guest characters, such as Daisy O'Mega and Audra Miles. The [[Big Bad]] of the series was a case of [[God Save Us From the Queen]], and a truly dangerous threat.
** However, Mandell ''inverted'' the Trope with ''[[Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders]]''. Barely a Y chromosome to be seen.
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* Played with in the "You Got F'ed in the A" episode of ''[[South Park]]'', when Stan is putting together his dance team.
** "We can't have [a dance team of] all guys; [[Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?|people will think we're fags]]"
*
* Until the very end of the premiere of ''[[Young Justice (animation)|Young Justice]]'' there are no females, and for several episodes thereafter there's only Miss Martian. Even with Artemis there's still a pretty noticeable disparity. Although the group's "[[Team Mom|den mother]]" and combat trainer is Black Canary, and an aged-down [[Zatanna]] has appeared as a [[Guest Star Party Member]] for a few episodes.
** Averted as of "Usual Suspects." The team is now a [[Gender Equal Ensemble]] with four boys and four girls.
* ''[[Men in Black (animation)|Men in Black]]: The Series'' had Agent L. Few other female agents were seen, fewer still had any dialogue.
* For the entire first season of ''[[Regular Show]]'', there was only one female in the cast: Margaret the cardinal. She only appeared in three episodes, one of which was only via dream sequence. However, Season 2 has introduced another female character, and both of them are getting considerably more screen time.
* ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'' is generally a boys'
* ''[[Blue Harvest|Family Guy Presentslaugh It Up Fuzzball]]'' spoofed how few major original trilogy ''[[Star Wars]]'' characters were women.
{{quote|'''Chris/Luke''': A sister! Who is it?
'''Herbert/Obi-Wan''': Who do you think it is? Who's the only goddamn woman in the galaxy? }}
* ''[[Kaeloo]]'', the eponymous character of said series, is the only female in the main cast. Even so, [[Viewer Gender Confusion|most viewers find it hard to tell]].
== Real Life ==
* Reversed in Federal Civil Service in the USA, with some agencies like the Forest Service being 70% or more female due to Affirmative Action. Ironically due to executive meddling of another kind in 1993, qualifications were waived for the typical middle and high level manager in most agencies, resulting in more than half of Federal Civil Service not meeting the educational requirements and/or time in grade required in 2011. The typical situation under the [[Bill Clinton|Clinton]] Administration was to give National Forests, BLM Districts, Field Offices and similar high level positions to secretaries and aides, raising them as many as 11 paygrades overnight. It's not uncommon for entire offices to be women and to have them composed of "scientists", "engineers" and so on that do not have a degree in the field they represent.
** Defied in Federal Civil Service in Canada, by the simple expedient of not listing the applicants' sex or gender on the application forms that the hiring boards get to see. The best-qualified people are the ones considered for every position, be they male, female, or other. After a decade (specifically, the first decade of the 2000s), the gender gap has shrunk to the point where The Smurfette Principle no longer applies, but equality has yet to appear as of the early-2020s.
* [[Venus]], the only planet named after a goddess. Asteroids started off better off, with all of the first ten asteroids discovered named after goddesses.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Always Female]]
▲[[Category:Laws and Formulas]]
[[Category:Characters and Casting]]
[[Category:Double Standard]]
[[Category:Gender and Sexuality Tropes]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Token Index]]
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