Understanding Femininity: How to Balance it in Character Writing

Despite the title this is not a post which will unravel the mysteries of women. I am a man, I do not understand women. But I do understand what men find appealing about women and femininity, how femininity can be used both irl and in fiction, and how women real or imaginary can break the mold without losing their appeal to the male unga bunga brain. Keep in mind my favorite female anime character of all time is Ryuuko from Kill la Kill, who is definitely not what you might consider traditionally feminine. But we’ll get there. So strap in boys and girls, and prepare for some serious mansplaining. There will be spoilers ahead you’ve been warned.

There are 4 things men in general look for in the women they want to marry. Youth, purity, loyalty and appreciation/support. Let’s call these the four pillars of traditional femininity. Despite the common and relentless portrayal of men as pigs in media (which we deserve sometimes, in fairness), these 4 pillars are way more important than being hot. Being hot will certainly get male attention, but hotness is ephemeral and skin deep – beauty is something with a lot more staying power. And beauty is basically the crystallization of the 4 pillars. Also long hair is a huge plus, not that chicks can’t rock a sexy pixie cut sometimes, but there’s something about long hair that connects to our lizard brain at a fundamental level.

So what inspired this was a mix of a feminist critique of anime villainesses, Anime has a Villainess Problem by Josei Cafe on Youtube and some musings on one of my favorite currently airing shows, Apothecary Diaries. To borrow the concerns of Josei Cafe’s video, she characterized traditional femininity as passive/supportive, with the implication passive/supportive rather is bad rather than girls going out and taking charge. There’s a lot wrong with this, and it’s not because of the feminist theory backing it up. First of all passive and supportive are not the same thing, and there are a ton of reasons why a character might play a supportive role in a given situation beyond their compliance with gender norms. To borrow one of Josei Cafe’s examples in My Hero Academia’s Uraraka, Uraraka is generally a support because her power isn’t gear towards offense in the same was Deku’s or Bakugo’s is. Can she mix in some powerful attacks under the right conditions? Sure, her best scene is still the time she went 1v1 with Bakugo in season 2 and had him on the ropes for a hot minute. But ultimately her power works better as a support tool than a big gun and her role in the story reflects that, she finds a niche she’s better suited to than charging in and throwing down.

You can also write a character who is supportive and traditionally feminine but can still take charge in her own scenes without skipping a beat. Yor from SpyxFamily is a perfect example, and frankly her superhuman moments are almost always my favorite scenes in whatever episode they happen. Yor’s strength doesn’t take away from her femininity at all, if anything the fact she wields it to protect Anya and how it contrasts with her nurturing side add to her femininity. Fern from Sousou no Frieren is also a good example. She’s not really the leader of the team but keeps things running where Frieren and Stark are more likely to slack off, and when it comes to a fight Fern is anything but a slouch. Another thing to note about Yor and Fern is that are great examples of beauty over hotness. Men are attracted to both and I’m not going to pretend we won’t do something stupid for a hot chick, but at the same time you can get away with showing very little skin and still very much capture the dreaded male gaze.

Pro-tip for the ladies irl: You look great. Forget about what the mean girls say, or how you feel looking at Instagram, Tiktok and OF models. Ignore that shit. Most guys will think you are attractive just the way your are, with little to no makeup. We are simple creatures and we appreciate the beauty in simple things. Honest to God, you will do more for most guys by putting on a touch of makeup and being down to earth and wholesome than you will glamming it up to the max and dressing provocatively. Sure the latter will get you male attention, I won’t deny that, but it will be one night stand attention or worse. If you want more than that, toning it down and believing you look good as is will do wonders.

But ok, let’s say you think traditional femininity is too restrictive for your tastes, and you want to make a female character who is not very feminine but is still beloved or respected by fans. Two examples that spring to mind are Balalaika and Olivier Armstrong from Black Lagoon and FMAB respectively. I chose these two specifically because while Olivier is still attractive if not as feminine as usual, Balalaika has huge burn scar over her face and is not attractive. What both these women have that makes them stand out though is that they have the respect, and in turn loyalty, of their male peers/subordinates. One of the many differences between men and women is that men don’t really bond by talking. We bond by doing things together. We make close friends with the dudes who are in the trenches with us, metaphorically speaking. Olivier and Balalaika have been in the trenches with their men, literally in their cases, and that affords them the kind of respect men usually reserve only for other men. It’s not that we don’t respect women, we do, but they aren’t one of the boys either.

The boys will insult each other as viciously as possible as a friendly greeting, tackle or punch each other randomly for shits and giggles, and do stuff along the lines of the Armstrong handshake scene from FMAB. Goofy and inane as that stuff seems, it’s how we demonstrate friendship. Generally we don’t do that stuff to women because we’d get the cops called on us. But ladies, if you’re reading this, if you want to see what I mean, get into a hobby that is mostly male dominated or that your guy friends like. It could be the gym, it could be nerd stuff, it could be outdoor activities, whatever you feel comfortable with. If you make genuine effort to get involved and follow along with whatever random thing those guys find interesting, your wife material coefficient will skyrocket. Appreciate a man for his qualities and he’ll remember you fondly forever; appreciate a man’s hobby and he’ll want to propose on the spot. Making a female character who toughs it out with the guys is one way to make someone less feminine but still a character which fits nicely into a story and can earn the adoration of fans.

And for it’s worth, you can still get this effect without compromising a character’s femininity either. Erza Scarlet from the much maligned Fairy Tail is a great example. She’s a bit more of one the guys, in the sense she gets stuck in when it comes time to fight. But at the same time she’s gorgeous, demonstrates loyalty both in her complex relationship with Jellal and to her guild, is obviously pure and appreciates the men around her even as she routinely curbstomps them when she gets tired of Natsu and Gray fighting over nothing. Hell she even takes advantage of feminine appeal on purpose all the time by having a lot of sexy “joke” armor sets to make men act unwise. Like when she does her nurse impression on Tenroujima and the seriously injured men instantly line up for treatment even though she sucks at actually treating them.

Jumping back to Josei Cafe’s critique, her other main problem was that female characters who weren’t supportive were stuck being femme fatales. Bizarrely her examples where Beryl from Sailor, even though she later describes Beryl as a dark seductress – which is not the same thing as a femme fatale – and Toga from MHA, who actually has almost no feminine appeal whatsoever in my book. Don’t stick your dick in crazy is cautionary advice all men share with each other on the reg and Toga is nowhere near hot enough to justify trying to deal with her level of crazy. But bad examples aside, Josei Cafe is right that the femme fatale is another common female role, and for good reason. Women have boobs. They’re why we call you the fairer sex. The femme fatale, and the dark seductress, are both common female archetypes because using their looks to their advantage is something women get away with a lot easier than men. They are women’s natural weapon in the same way bigger muscles are men’s natural weapon. The idea this is a problem is silly. As detailed in my prior examples you can still have a powerful female character who is feminine or uses her sensuality to get her way. In the realm of fiction, women can truly have it all. That a large chunk of female characters make use of their natural advantage in looks isn’t sexism or lazy writing, it’s just realism. You can go outside that box if you want, but it being the norm is not a dig at women. If anything it’s a compliment, you really can lead guys by the nose with your looks if you play your cards right.

Ok, but what if none of these options appeal. You want your female lead to be someone really special, to be feminine but not too feminine, and to not rely masculine things like war to get it done, what options do you have then? Enter Maomao from Apothecary Diaries. What Maomao does is strike a balance. She’s feminine enough to be attractive, and outright gorgeous when a scene really calls for it, but she also has the limitations of a low status woman in feudal China, she can and will be pushed around by whoever has an excuse to do so. She’s also allowed more room to be quirky, adorkable, fun and unique. Maomao is such a great lead because she doesn’t break through her obstacles by force or with sexiness, in fact she routinely makes herself less attractive to avoid the hassle of unwanted attention. She breaks through by using her head because that’s about all she’s got to work with most of the time. To the point that she could be a male character of equally low status in the same setting and the story wouldn’t change that much. In that sense Maomao has universal appeal.

Maomao is certainly more feminine than masculine but she is also very weak in certain key feminine areas in a way that mirrors men. Not her boobs, for those thinking physically. No, it’s her social skills. The social portion of young women’s’ brains are way more developed than boys their age. In much the same way that boys their age will be way more physically developed. This is why the guys you like aren’t catching your signals ladies, they go right over our heads. Seriously. Irl advice moment, when it comes to guys just be direct and expect the same from us. From my own experience, a woman will sometimes read attraction where it isn’t from the ways you interact with her and sometimes she will drop a hint so close to an outright confession you’ll look back and wonder how in the hell you missed her setting you up to ask her out like that. And in the latter case, the guy (me) will facepalm with all his might in shame when he finally figures it out. Crippling Maomao in that area specifically puts her in the interesting position where she vaguely understands some female signaling, but can’t be bothered with that shit, and will still routinely put her foot in her mouth if she speaks before thinking. In the same vein her social awareness is weakened in some ways, especially with regards to romance. She’ll miss obvious stuff there but have razor sharp awareness of her social station and the limits of it. Overall Maomao is thoroughly captivating blend of character traits.

That being the case, maybe you don’t think you’re ready to write your Maomao. Or perhaps you want to fight traditional femininity for your own reasons and go all in the Strong Female Character. Go for it – with some caveats. It’s no secret that the West and Marvel in-particular have gone all in on the Strong Female Character aka the girlboss, in the bulk of their movies and shows since Endgame. And let’s be real these characters suck dick, metaphorically speaking of course, I wouldn’t want to degrade a girlboss by implying she would do anything women do. There are a bunch of reasons why the girlboss sucks but one of the big ones is that they basically ditch femininity entirely, and assume stereotypically male traits for no reason. There are so many shots of women in Marvel and Star Wars being stoic and stern, standing with arms crossed like they’re tough. And it all falls flat because it just makes them really fucking boring. Not every female character needs to be a chatty Cathy but standing around giving people the silent treatment works a lot better when the subject is a big, physically imposing character – which women generally are not. The other big reason is that they adopt fully male actions without any changes to their physique, resulting in hilariously bad action scenes where short women are throwing around men who tower over them like rag dolls. It looks dumb and the audience doesn’t buy it, just look at the declining ticket sales.

Now in fiction you can mitigate this somewhat by creating a woman is actually unusually big and muscled, the muscle mommy to men of culture (though as an aside I really hate mommy and daddy being sexualized terms now, what the fuck is wrong with the internet, it didn’t used to be this way). Valmet from Jormungand is a great example because damn that girl is built like a brick shithouse and she’s got that Scandinavian height going. You can also circumvent it like in the currently airing Chained Soldier where women alone have access to some kind of special power that grants them abilities above men. You can forgo both these situations and just play it rule of cool as well, but that gets closer to girlboss territory which is not territory you want to be in. If you think you want to be in girlboss territory, my advice is take a close look at the paired leading ladies of Kill la Kill, Kiryuuin Satsuki and Matoi Ryuuko. Setting aside the fact they are just great characters on their own merits, they embody what the girlboss should be, rather than what we keep getting. Satsuki and Ryuuko both settle things with force, before and after getting their Kamui, but Kill la Kill is an absurdist world where rule of cool is completely in vouge so that’s not a problem. But more importantly even though both take on certain masculine traits they don’t outright abandon their feminine sexuality, and they struggle when push comes to shove.

Building off the problems I mentioned earlier, the girlboss is usually an invincible plank of wood because, they aren’t allowed to be demeaned in any way. And struggling, or being weak, is somehow taken as a sign demeaning women, at least according to a certain political ideology which has an outsized influence on western media. Satsuki and Ryuuko mop the floor with a lot of people over the course of Kill la Kill but they also really struggle against various opponents, mostly the less serious and disciplined Ryuuko, before she builds herself up to the point Satsuki finds her a problem. And they both struggle against the final antagonist. Both girls are allowed to be strong while still failing from time to time, to be in real danger, and overcome challenge. They also both have distinct personalities instead of just going for stoic silent man impression. Satsuki goes for stoic sometimes but quite she is not. And Ryuuko is a punk chick and proud of it. Both have their shortcomings and struggle at certain points in the story, but they are a great pair ultimately because they are fully themselves, with deeply-held beliefs they are willing to fight for, and they don’t just ignore their sexuality for some reason to do so. They embrace all their qualities and fight for the things they value, and importantly they value good things most people can connect with. That’s not just compelling for female characters, that’s something compelling about any character.

Moral of this blog post, don’t look at traditional femininity and common female character archetypes as a weakness of anime or the sign of a bad writer. Understand why they work as they do, because you can’t bend the rules in a compelling fashion without understanding the rules first. The boundaries are not set in stone, there is a lot of room to play with a female character’s femininity, just don’t go full girlboss and erase it entirely unless you have given your character and story some serious consideration. Femininity and it’s common archetypes are not limitations, they’re tools for you to use when it comes time to write a female character. If you made it to the end, thank you for reading. I’ll see you in the next one.