Female Character Models

The Measure of a Bad-Ass

I've been thinking a lot about a female lead for a story I'm writing (working title: Red Lightning). She's a Byronic hero. For anyone unfamiliar with the term, it pretty much just means she is the "hero" of the story, but she frequently takes a questionable route to achieve her goals.  It would be difficult to label her as either "good" or "bad". Instead, I'll say she's a survivor. She finds herself in a bad situation and she will do whatever she has to do to come out alive. In other words, she's will leave you alone unless you have something she wants or you piss her off. Sure, she has a soft side and she tries to do what's right, but for the most part she is larger than life, ruthless, vengeful and calculating. I guess what I'm trying to say is, she's a bad-ass.

As many writers do, I am looking for inspiration to help me develop her character.  In order to have her character be borderline evil but likable I really have to clearly show why she is the way that she is, and how her morals work.  She can't be just going around killing people for no reason. That's not likable. But if she is killing the people who murdered her family, for example, we might still like her. It's a thin line to walk so I must plan her story carefully. But here's the problem: wherever I look for inspiration on how to portray her, all I see is either women who act like men or are overly sexualized.

Don't get me wrong, the "tomboy" character is perfectly fine.  The one that always comes to mind is Michelle Rodriguez from Machete, Resident Evil, and Fast and Furious.  It seems to me that her roles typically involve being a bad-ass through emulating "masculine" qualities.  It's hard to explain really, but if you've seen her in any of those films, you have an idea of what I mean. My problem is for this story I want a female character who is both bad-ass and feminine.

I also want my character to be comfortable with her sexuality. But I don't want to have that be the defining aspect of her personality. She should not be repressed, but sex should not be such a large part of her character that we find it hard to take her seriously.  This, again, is sort of a fine line because we expect a certain level of sexuality from both male and female bad-asses. But I think we see quite commonly that female bad-asses have sexuality become a defining part of their character.

On some level it may seem like I am asking for a lot, but in reality all of the characteristics I'm looking for amount to a complex character. It makes her seem like a real person with real motivations. Like a woman who is sometimes good and sometimes bad; who will take you down if you cross her, but is still empowered by being a woman; and who is comfortable with her own sexuality, but doesn't have to rely upon it throughout the story. If you really stop and think about it, there are dozens of male characters that fit that same mold. Take Batman, Hitman and James Bond just to name a few popular ones.  Meanwhile for female characters, we have a tendency to make them completely good or completely evil, completely macho or completely sweet, and completely asexual or completely over sexualized.  And even when they are evil, we often try to redeem bad-ass female characters.  Often she will have a chance or heart, realize the error in her ways, and join the good side.

I have to believe this is due to two things. First, we still have many expectations for women that we do not for men. A woman who tells people what to do is still called pushy, while a man who does so is a leader.  We still expect women to be mild-mannered and good-hearted by nature while men are able to be more aggressive. And second, I think many writers do not always take the time to make female characters realistic, complex people.  Or at least female characters are more often one dimensional than males.

This is not to say that no female characters like I am describing exist (although if you can think of any off the top of your head, please let me know!).  I instead mean that they are few and far between. So I ask you: Why does it have to be that way? Why do being a "bad-ass" and being "feminine" have to be mutually exclusive? Why can't we create more female characters that fit this mold?  Our characters will be more engaging, and as a result our stories will be all the better for it.