I've been doing a lot of thinking about how to develop a realistic female character. In the press, movies and TV, their all exaggerated so of little value to me. Besides, in real life, what woman runs around with her butt pushed out and her tits threatening to escape their confinement?
Church or the Mosque are rotten places to observe the natural woman, so I've sat in shopping centers to glean what I could.
Sadly, it seems that in real life, not on the stage, and not being excessively observed, most people just seem to be slobs to one extent or another, men included. Years ago, in the 70s it seemed quite formal compared to this present time.
In building a character, it seems a balance must be struck between too much detail and not enough.
Pondering, pondering.
Comments
Portrayal of a woman
Like converts to a religion we feel we must go overboard and be more to show we belong. This trait, and not growing up naturally, causes us to strive for the fabulous. We have missed so much and are grasping for those missed opportunities to show our feminine side. Your observations are true. The average woman in a shopping centre is a slob! But, there are exceptions. It is nice to see someone who takes pride in their being and I envy so much that even slobs can freely examine any rack of clothes or jewellery or make up without persecution. Thank you for your writing, it brightens an otherwise drab life.
Not news
Just Google, "Seen at Walmart," and you'll swear off trying to make your characters like everyday people. As authors of fiction, I hope we can do better than that.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
Can we please ....
Re: "Seen at Walmart"
Can we please not bash people who aren't hurting anybody, just because they aren't putting enough effort into pleasing us? Those sites exist to make fun of people who are simply trying to live their lives as best they can. You don't know what their lives are like, maybe if we were in their shoes we'd have trouble doing even as well as they are.
I don't see all that much difference between bashing cis people for what we in our infinite wisdom see as "bad taste" and cis people bashing us trans women for not being "real women" or for being "ugly guys in dresses" or "abominations against nature." In both cases, it's people with some measure of privilege condemning less privileged people (whose lives they know nothing about and have no interest in knowing anything about) for the "crime" of not fitting into how they want the world to be.
Someone famously said, "don't be a dick." This stuff is pretty much the quintessence of "being a dick."
Not my intention
I did not intend to cast aspersions on anyone, just sort of voicing my frustration at trying to depict people realistically.
Hardly Surprising
It's hardly surprising that most portrayals of women in the media are so unrealistic. Writing, the Stage, movies, and TV are dominated by men, and men are trained from birth to only see women as accessories, to only see women in terms of how they affect men and they meet -- or don't meet -- men's needs and desires. That's what's so subversive about the "Bechdel Test" -- it shows how seldom women are protrayed as having any existence independent of men.
And even when women write, or direct, or whatever, they are handicapped by never having seen women portrayed as they are, but only as men want to see them. It's hard to see beyond the tropes you've been drowning in all your life. Not to mention that if you write or produce something that shows women in a way that doesn't interest men, you won't get published, your films won't get distributed, etc.
That shouldn't keep us from being ouselves, though.
I have been breaking many moulds in my life, the one of being male as well as that of how to be female. I have been a female roadie and culminated in being the technical directrice of two theatre festivals, proving in the second one, that my technical ability, enhanced by feminine "illogical" thinking saved the day.
Now I break the rues by refusing to accept, that at the age if 65 I have to retire. I am still fit enough to climb about on roofs and scaffolds or high ladders and install renewable energy systems. My body is also still firm enough to wear short skirts and high boots, so I do wear them to complement my grey Pixie cut but wear hardly any make-up.
I freak people my age with my comprehensive technical knowledge and the fact, that I started lighting Rock shows at the age of sixteen, a thought that freaks them, because nobody suspects me to have been male any more. So a sixteen year old girl lighting a Rock show? Why ever not? I know more than just one female teenager who would, if only they were given the chance to acquire the necessary technical knowledge at school.
Monique.
Monique S