Strong female character
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Strong female character is a term for a class of stock character. It is the opposite of the damsel in distress stock character. While such characters could be used by authors to question implicit assumptions about male privilege and patriarchy in the first half of the 20th century, the rise of mainstream feminism and the inflationary use of the concept in the later 20th century have reduced the concept to a standard item of pop culture fiction.
Contemporary pop culture franchises tend to optimise their female stock characters to appeal to both male and female audiences (Lara Croft). The "strong female character" is not necessarily physically strong or an "action heroine" but can reveal "strong" character with relevance to the plot (as heroine or villainess), often taking the role of a sexually attractive femme fatale.
See also
- Bad girl art
- Girls with guns
- Woman warrior
- Girl power
- Bond Girl
- List of superheroines
- List of female action heroes
- Saeculum obscurum
- Gynecocracy
- Female warrior
- The power of women
- Women in the workforce
- War of the sexes
- On Famous Women by Boccaccio
- The "exemplary women" tradition
- List of women writers
- List of female philosophers
- Sultanate of women