The Fading Line: Masculine Traits in Female Strength & Feminine Traits in Male Weakness.

Representation in the media has always been a certain struggle -especially for strong female leading characters. Not only because in the past women were kept as simple secondary characters, but because the personality traits considered necessary for strong leading characters were deemed as “masculine traits.”

Now, let’s start with what exactly these so-called masculine traits are.

The problem starts there. Look it up on Google, ask your parents, say your first thought without questioning it… Personality traits, for generations, have been divided by gender. It was embedded into our minds since childhood and is the root of many of the issues we face everyday: toxic masculinity, domestic violence, gender violence, inequality in the workplace,... among so many others.

It has taken a lot of unlearning over the years to make that line between feminine traits and masculine traits to start fading. Especially, when there are not only two genders.

Even then, in many cases, when the word “masculine” comes to mind we think of strength, confidence, dominance, independence, aggressiveness, leadership, and even assertiveness.

Which, oh surprise, are most of the same traits that are considered necessary for leading characters. Look it up on Google, ask your teachers, say your first thought without questioning it… They are.

Undefined femininity.

So, when women grew tired of being the so-called “damsel in distress” waiting to be saved, they started stealing the spotlight - it was specially seen in popular culture .

Their submissive, sensitive, gentle, modest, affection, devoted, and understanding archetype was replaced with masculine traits.

Remember the big industries: Star-Wars, Marvel, DC-Comics, Game of Thrones, Fast and Furious, among others. Think about their strong female characters, their leading girls, their badass girls… What do they have in common?

Most of them are aggressive and without time to waste on their feelings because, of course, there is no other way to be strong and dominant than to be rude, shoot a gun, throw punches, or consider sensitivity as a liability and weakness. It is healthier to turn sadness into rage and label your enemy’s humanity as nonexistent, right? 

Most of them wear skimpy clothes and use tons of suggestive spoken and body language because, of course, nothing says “female empowerment and independence” like no-strings-attached sex appeal.

Most of these characters, in some ways, are expected to be “soldiers first, women later” in order to be leaders.

At first, it was a very welcomed change. Women stopped being a victim and became the hero, however, it is safe to say that the trope has become a new misogynist archetype.

Those women did amazing jobs and gave us one kind of strength. But there are many more that deserve the spotlight too. There is strength in gentleness. There is strength in boundless feeling. There is strength in devotion. There is strength in understanding.

And that’s what many male characters have tried to prove while being labeled weak.

Think of Caleb from Ex-Machina or Linguini from Ratatouille. They are both empathetic and kind towards others, even when they are not from the same species -we all remember his counterpart was a rat. They are both devoted, hard-working, and smart. However, almost always, the word strong won’t be used to describe them. Why?

It is not because they are not strong or did a bad job in letting the narrative of their respective movies develop, but because they do not fit the masculine based archetype of strong leading characters.

They are not in any way the traditional portrayal of those so-called masculine traits:

They are not aggressive or disregarding emotion and sensitivity. They are not overly confident and dominant. Caleb’s independence is not overly-sexualized. And their assertiveness is not based on violent behavior. 

They actually have many deemed-feminine traits.

This ties back to the problem of gender representation and its roots in issues like toxic masculinity. People cannot be divided into a group with only certain personality traits based on their genders. Firstly, there are more than two genders. Secondly, everyone can have any of the traits mentioned above: they can be kind and rude, they can be assertive and understanding, they can be devoted and independent. 

It is not as simple as labeling two categories and as such the representation in popular culture should show that.

So, the question is, now that you know all this, what are you going to do about it?