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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 material -- thematerial—the work's an adaptation of something [[Values Dissonance|written or created decades before]] equal recognition for women started to gain momentum. Sometimes, however, writers will try to correct this problem by inserting a few more female characters or at least an [[Affirmative Action Girl]].
 
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|Affirmative Action Girls]]s. This is usually more effective.
 
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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** 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|Rivals]]s are taken into account (three girls versus two boys).
** 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. <ref> Attract causes foes of the opposite gender to fall in love with them.</ref>
** 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 Seventies -- womenSeventies—women didn't always fit well into hack'n'slash scenarios).
** 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]] -- both—both had to save the male heroes more than once.
* 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]]'' has -- youhas—you guessed it -- oneit—one heroine in a squad of heroes. Early episodes showed more women among the crew, but they all abruptly disappeared.
* ''[[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: The Young Hunters Leaping Through Time]]'', which appears to be at 0 out of 3 among the heores and just 1 out of 6 among the central humans as a whole.
* ''[[Gundam]]'' uses this to varying degrees from series to series. Examples:
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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|Magnificent Bastardry]]ry of the male characters. This is partly justified by the Empire's archaic social structures.
* 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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** 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|retconnedretcon]]ned 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.
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* 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 Bullets|One Hundred Bullets]]'' has one female Minuteman (who is arguably [[The Chick]]), one powerful businesswoman with [[Absolute Cleavage]], and a lot of scantily-clad female walk-on characters. The rest of the cast is male.
* According to Norwegian Scholar Jon Gisle, the population of [[Disney Ducks Comic Universe|Duckburg]] is about 80 % male.
* 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 men -- itmen—it's implied that it makes her feel like she's the one in charge.
* 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|Distaff Counterparts]]s of the team, but they were one-off characters. In recent years, the team finally gained a bona-fide second female member, [[Deadpan Snarker|Copper]].
* The newspaper comic ''Tumbleweeds'' had two Smurfettes -- HildegardeSmurfettes—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.
 
 
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* 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 character -- Fightcharacter—Fight Club itself is entirely male. On the commentary track, [[Helena Bonham Carter]] talks about how she was glad when the support group scenes were being filmed because it was effectively the only time there were other women on set.
** 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]] -- she—she is the League's leader in the graphic novel. In the movie it's made clear early on that she's a vampire who can kick all the other League members' collective asses. [[Alan Moore]] said he titled it "Gentlemen" to reflect the sexist tendencies of Victorian times.
* 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 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|Action Girls]]s.
* 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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== Live-Action TV ==
* Almost all [[Panel Game|Panel Games]]s contain one, or no, women.
** 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|Cool Old Guys]]s like Doc, Cantus, Architect Doozer, The World's Oldest Fraggle, and the female Storyteller and aforementioned Trash Heap. That's not even getting into the species diversity!
** ''[[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 show -- mostshow—most notably when a male nurse is the victim of gender discrimination, having been made a private when all the other (female) nurses were drafted as officers.
* ''[[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.
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** Further improved in ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Star Trek Voyager]]'', with Captain Janeway (who later became admiral), Main Engineer [[Twofer Token Minority]] Torres (who was Klingon, female and half Hispanic), and little girl-who-evolves-into-god Kes, who was later replaced by science "Überbabe" Seven of Nine. The main villain for the first two series turned out to be Seska, a manipulative Cardassian spy, and the surprisingly non-annoying child character was Naomi (her mom, originally a [[Recurrer]] before falling [[Out of Focus]] despite her daughter remaining prominent, was a scientist).
** ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise|Star Trek Enterprise]]'' had a female first officer/science officer (T'Pol), and a female comm officer/linguist (Hoshi).
** Interestingly [[Equal Opportunity Evil|villains don't suffer this problem]]: ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Star Trek Deep Space Nine]]'' had the Female Shapeshifter, and Kai Winn as [[Big Bad|Big Bads]]s and the Dominion has plenty of female Vortas. The Borg equally have plenty of female drones and are led by the Queen. In ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' there was Planet Angel 1, led by women and Tasha Yar's home planet, complete with Tasha's sister.
* ''[[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.
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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 six--latersix—later seven once [[Almighty Janitor|The Janitor]] was [[Promoted to Opening Titles]]. Laverne started off as the only recurring female character until formerly one-shot Jordan became an [[Ascended Extra]], but then {{spoiler|Laverne was [[Killed Off for Real]] in Season 6}}. Season 8 averted this, adding three recurring female doctors (Sunny, Katie, Denise) and two recurring non-meds in The Gooch and Lady, but [[Retool|the last season]] only had two female mains and one recurring, who only served [[Funny Accent|two]] [[Ms. Fanservice|purposes]]. There were several female guest stars throughout the series, but the vast majority were just [[Girl of the Week|girls of the week]] for J.D.
* 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|Gender Flipped]]ped role of the Saracen, who contributed her skills as a physician and scientist to the team. However, both Marian and Djaq were written out of the show at the end of Season 2, and replaced with [[Affirmative Action Girl|Isabella and Kate]]. Although Isabella had an important part to play in the narrative, the [[Creator's Pet|widely-hated]] Kate was simply the Token Girl amongst the outlaws, a task that involved [[Shallow Love Interest|fan-girling Robin]], [[Damsel Scrappy|getting kidnapped every week]], and [[The Load|being a useless tag-along]]. [[Unfortunate Implications]] abounded.
* ''[[Human Target]]'' will be adding a female character in its second season. The main characters are all guys. Please welcome this trope.
* ''[[Homicide: Life On the Street]]'' began with only one woman, Detective Howard, in the main cast. That was a deliberate decision to reflect real-life homicide squads which were dominated by men. More women were added later on, and the show tried valiantly to avoid [[Fan Service]] by casting actresses who looked normal (by TV standards).
* The new version of ''[[Hawaii Five-O]]'' has Kono [[Gender Flip|Gender Flipped]]ped in order to have a girl among the lead characters.
* ''[[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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== 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|Ms. Fanservices]]s ([[Trope Codifier]] [[Lil' Kim]], [[Nicki Minaj]], Trina, Shawnna, and Olivia for Bad Boy Entertainment, YMCMB, Slip-n-Slide, Disturbing tha Peace, and G-Unit, respectively) or projecting a less sexual [[One of the Boys]] image ([[Trope Codifier]] MC Lyte, Lady of Rage, Yo-Yo and Da Brat for First Priority, Death Row, Lench Mob and So So Def, respectively). Post-Lil Kim, the former category has become more prominent, though, since the late 90s, more female emcees have found a happy medium between emphasizing their vocal prowess ''and'' sexual expression (former Flipmode artist Rah Digga and Eve, from Ruff Ryders). The one-girl-to-a-team rule has notably been averted by Murder Inc. (who featured Charli Baltimore, Lil' Mo and Vita), and Def Jam which, for a short period during the 2000s hosted Foxy Brown, Lady Sovereign, Unladylike, Shareefa, and Shawnna, simultaneously.
* 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.
 
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** 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 40000]]'', ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'' is, if anything, worse. While it ''is'' set in a medieval society, the only women who show up in the setting are sex demons (literally), [[Lesbian Vampire|Lesbian Vampires]]s, [[The Fair Folk|capricious forest spirits]], evil witch elves (who abduct young males so they can [[Blood Bath|bathe in their blood]] to become beautiful), and some nuns(?!) in a spin-off game.
* ''[[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.
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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|Guest Star Party Members]]s. The core group is [[Two Guys and a Girl]].
** 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.
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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. There is a grand total of two female characters in the entire original series - Roll, who took until ''10'' to get a single plot-significant action to her name (and is never playable except as a joke -- shejoke—she's a [[Meido|housekeeping robot]]), and ''[[Mega Man 4]]'s'' Kalinka, who exists entirely to be kidnapped. As for the villains, they had to be male because of the naming scheme -- everyscheme—every Robot Master is called <word> ''Man''. This has changed with the introduction of Splash Woman in ''9''...then ''10'' went back to the status quo.
** 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 ''[[Tatsunoko vs. Capcom]]'', thanks to the release of ''[[Mega Man Powered Up]]'', her moverset has a [[Stay in the Kitchen]] theme.
** 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 well -- Iriswell—Iris was Zero's love interest and apparently not a combatant (though she did fight at the end -- againstend—against him, {{spoiler|and she dies by his sword}}), Alia plays mission control in later games, and a few of the bosses are feminine.
*** ''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 protagonist -- aprotagonist—a decision that [[Schrodinger's Player Character|has its own problems]], but at least lets girls save the ''Mega Man'' world for once.
** 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. However, there are ''lots'' of female human characters to make up for it.
*** Actually, one of the no-name NPCs you can talk to in the second game casually mentions "A cute girl like me wouldn't-", despite having a generic Navi NPC sprite ("commercial model", they're called in-game), albeit a red-hued version.
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** ''[[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 strongly -- tostrongly—to ''entire species'', not individuals. You never see a female turian or batarian, although female turians are shown in the ''Mass Effect: Evolution'' comic. It's difficult to determine the gender of elcor, volus, and hanar, but all the ones we've met have masculine voices and none have been suggested to be female. [[BioWare]] has said this was so they wouldn't have to design separate character models for each race.
* ''[[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 heroes -- theheroes—the Warden, the Dark Ranger, and the Naga Sorceress -- wereSorceress—were added, and were at least decent.
** 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.
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** And that is before getting into their [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 period--sometimeperiod—sometime ally Katt, who assisted you in Zoness and Sector Z. It wasn't until ''[[Star Fox Assault]]'' that the team gained a permanent female member: Krystal from ''[[Star Fox Adventures]]''.
** 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.
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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 home--buthome—but this may be due to the tendency of game heroes [[Jack of All Stats|not to specialize]] than any smurfiness. ''Metroid Prime 3: Corruption'' was more fair, as one of the three new hunters was another woman.
** 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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* 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 un-[[Macekre|macekredmacekre]]d Japanese version of ''[[Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere]]'' is, thus far, the biggest aversion of this trope in the series. In addition to the [[Ill Girl|Ill]] [[MacGuffin Girl]] Rena Hirose, it gave us the [[The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry|Fitzgerald sisters, Cynthia and Fiona,]] who pretty much determine the late-game missions in the Neucom path. With Erich Jager, Keith Bryan, and [[Evil Mentor|Abyssal Dision]] on the male side, ''Electrosphere'' comes as close to gender parity, as an ''AC'' game can.
** ''[[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.
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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 [[Retcon|retconnedretcon]]ned/[[The Reveal|revealed her]] to be Race Bannon's daughter. In the 90's update, she was made a main character.
**** 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]] cartoons -- orcartoons—or rather, she did, but it changed every cartoon. She was "Fabrette" on "Really Scent," Fifi in "Two Scents Worth," and other times, she was just a nameless cat who got painted and is left to be chased and harassed by this horny skunk.
*** 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 existed -- andexisted—and she was merely [[Shallow Love Interest|Bosko's girlfriend]] and was ''nothing'' like the one portrayed here.
** 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 From the Scrappy Heap|has improved this]].
*** 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.
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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 woman -- whichwoman—which they achieved by taking one of the few black characters, Doc, and [[Gender Flip|making him into a her]], bringing the total of the female characters in the series to four. Nice [[Twofer Token Minority|conservation of minority slots]], Devil's Due.
** 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 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 profession--proprofession—pro kitchens are still very male and beyond that the work environment encourages people to be...brusque is a good word. It's not a job for [[Shrinking Violet|shrinking violets]].
*** 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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** 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|Author Avatars]]s. Which leads, on the other hand, to loads of [[Die for Our Ship]] (or pairing her up with the other male monkeys) towards Nova (if the fangirl pair herself up with Sparx), and a few [[Crossover Ship|Crossover Ships]]s.
* ''[[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 gendergender—and --and species-- balancespecies—balance, and the comics have always averted this trope even all the way back to [[The Silver Age of Comic Books]]! The addition of Shrinking Violet in the same season was a [[Incredibly Lame Pun|very small]] counterbalance.
* 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]]'', 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 female -- butfemale—but keeping the character's personality exactly the same. The result was a memorably less clichéd female character and an unusual (for the time) male/female rivalry.
** In ''[[The Land Before Time]] [[Sequelitis|IV]]'', a guest character called Ali is introduced who is the same species as Littlefoot -- butLittlefoot—but she's a girl. To get the effect, the animators made her look ''exactly'' like Littlefoot, only she has blue eyes instead of red, [[Tertiary Sexual Characteristics|slightly longer eyelashes and her skin is a little redder]] (which [[Pink Girl, Blue Boy|turns pink in the dark for some bizarre reason]]).
** 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|Tagalong Kids]]s.
** 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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** 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 Maddie--noneMaddie—none of whom fits in the stereotypical [[The Chick]] role and are strong female characters in their own rights. If you want, you can also add in males Lancer and Dash, but slightly balanced with Paulina. Though this only counts for the good guys. The villains have more males then females.
* ''[[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.
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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]]"
* The two recent Disney films, ''[[The Princess and the Frog]]'' and ''[[Tangled]]'' are ostensibly aimed at girls, and have female lead characters, but otherwise they both have 1:3 female-to-male ratio -- femaleratio—female lead, male [[Love Interest]] and co-lead, two male (animal) supporting characters. Then one woman in a supporting role (a mentor in ''Princess,'' a villain in ''Tangled''). ''Princess'' does slightly better, featuring Tiana's mother and her supportive friend, Charlotte.
* 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' club--theclub—the only female character to appear semi-regularly is the villainess Dr. Girlfriend (whose gender is sometimes debated [[Vocal Dissonance|for some reason]]), [[Dark Mistress]] / [[The Dragon]] to The Monarch . The series also has Molotov Cocktease as a [[Dating Catwoman|villainess/Brock's love interest]] who appears at least once a season, but {{spoiler|has possibly been [[Killed Off for Real]] at the end of Season 4.}} Triana Orpheus is popular with the fanbase but rarely appears and as of Season 4, no longer lives in the Venture compound.
* ''[[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?
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