Why do males complain about female-led stories or too many female characters when the majority are still dominated by males?
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One Woman in the Justice League
Just one woman, maybe two, in a team or group of men.
Also watch Jimmy Kimmel's "Muscle Man' superhero skit - "I'm the girly one"
The Avengers:
In Marvel Comics:
"Labeled "Earth's Mightiest Heroes," the original Avengers consisted of Iron Man, Ant-Man, Hulk, Thor and the Wasp. Captain America was discovered trapped in ice in The Avengers issue #4, and joined the group after they revived him."
5 / 6 original members are male. Only one is female.
Modern films (MCU):
The original 6 Avengers were Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye, and Black Widow.
Again, 5 / 6 original members are male. Only one is female.
Justice League
In DC comics:
"The Justice League originally consisted of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and Aquaman"
6 / 7 original members are male. Only one is female.
In modern films (DCEU):
The members were/are Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, Cyborg. (+ introducing Martian Manhunter (in Zack Snyder's Justice League director's cut))
5 / 6 main members in both versions of the Justice League film are male, with appearances by a 7th member in the director's cut who is also male. Only one member is female.
The Umbrella Academy (comics and show)
7 members:
- Luther (Number One / Spaceboy)
- Diego (Number Two / The Kraken)
- Allison (Number Three / The Rumor)
- Klaus (Number Four / The Séance)
- Five (Number Five / The Boy)
- Ben (Number Six / The Horror)
- Vanya (Number Seven / The White Violin)
Later becomes known as Viktor and nonbinary in the television adaptation after Elliot Page's transition but that's not really relevant to this.
Here, 5 / 7 original members are male. Only two are female. Only slightly better than the other more famous superhero teams, and they had to add another member (compared to Avengers' 6 members) to improve the ratio (maybe executives still demanded to have 5 males).
Now let's look at some sitcoms and other stories.
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia:
4 males, and 1 female slightly less prominent character who is abused constantly. The show claims to be politically aware and satirical but gets away with a lot of misogynistic comedy, tbh, that I'm willing to bet a lot of people are finding funny for the wrong reasons.
Community:
Jeff, Britta, Abed, Troy, Annie, Pierce, Shirley.
This one is a little better, 3/7 are female. Notice it's always more males though, they never let it become more than 50% female, or else then it's a "chick flick" or a "female team up" or "gender flipped" story. And of course the main character, and the leading few characters, are almost always male or mostly male.Stranger Things:
Main original group of kids consisted of:
Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, and El (Eleven). 1 original female member, who is comparable to an alien and even plays the role of E.T. in direct homage. When they added Max, I saw people complaining that although they liked her, there should be only one female member.
Why is it 'iconic' to have only one female in a group of males? Does that just mean it's the tradition, the way it's always been? Can't we change that? Is it so that all the men can have a chance with the one girl, or so the males can always dominate the discussion with their use of force and manliness? Or so that whenever the team saves the day, it's mostly a bunch of men doing it, but with 'a little help' from a female/a few females (at most), too!
It's so fucked up and disgusting to me I've realised. And men don't seem to care. I'm a male and this is really disturbing to me now that I've woken up to it. How do women feel about this? Am I overreacting?
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A [email protected] shared this topic
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Because the majority of dudes complaining are incel man babies who need to feel like they are the focus of society. If its not exactly how they like it its not right. Its time we start shouting down on them loudly.
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Using males to mean men is as weird as men who says females when they mean women.
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I have no idea, but I think this video is on to something.
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Once female speaking time reaches 30% or more, males believe that the females are dominating the speaking time.
Female encroachment on what has traditionally been considered male spaces is not taken well. Female empowerment is considered taking from deserving males.
Essentially the general male population don't like females, and only tolerate them as a subservient subclass who should be seen and not heard.
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Because when the norm to these people is media that exclusively panders to them, even one single piece of media that doesn't represent them is a zero-to-100 change. Going from even 0 to 1 piece of inclusive media is startling, new, and scary to them, because they're simply not used to it.
It's the root of the entire conservative mentality (which is why you'll primarily see conservative men talking about this) since all conservatism is based in a desire for things to remain the same. Change is just scary to these people, no matter how benign the change may be.
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And if you dare question their masculinity by suggesting a woman might be able to do something other than be eye candy then they'll... well I don't know what they'll do. Probably just complain about it on social media.
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Why when a lot of those males aren't men, they're boys.
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I didn't complain.
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Most of the males are matched with females (two were more solo). The poster was consistent.
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What's an inclusive term for both men, teenagers, and boys?
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I can't speak for anyone else. But for me personally. I don't mind if they have a female or male lead. What I care about is if the story and characters are believable. Many times it's like they just said well here we are going to have a female lead just because. Yet when you look at the story and at the character it doesn't make sense.
Ex :
A strong female lead who is supposed to be commanding people and yet when she gives commands it just comes across as bitchy not assertive. And when you look at the story the character wouldn't have the training to be able to know even what to do.
It's like the director and writers just had to put a female on the screen.
The above example is just an example not meant to point at a specific movie or show.
A few of movies where they did it right.
The women in the movie Red. That was excellent writing and acting. The original Alien movie was awesome. Oh yeah and Mr and Mrs Smith kicked ass Angelina was awesome in that movie
To many current movies just feel like a board room full of people with an agenda of let's make a movie with a female lead without asking if the scenario makes sense.
This is just my opinion as I can't speak for others.
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Me, a male reading mostly manhwa of the romance fantasy genre where 99% of it have female protagonists: yeah, this is not talking about me.
This kind of discussions are more about creating conflict rather than understanding. If people have time to start fights about the sex of the characters they have no interest in the story itself. Statistics on who is drawn more are kinda useless... -
Nobody notices things that conform to their expectations—and when anything violates their expectations, they assume it’s a deliberate message. (Even if it’s fiction violating their genre expectations in the direction of reality.)
And if they can’t figure out what the message is supposed to be, they let other people tell them. And if people tell them different things, they go with the one that makes them feel the strongest reaction.
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A strong female lead
Women are strong in a different way to men and writers just gender swapping a male character is always fucking obnoxious.
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I found they usually huff until nearly shitting themselves before schoffing once more.
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There's a saying, something like "When you're used to privilege, equality feels like oppression." It's the same with white folks who feel like it's a big deal when there's more than a token POC in something. It must be DEI, right?
I'm a straight, white, middle class male, but I'm fully aware that my life experience is much different from so many other peoples'. And I've never understood why some people feel like it takes away from them when someone else gets something, like the straight folks who feel like it takes away from straight marriage if gay folks can marry.
People are weird.
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I guess my reply was coming from women typically find being called females odd, often by "incels," so I thought males had the same tone. I didn't mean weird in a rude way! You have a good point.
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as bitchy not assertive
Too often, a behavior is considered bossy or bitchy in a woman, but would be considered assertive or commanding in a man.
A woman crying is emotional and can't be trusted to 'do what needs to be done', a man punching holes in walls is just frustrated and can be relied upon when the going gets tough.
...or at least that's what our rather misogynistic culture likes to tell us.
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I didn't complain about females whatsoever.
I complain about complainers.
