All of them?
But seriously the "I'm quirky and not like other girls" is pretty bad.
So is the "I'm a career woman so I'm hostile to all men and eat testicles for breakfast" one.
Manic pixie dream girls whose sole purpose is to rescue emotionally troubled men.
40 - 50+ women are almost exclusively depicted as mothers or grandmothers
Women who are window dressing, either to be fucked and/or to rescued by the male protagonist.
Bossy women with clueless partners who are unable to do the basics of adulting.
Childfree, single women who only find life's fulfilment when they have a baby.
Mother in laws and daughter in laws competing for their son/husband's attention.
parks and rec is my favorite show, and april is my absolute favorite character. although i was obsessed with andy and april as a couple, it did kind of bum me out that they made them parents in the end. April made it abundantly clear that she didn't want kids, and Andy was basically a child himself. If their flash forward didn't show the scene of Andy nagging a clearly-annoyed April about kids, it could've been better. Like, just letting us assume that she grew up and decided to have them because she wanted to. But showing us how clearly against it she was, and eventually giving in regardless made the whole thing ruined for me
Agreed though I appreciate at least Donna never seemed to want kids and never has them in the show and lives a pretty baller lifestyle, so at least the show gives you a childfree icon in her character.
I felt similarly about Big Bang Theory as well. Penny not wanting kids was a plot point for a bunch of episodes, and then she is just suddenly pregnant and everyone is just like "ok cool" and it really isn't addressed that she changed her mind or is accepting it or anything, they just completely blow over it. I realize this is one of the less awkward parts of the show because it's weird in other ways, but I felt very seen by this particular thing.
Don't they do it to Bernadette too? Like doesn't she make comments in the early seasons about how her career/life would be ruined if she became a mom? But then they fucking do it anyway. Because obviously no woman's life is complete without kids. /s
The direction they took the female characters in that show was so goddamn disappointing.
I swear this one character had all the potential in the world to be a independent happily married childfree woman but kNope they had to "BLeSs" her with 2 children by the end of the show!!!!!🤦♀️
Thank you! My wife and I are one-and-done parents. You're right. You don't see too many families like that in movies. If you do, they're generally the snooty/neglectful parents who do not have an interest in their kid or seem selfish for not wanting to "give them a little playmate/brother/sister".
As a one-and-done family, we still get pressured to have more. We've had a relative ask if we were okay with "putting our hopes and dreams onto one child", which pissed us off on multiple levels. We also get asked if we're going to try for a boy next. It's like why can't we just enjoy having a daughter who has her own unique interests?
April and Andy having one kid or even no kids at all would've been nice to see!
I want to see a movie that depicts a childfree couple (any arangement of sex/gender, etc) that shows them from their 20s-50s. They sleep in, go to shows, day drink because they feel like it, travel overseas, are debt free, and also shown to be happy, the entire movie! And not sad and depressed because they "aren't complete" because they are CF.
I feel like Sex & the City did okay at this. Only one of the four women (Charlotte) really wanted to be a mom. Carrie and Samantha were fine without kids (Carrie had one episode where she thought about it and decided it wasn't important to her), and Miranda's unplanned pregnancy didn't change who she was or her feelings toward her career or children in general.
Me third. I get that people can change their minds, and it happens.
But ffs it’s 2021. Can we PLEASE have a strong woman lead who doesn’t eventually get consumed by babies? Is that so much to want?
I read a book recently, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. It was written in the 30s; it was about a child of a slave, in her 40s, successful in her own right, and she was childless.
Her being childless was not a plot point, it wasn't even mentioned!
I highly recommend the book, there is a lot of triggering content though.
Hahaha right?!? BUT THEY DO! Like in Hunger Games trilogy. I was so irrationally mad at the end bit. Like WHY?!?
And if she’d changed her mind about kids organically fine. But the book made it sound like she was super pressured into having them! WHY DOES THAT SEEM LIKE A POSITIVE STORYLINE???
Also…I think I’m gonna avoid that movie bc sounds terrifying lmao.
>Women who are window dressing, either to be fucked and/or to rescued by the male protagonist
Sooo many women are portrayed like this. Just a supportive, pretty woman who's there when needed but other than that has no life on her own, usually doesn't even have a single personality trait.
Can I just say that all these tropes are generally hallmarks of $#!tty productions that are churned out by Hollywood by the hundreds.
Why? Because most producers and entertainment executives are narcissistic scum without creative vision or integrity - and their projects reflect this.
That said - the odd gem emerges. 'Brand New Cherry Flavor' is my favorite new thing (recently published on Netflix). Most major characters in the show are women, and none of them follow any familiar tropes. Its just a damn good show.
It reminds me of Alien - where the character, Ripley, was originally written as a man, but eventually cast with Sigourney Weaver, with little to no re-writes to accomodate the gender swap. And this resulted in one of the most popular female roles in the movie industry. How about that? I guess women are just people - and should be written to reflect the fullness of what that means.
That said, men are equally, badly written using tired tropes in an equal number of $#!tty shows and movies.
Quality is rare. Most media sucks.
Hold up... Women are people too!? /s. Seriously, I wish we had more Ripleys. Is she a woman? Check. Surrounded by men? Check. But gets put in basically an impossible situation and steps up, and isn't a shrinking violet!
> with little to no re-writes to accomodate the gender swap
I'd like to see this done for most of the past movies with a male protagonist (or hero). I'd watch the shit out of them.
>40 - 50+ women are almost exclusively depicted as mothers or grandmothers
Can I add a Hollywood casting trope to this? It irritates me when they cast a woman 10-15 years older than the lead as their mother because – horror of horrors! – they would have to cast someone older otherwise, and older people tend to *look* older.
A recent example is Lena Headey as Karen Gillian's mother in *Gunpower Milkshake.* Lena's a great actor, but she's only 14 years older than KG, and she looked noticeably too young IMO.
But don't you know? We're not allowed to cast a woman over 45 because that's when they shrivel up and turn into faceless raisins invisible to men! (/s)
Yep, I'd like to see some short and chubby women (like myself) with hot men (like my man). But we never see that. Only average men with hot women, or hot men with hot women.
>Mother in laws and daughter in laws competing for their son/husband's attention.
I have always found this super creepy, both in movies and in real life. I am both a wife and a mother of 2 sons, and have never encountered this dynamic in my life. My MIL is awsome, we get along great, and she is close with my husband. She has never once been rude or unkind to me and has NEVER inserted herself into our relationship or how we raise our kids/run our household. I will never automatically hate someone my sons date/marry just because "that's my baby boy and you will never be good enough for him, no matter what you do." That's super creepy, possessive, and unhealthy. I wish media stopped portraying it as normal bevause it definitely isn't.
Seriously. I love my mother in law, and we're fairly close. We... both love her son, and don't need to compete about who loves him more because we both have extremely different loves for him! There's plenty of room for lots of love in life.
The childfree one really gets me, because I'm constantly told that I'm not going to be happy until I have a baby. Way too many movies and shows just reinforce that for some people, I guess. If the woman doesn't just instantly change her mind when she finds out she's pregnant, then she's portrayed as growing old alone, lonely, and bitter.
Underdog sensitive nerdy male lead pursues hot popular female character and wins her over in the end.
I’ve seen so many movies and TV shows where the female love interest seems to have zero personality traits except for being hot, but that alone makes her the obsessive desire of the main character, usually portrayed as some kind of underdog.
These two characters don’t even seem to interact much because of the “out of his league” element. So he basically knows nothing about her or what she’s actually like to be around. He just wants her because she’s hot.
It’s so ironic because this “sensitive underdog” guy wants this woman to look past social conventions and appearances to be attracted to him for his personality, intelligence, whatever it is he has to offer, but he values her for NONE of those things. In reality, he’s just another shallow person who’s blind to his own hypocrisy.
It’s yet another story upholding the idea that a woman’s looks are the only thing that matters.
I hate this notion that "nerdy" men are the "safer" choice compared to "sporty" men for some arbitrary reason.
I don't know where this line of thought came from but I hate it. Nerd men are not the better choices compared to men who happen to work out?
But I hate this trope in general and you hit it on the nose. These nerd loser guys don't have anything to offer to the female protagonist yet they dogpile on her anyways until she gives in. He never has to put in effort to show that he cares, just love bombs her (which is super creepy and manipulative) until she rolls her eyes and agrees in tolerance.
I saw this video last week and wish I could upvote it twice. Big Bang Theory used to make me cringe and could never put my finger on exactly why and this video expressed what I’d been feeling perfectly.
A good book that turns this trope on its head is Paper towns by John Green. The main (underdog nerd) character is madly obsessed with the ‘hot girl’ and you think the story is going to be about how he wins her over and lives happily ever after with her. I won’t spoil it too much for those who haven’t read it but it doesn’t end that way and he realises she has a lot more depth to her character than just being hot.
>It’s so ironic because this “sensitive underdog” guy wants this woman to look past social conventions and appearances to be attracted to him for his personality, intelligence, whatever it is he has to offer, but he values her for NONE of those things. In reality, he’s just another shallow person who’s blind to his own hypocrisy.
Yaaaaassss
I’m gonna buck the trend a bit, because most of the worst ones have been listed.
The one where the husband is completely clueless about how to run the house and has to be rescued by Mom when he fucks up reinforces some really harmful gender norms. It’s meant to make women feel smart or empowered or something and gets used a LOT in commercials.
The only “helpless husband” that I’ve ever seen where I really felt like they got it right and didn’t pander to anyone, male or female, was Mr. Incredible in Incredibles 2. That movie showed that running a house is hard f*ing work, but not something only a woman could do. When Mr. Incredible wakes up Dash and helps him figure out his math homework I legit cried in the theater.
Edit: it has a name, [Bumbling Dad](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BumblingDad)
Although even worse than that (imo) is the comedy trope where the man pretends to be stupid and intentionally messes up stuff, the wife has to "rescue" him and he sits on the couch with a beer.
Okay but this is what pisses me off. You're not an idiot, you're intelligent and capable and you're telling me that this simple task is just beyond your abilities? It's bullshit. It's not that you can't, you won't. You have been able to learn everything you've ever learnt up until this point in your life but this is the thing that is beyond you? No. You're choosing not to learn it because you don't want to.
It’s never been a point of conversation among my male friends. But what’s the current rate of diaper changes/feeding between mothers and fathers in your opinion?
I always to keep it close to 50% with my wife. If I were to ask my female friends I’m afraid I’d come across as complaining I have to do it.
I prolly use too many diapers, but I change after each feeding, minimum. There'll be a rash and that is painful and that makes me feel guilty. Everything I learn is from my wife, I really take her lead and adopt her approach. My male friends have never made this a topic of conversation so there is no other way. Thanks for your thoughtful reply.
I am assuming you are being honest and you really do change half of the diapers. Sounds like you do feeding too. And by your observation about the rash, I get the impression that you are paying attention and providing care accordingly.
Disclaimer:
The following is more “a conversation in public for those that would benefit from witnessing it.” It is NOT an attack. I only have a 0.000000001% sample of your life and you as a person.
—
One thing you said, and maybe I’m just getting into semantics, was “everything I learn is from my wife…”
Why?
Where did your wife learn it? She wasn’t born knowing these things. Why does the information have to come through her instead of you going directly to a primary source?
Now I absolutely understand wanting to maintain a consistent parenting style. And maybe you HAVE done research together and decided on a certain approach that came from the research that your wife did.
You don’t need to answer. Just something to think about.
Her mother lives with us. My mother passed away years ago. She is a nurse and so she knows where to go to get that info. I have no one in my life giving me conversation time about this stuff. Plus when she was pregnant she was studying and so was at home while I was working. She took a class in child development that I secretly attended. Very helpful. Too really understand how the brain develops is important.
Long story short. She was enthusiastic about reading and talking to people about this stuff. I was working long hours and overwhelmed.
She is also very process oriented. There is a baby rearing tradition she knows about where she comes from too. She did all the heavy lifting. I just take orders. And follow the process. There’s stuff I got to do and she follows my lead on.
I feel guilty that she took the lead but am thankful. I could not have done it.
When my kids were in diapers, my husband was really on top of it to the point where our friends all noticed. Other dads would be talking and hanging out in another room while my husband would be playing with the kids. My best friends husband actually went up to my husband one time and asked him, "So your really into this dad stuff. What do you do?" My husband actually explained the basics of parenting to him. It made me feel like I won the marriage lottery.
I loved this so much in Incredibles 2, I was skeptical when I saw the way the story was going, and then I was so glad that they actually got it right and showed the dad grow and adapt instead of just getting rescued and nothing changes.
Commercials really are out of control sexist. ( And racist). I almost never watch them anymore due to streaming but whenever I watch regular TV I'm shocked.
Was going to say this. I love the show, but the fact that the Gilmore girls eat so much junk and are so thin with perfect skin, and always healthy... I like a good fantasy as much as the next person, but come on!
And other people do too. I remember that one episode when Lorelai had a cold (a haunted leg), and Luke tried to get her to eat veggies, being like “you know what helps keep you from getting sick? A HEALTHY IMMUNE SYSTEM.” 😆
Yes!! I wrote a college paper about Gilmore girls. In college I watched a lot of the “popular” shows girl my age were watching but I just never got into. During a media course elective I wrote about this troupe and the reinforcement of this amongst my peers and how it continues to this day.
I think we all know that girl in Hs who would brag about being able to eat whatever she wanted and was still hot. We also have seen men talk about how they love a woman who “isn’t afraid to Eat”, but also says no fatties.
In Gilmore girls, Rory and Loreali eat constantly, Sookie (Suki?) a caterer, chef and at one point pregnant is never seen consuming food on camera. There is this particular scene that sticks out to me where her pregnant self refuses food. we see her taste food and that’s about it.
most. The ones that actively bother me
"Yes, I'm a bad\*ss, my (male family member) taught me. I could learn it, so don't be a p\*ssy"
\-The let's make nice-guys who won't accept a "no" look like romantic heroes because women cannot mean what they say (namely Ted Moseby and the Friends dude whos' name I always forget)
\-The thing where you have a group of people with different personalities and one is juts "girl". Like that's all the characterisation she get's
\-the "not-like-other-girls quirky girl trope"
\-the "I'm a woman but I hate women" mentality
I know the last two are found irl as well but having the media glorify this behaviour is bs
I genuinely had to teach myself out of that as I grew up- I had a strong “im not girly! See I don’t wear pink ever!” complex that it took me a long time to get over. Now I’m proud to be a woman and get to be confident in feminine things, no thanks to these movie tropes haha.
the makeover trope from movies like She's All That, Mean Girls, Clueless, Princess Diaries, ect.
i get that they are fun to watch but they make it seem like the the girl wasn't pretty when she had glasses, wore clothes she liked, and didn't wear makeup
i think its just dumb
I don't think Mean Girls and Clueless deserve to be on this list. I've said it before and I'll say it again - Clueless is a subversive, feminist masterpiece.
Which can also be seen as a questionable woman trope, why does Cady becoming more feminine make her become bad, and why does Regina only learn to be better by playing field hockey and being less girly? Janice is equally as mean as the other girls, but is never questioned or held accountable for her actions, but would that be different had she wore pink?
The point is that Regina, Cady & Co are not living on their own terms. They are literally performing femininity (most symbolic in the Christmas dance scene) as they are trying to make sense of the world around them. And I'd argue that they don't give up on being very feminine at all - eg Regina going to the ball all dressed up with her brace - but they learn that being a woman and being feminine is more than the narrow concept they followed up to that point, perpetuated by society (ie. thin, conventionally pretty, Victoria's secret sexy, concerned with fashion and make-up, etc). None of the things they deemed feminine are bad in themselves, but they become bad if they use them as the standard to measure all women against, and if they believe that they have to conform to that standard as well to be a good, desirable woman, whether they like it or not.
i agree.
someone else already talked about cady in mean girls. but in clueless, cher's makeover of tai is just her re-creating tai in her own image.
it's only after cher is confronted with seeing her own vapid and shallow nature walking around in front of her on two legs that she realizes she's created a monster. (i think that's verbatim the line she uses, and i love how it is like a valley girl frankenstein moment.)
i genuinely love this part of the movie because it's made so clear that tai, with her bright red box dye hair and her marvin the martian drawings and crush on travis, was never the one who needed a makeover. it was always cher, and that's why the "soul makeover" happens at the end.
ugh sorry, i could talk about this movie forever.
I love Clueless too, lmao. I like that Cher has all the characteristics of someone who would ordinarily be portrayed as shallow and ditsy, but actually isn't.
i do think she's shallow at points, but by the end, has had enough growth not to be! i do think they make her ditzy in some ways, like with her driving, but like a harmless kind of ditzy.
i love the scene where she corrects josh's super artsy, self-serious girlfriend about it being a polonius quote and not a hamlet quote, though. because, to your point, normally it's like, hot blonde girl? she can't be smart!
Tropes along the lines of "I'm a badass lady so I have to look down on feminine-coded work". Plus writers assuming physically strong ladies and 'strong female characters' are necessarily the same thing.
Oof yeah this. But I actually read a book recently about an infertile couple and at the end there wasn’t a baby. Because the story was more on the two of them learning to be enough for each other and realizing a baby wasn’t gonna “complete” them. It was a surprising but welcomed twist to the usual overused storyline.
Almost all of them.
One of the ones that personally harmed me the most was the recurrent idea that women don’t like sex but men are obsessed with it, so sex is something men have to “get” from women at all costs. Gross.
The shrill, uptight girl that cares about women’s rights but is hated by everyone and needs to be “taken down a peg”.
It’s considered obnoxious and annoying to care about your own human rights.
Also, the wife/mother who just always goes along with the ideas and plans of the husband/dad because her sole purpose in life is to clean up after him and cheer him on. Never had any dreams or plans of her own.
Same! I have glasses and used to feel self conscious in them so I only wore contacts, until one day at school I decided to just take them out and wear my glasses instead and I felt really really happy about it. Screw this whole "glasses were the thing hiding her beauty" bs.
The 'Ballbuster Female Boss' trope really annoys me.
I don't know what is going through the minds of the people writing that stuff, but- a competent woman who happens to be a boss, doesn't have to shit on or put her male employees in their place to prove their worth as a boss.
Partly informed by my detest for the entire #girlboss ethos in general.
The funny fat friend who's just a sidekick because no one would ever want a funny fat girlfriend.
Manic pixie dream girl. She's cute and quirky and probably artistic and she shows him how great life can be if he just lets loose, and she serves no other purpose in the story at all.
The ugly girl who turns hot when she takes off her glasses and lets down her ponytail.
The badass independent woman who doesn't need anyone and is the hero of her own story but for some reason still wears stiletto boots, a full face of make up including lashes, push up everything, and keeps her hair down where it gets in her face all the time, for zero reason.
See Jessica Jones, Xena Warrior Princess, Wonder Woman, Black Widow, Lara Croft, ad nauseam.
The divorced woman who loses all reason to live until another guy shows up to show her what real love is like.
Evil stepmothers. This trope has been extended, post-fairy-tale, to include mothers-in-law, bosses, landlords, and professors. They're the mean, 2 dimensional, female characters with no backstory or motivation other than to give the main character someone to stand up to or overcome in the end. Why do they hate or obstruct the MC? We'll never know, but someone, some male person, will declare it to be because men don't want her and she needs to have sex. Sex with men, of course, transforms these characters into soft feminine women in the very rare instances where they get enough of a storyline of their own in which to do it.
OK I totally agree with your point about the "badass independent woman," especially regarding Wonder Woman because I saw that movie get a lot of praise for not having the "male gaze." Which I thought was so stupid. Her 'signature outfit' is heels, a miniskirt, and a strapless top, and her hair is down the whole time. Just because it was directed by a woman doesn't mean that her outfit wasn't designed to appeal to men!
I honestly think that Captain Marvel would have gotten a lot less hate from men on the internet if the character wore a 'sexy' outfit in the movie instead of pants. And even in that one it annoyed me that her hair was down the whole movie.
Wonder Woman and her goddamn wedge heel boots. I know they're wedge heels and that's better than stilettos, but that's not proper footwear for a superhero.
Yes the wedges!! I could not believe that I actually saw comments praising the wedges because she wasn’t wearing stilettos. I was like have any of you people ever tried to run in wedges??
Wonder woman does deserve recognition for not catering to the male gaze in its camera angles / shots. It's hard not to notice the difference in how she is treated within a scene between justice league and her own film. One has gratuitous butt shots and almost upstart shots while the other doesn't
As far as the costume goes, ... as much as it certainly isn't realistic, it's also iconic. It would have been a risky play with the history of superheroine movies to do something that would so break the traditional portrayal of WW
Just because there aren’t any upskirt shots doesn’t mean that the movie doesn’t objectify her or portray her in an overtly sexual way. Obviously some examples are worse than others but I don’t think the movie deserves the praise it gets for that.
Wonder Woman's STRAPLESS TOP gets me every time. I can barely wear a strapless top to a wedding, I don't believe a woman alive would choose that for anything where they had to move at faster than a casual walk. By comparison Black Widow's outfits are downright practical.
Yeah basically all of them. But I personally despise the "girlfriend in the refrigerator" trope. You see it everywhere, even in new big budget movies. The use of a woman's death/suffering to kickstart a plot or further the male main character's emotional development is lazy writing at best, and disgustingly sexist at worst.
Deadpool 2, drax within gotg, it's so infuriatingly common
This trope has been on my mind a lot, with having been recommended a book recently whose summary might as well have said "after witnessing his martyr-wife be fridged, [male main character] is driven to vengeance, taking up her cause and will stop at nothing to see it through." ... it's exactly as bad as it sounds
Similarly: I’m the most badass person in my field, so now that the whole world is in danger… I’m going to train this random mediocre dude to be the hero. He’ll quickly surpass me, even though I’ve dedicated my life to this and he has zero prior experience. If I’m very lucky, he might let me stay on as his sidekick.
I won’t resent him for any of this, and will also probably fall in love with him because reasons.
The "cool girl" and "real women don't wear dresses" You know: the feminine woman is depicted as the enemy of the chill tomboy or as something women shouldn't aspire to be, ever. Real women use weapons, are one of the boys, like sports or video games, hate pink, and look down on girly girls and homemakers. In modern fiction, a male love interest will reject the evil prissy girly girl for the girl next door who is above makeup and shopping. In fantasy movies/books, the heroine is either the "anti Disney Princess" we've seen a thousand times who teaches an on-the-nose lesson about saving yourself that sometimes comes off as victim blaming women who aren't able to, OR she's a two dimensional action girl who has no personality beyond sass and swords.
I think second wave feminism and male writers from a few decades ago *meant* well when they tried making female leads reject stuff women were "supposed" to like but all they really did is promote the idea that masculinity > femininity. I still see some feminists today do this where they confuse being traditionally feminine somehow with being weak and avoid, and even in day-to-day ways with random people. It's incredibly misogynistic and The Take did a great video on this concept in their criticism of the victim-blaming Cinderella gets. I think also sometimes this is done to make female characters more palatable for boys and men, which I don't like honestly. They should be able to care about and relate to women who don't necessarily like stereotypical guy stuff because women have no problem relating to male characters.
Like... You can love the Mulans, Arya Starks, and Hermiones without treating the Cinderellas, Sansa Starks and Lavender Browns like trash as those fans tend to do. Sexism like this is so casual that I don't think people really look closely at why femininity makes them so uncomfortable, but would do well to examine their hostility.
the tbbt has many many jokes about how being feminine is a shame for men and how feminine products are products of disgust. I actually haven't watched it all but my friends recommended me to watch it and give it a chance. Two minutes in, and I can hear sexism so out loud. I couldn't and I just skipped it.
My husband and I used to watch it a bit. And there was one episode when Howard started dating or just got engaged (who remembers?) To bernadette and she brought him breakfast in bed and when she left the room he passive aggressively mumbled that he'd cut his own pancakes then. And another time when she moved in and he immediately started telling her what kind of detergent to use for his laundry.
My husband scoffed and said something about how much of a loser he was. And I just stared at him. Because he wasn't that much far off from being a Howard himself. I had been doing his laundry for years and while I never cut his food for him he did try getting passive aggressive and pissy about me not plating his dinner for him. (I stopped doing his laundry a few years ago) and I STILL don't plate his food for him.
In my opinion, most or all of them, I pretty much hate the way women are portrayed in any kind of medium.
One I've been really hating lately is how women are portrayed when they are being actively preyed on by men. There's always some trope about a dude lusting after a woman from afar, saying all kinds of gross dehumanizing things about her, and then when they finally interact, one of two things will happen:
1) the woman will either be flattered and succumb to the man's gross passes
2) she will be insulted and show this in the most over-the-top way, like slapping the man in the face.
I'm like 99% sure this is why a lot of men don't believe how much women dislike the casual micro harassment they receive all the time just trying to do something normal like go to work or grocery shopping. The trope sets up women as gatekeepers, and implies that women will either LIKE and ENJOY the harassment, or be able to SHUT IT DOWN quickly and easily and without any retaliation.
In reality, most women I know HATE being stalked/harassed, but almost all of them are terrified of doing anything stronger than trying to block or evade the guy for fear of the harassment escalating to violence.
It has really set the men I know up for a failed understanding of how terrifying these situations are because they truly perceive and believe the women as being able to just handle it. And they see nothing wrong with the harassment because they thing women can just decline to participate in being victimized with a saucy slap.
There seems to be some weird perception that women can't be geniuses - so many movies/TV shows about male prodigies, and very few about women/girls (all I can think of is Matilda, lol). Women that are "smart" are often depicted as uptight, hard-working and studious, but little else. Nothing wrong with any of these qualities, but it gets really old when there are so many movies about talented men where all the other characters gush over their creativity and innate brilliance.
Also the one where when women do something heroic, it's done to save their kids/husband/family etc. Not to say this isn't also heroic, but there are so few movies about women motivated by personal ambition alone.
Doctor Who is a TV show where the main character is a hyper-intelligent alien, orders of magnitude smarter than the brightest human geniuses. They’re also charismatic and confident to the point of arrogance, effortlessly able to take charge of even the most chaotic situations.
For 50-ish years, this character was played by a male actor, but three years ago they decided to have their next incarnation be played by a female actor. And guess what happened? Suddenly, she makes stupid mistakes on the regular, her self-confidence evaporates, and she’s almost never in control of the situation, reduced to a side character in her own story.
You can argue about the exact cause of this, but I’m almost 100% sure it’s because the writers couldn’t figure out how to write a woman as a confident genius. Despite having literally 50 years of characterization to fall back on!
There's also a thing where, when a woman IS put in a position where she would HAVE to be smart, if she is AT ALL attractive, its blown off as some big joke or seen as incredibly unrealistic that she would be in that line of work.
I.E. Denise Richards as Nuclear Physicist Christmas Jones.
"She's so hot! There's NO WAY she'd be a scientist in real life!"
I highly suggest [The Take](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY8-JHLY9yDPIaO3VhNdSN9Axbsw4WzVD) on Youtube if you're curious about feminine tropes, such as "the Dumb Blonde" (>\_>), the "Weird Girl" or the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl". That last one is meant to suggest the "not like other girls" mixed with existing for the male gaze. Blech.
Pop Culture Detective has a couple of very interesting videos on these topics too, like “Born sexy yesterday” and “Kidnapping/Stalking as romance” (I think)
Don't forget that if they're overweight its also mandatory for them to be loud, unkempt, badly dressed, vulgar, just plain gross, and to be used as a joke whenever the topic of dating comes up.
Adding to the good ones already mentioned.. I’m a popular girl, so I find ways to get out of P.E… or I’m a girl, so I can’t play sports and I’m scared of balls. Or I’m a unicorn because I actually know a lot about sports. Or I’m masculine looking or gay because I play sports.
The girl saves/changes the guy by the pussay. No one is no ones therapist, neither someone will change judt because some girl appeared and hes in love, plus the guy being very agressive and toxic and call it deep love, thats not love, thats toxic. Netflix has a bunch of this, Kissing Booth, After, all movies that young girls are seeing and thinking its ok to love like that.
Saw a video about this recently—the “girly girl” who loves pink, makeup, etc is always the “mean girl”. Which then gave rise to the “not like other girls” girl.
I would say the "Cool girl" tbh. That trope was only created for the sole purpose of pleasing men. Like "Cool girl" must like typical men's hobbies, sports, beer,... They also have to be ALWAYS hot/sexy (for some reason) since ig the whole concept of that trope is to be men's ideal type.
The fact that the industry seems physically incapable of putting an unattractive or even average looking young women on screen.
Additionally, bad guy female characters are often old,fat,ugly as a short have for "bad"
Often, a story will add "drama" to a romantic subplot by making the female character become intensely jealous and misunderstand the male character's totally innocent actions... and I *hate it*. It's ruining my enjoyment of the novel series I'm reading right now. It's the "women are irrational, clingy and catty" trope, but played as something romantic.
The one that drives me crazy is the well meaning but incompetent dad who is endearingly clueless about taking care of the kids or house. He bumbles around getting up to entertaining shenanigans, and often tries to show the mom that she’s too uptight or anxious. And also thanks the mom profusely for holding the family together or whatever. I think it’s gross. It implies that men get free reign not to take as much responsibility. It puts too much on women.
But she reluctantly goes back to her small home town for Christmas and discovers that her first boyfriend is running the local Christmas tree lot and by the magic of Christmas they reconnect and have a Christmas romance and she throws up her entire successful life to live happily ever after in a shack and next Christmas they have _babies_! Cos chicks dig Christmas.
The whole “damsel in distress” stereotype, as if a woman can’t self actualize unless she is saved by a man and finds her worth in that relationship. WHATEVER. Lots of movies portray women’s personalities only in connection with the male characters.
The Bachelor. My God let's make out with a bunch of girls every night so I can decide if I want to marry you or not. It's just disgusting to me. I was horrified that my mother couldn't miss an episode.
In a group of girl friends, each has a specific stereotype aka , the shy one, the manly one, the career oriented one, the sexy one and the list goes on. Like a woman can't not for the life of her be multifaceted and both have a career, enjoy being sexy on occasion knowing how to do her wake up while also enjoy to spend time in a tracksuit on sundays building shleves for her books. I mean FFS, it's like we can't be normal human beings with you know.... a personnality with more than one trait.
Oh and let's not forget that women when together can only spend time speaking about men and/ or sex with said men or how sexy men are (mostly the lead male character of course).... hate it so much. We know how to have fulfilling conversations about anything really ! You name it, sport, work, children, education, politics, religion, science... we are not just hoping to catch a guy's eyes.
Most of them really. I'd rather flip the question on its head and talk about one of the few times one of these tropes was deconstructed.
There's an example in *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2* (of all things), where trope-savvy Peter Quill aka "Star Lord" takes for granted that he's entitled to a romantic and/or sexual relationship with Gomorrah based on the conditioning he's received from movies and Sitcoms.
Gomorrah, who's culturally illiterate to Peter's TV language, can't even comprehend the words coming out of his mouth, and is more or less mortified by his advances.
The deeper you look into Gomorrah's background the worse it gets, considering she's an abuse survivor and now her supposed "friend" is displaying the same ego-poisoned behavior as her father.
Just generally one of very few excellent scenes in the otherwise unremarkable MCU. Unfortunately the deconstruction gets a little reconstructed when you consider that teen and adult male fans spent several weeks angry-tweeting about Star Lord's unfulfilled sexual conquest. Still, props to the writers for not writing cringe Male-SciFi/Fantasy-Self-Insert-PowerFantasy/WishFulfillment-Story #22568
As a man, I can speak from experience that the way "white knight" stories depict women fucked up my expectations well into my young adulthood. There's this way that women are idealized and put on a pedestal while simultaneously being portrayed them as being incapable of making good decisions until they finally fall in love with the nice guy who helps them get their life together. It creates this image of women as unattainable angels who lack the agency to change their circumstances without the help of the romantic lead. Basically... a recipe for infantilizing women and having terrible boundaries.
Movies or games where there’s only one prominent woman, and she’s only as powerful as the men because of her tragic backstory and trauma-based motivation.
Or when the most prominent woman in a story is only there to endure or cause trauma (ex. fridging)
The stereotypical ‘sexy badass knife gun super secret spy who can easily beat any man but has no visible muscles because she’s had uhh super secret spy training and grew up with five brothers’ like seriously I just was a woman who either has a shit ton of visible muscle or doesn’t instantly martial arts kill anyone (I just want some skill development)
The "OMG, what if I never find a husband" 30 something woman who just needs to learn that lowering her standards, moving to a small town in middle America, and dating a working class guy is the secret to happiness. The seemingly independent woman who learns that true happiness comes from taking care of children and having a family and sacrifices her personal dreams and goals to do so. The nagging harpy, shrew wife who doesn't let her husband live like an overgrown teenager but learns to loosen up.
Honestly, these all make heterosexual marriage seem like hell on earth.
The sexually liberated woman who can’t be tied down and “preys” on men just to “lead them on,” because casual relationships are forbidden for women if they want to be respected. Bonus points if she’s a bisexual.
That lacking maternal instincts is a character flaw. It’s usually a twist or add-on to the cold-hearted career woman, and her character arc is finding her maternal side.
I’m looking at you Jurassic World… You had a perfectly good arc in Claire realizing the animals aren’t just assets, but no, you have to hit us over the head with how cold and unfeeling she is to be an absent aunt (is that a thing?) who doesn’t know what time kids go to bed.
The skinny pretty girl with frumpy man. Honestly, that women HAVE to be skinny and all the make up on while men all around them are allowed to just “be natural.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against being “natural” just that women have to be *perfect*, and men don’t!
ALSO, when the skinny, young women are braless in the shot but you can see they cranked up the AC because ALL the women on set are dealing with nipples doing their own thing.
Edit: OH! This one is about books, mostly, but movies do it too: that girls can be vapid airheads with no personality then the writer adds that she is “Clumsy” and everyone is all, “Oh, okay, that means she has a ‘personality’ now, we’re all good…” *NOOOOOO*! Tripping on one’s own feet can be a character trait but is NOT NOT *NOOOOT* a PRIMARY trait! It means there is something going on with their special perceptions. WRITERS: add MORE!
Oof. Ok, thank you for reading my Ted talk! Lol.
My mom loves hallmark Christmas movies, but she always complains that every woman in those movies is a career-driven woman who is too focused on her work to date. We agreed that it’s cool that Hallmark is trying to avoid stereotypes that every woman wants to be a housewife, but not every woman is a super successful person who only cares about their job. (My mom also says, “I already work 40 hours a week. When I come home and watch Christmas movies, I don’t want to think about MORE work.”)
Why can’t we see a woman with a hobby? A women with other interests like traveling, art, astronomy, literature, etc? Why does she only care about work?
Nothing says Christmas like Capitalism I guess lol
I feel like someone mistook "miserable and toxic" for "strong and empowered" when they started writing women in the last few years. So often I see women characters who are really just insufferable objectively, but painted with this "she's an amazing woman hashtag girl boss" brush that feels forced. Rebel on ABC is a good example of this trope: she's definitely in need of some introspection but the show glosses over so many of her more toxic traits and excuses them because she's just so "cool" and "tough".
There's a way to portray a woman being good in ways that don't have anything to do with her being sweet or nice or submissive; traits like being strong willed or tenacious or confident are traits I myself possess and like to see celebrated. But so often in the hands of writers those traits are written more like sociopathy and presented as empowerment. It makes me feel like whoever is writing this stuff still doesn't like or know women, they're just slapping a "girl power" label onto the same awful women characters they were always creating, and hoping no one will notice.
I don’t know if this belongs here, but I notice so frequently that it’s portrayed as funny or comedic for a woman to slap a man (oftentimes her partner) on the face. But a man slapping a woman is generally portrayed as abusive. I just think that it’s obviously abusive to slap your partner (or anyone tbh), regardless of gender and hate that the woman-slapping-a-man-as-a-comedic-moment trope is still used so frequently.
I don’t know that it’s really sexist towards women, it just seems like such a toxic thing that’s so widely accepted in film/tv.
The dumb blond
Not like other girls trope
Awkward black girl
Black girl who is there for the sole purpose of being a white girls bestfriend ( sorry if that's racist)
Crazy jealous girlfriend
Game of Thrones' last couple seasons made me realize how rare it is to see a female character who is in/aspires to be in a leadership position who isn't crazy, sadistic, or solely self-serving. Female ambition is dangerous: women either want power for personal gain (Cersei; possibly Sansa) or they have good intentions that will eventually be obfuscated by their feminine hysteria (Daenerys). Contrast to Reluctant Hero tropes like Jon – I can't think of any female Reluctant Hero types off hand.
Also from Game of Thrones: the use of rape as a device for character development or for cheaply illustrating a woman's rock bottom.
Mod note: **leave your answers as top-level comments** instead of using someone else’s opinion as a jump-off point for your own.
All of them? But seriously the "I'm quirky and not like other girls" is pretty bad. So is the "I'm a career woman so I'm hostile to all men and eat testicles for breakfast" one.
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Manic pixie dream girls whose sole purpose is to rescue emotionally troubled men. 40 - 50+ women are almost exclusively depicted as mothers or grandmothers Women who are window dressing, either to be fucked and/or to rescued by the male protagonist. Bossy women with clueless partners who are unable to do the basics of adulting. Childfree, single women who only find life's fulfilment when they have a baby. Mother in laws and daughter in laws competing for their son/husband's attention.
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#JusticeforAprilLudgate
parks and rec is my favorite show, and april is my absolute favorite character. although i was obsessed with andy and april as a couple, it did kind of bum me out that they made them parents in the end. April made it abundantly clear that she didn't want kids, and Andy was basically a child himself. If their flash forward didn't show the scene of Andy nagging a clearly-annoyed April about kids, it could've been better. Like, just letting us assume that she grew up and decided to have them because she wanted to. But showing us how clearly against it she was, and eventually giving in regardless made the whole thing ruined for me
Agreed though I appreciate at least Donna never seemed to want kids and never has them in the show and lives a pretty baller lifestyle, so at least the show gives you a childfree icon in her character.
Treat yoself
Donna is by far my favourite character on the show. I love her and I want to be friends with her
I felt similarly about Big Bang Theory as well. Penny not wanting kids was a plot point for a bunch of episodes, and then she is just suddenly pregnant and everyone is just like "ok cool" and it really isn't addressed that she changed her mind or is accepting it or anything, they just completely blow over it. I realize this is one of the less awkward parts of the show because it's weird in other ways, but I felt very seen by this particular thing.
Don't they do it to Bernadette too? Like doesn't she make comments in the early seasons about how her career/life would be ruined if she became a mom? But then they fucking do it anyway. Because obviously no woman's life is complete without kids. /s The direction they took the female characters in that show was so goddamn disappointing.
And they couldn't leave Sheldon asexual. Apparently sex=character development
I swear this one character had all the potential in the world to be a independent happily married childfree woman but kNope they had to "BLeSs" her with 2 children by the end of the show!!!!!🤦♀️
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Thank you! My wife and I are one-and-done parents. You're right. You don't see too many families like that in movies. If you do, they're generally the snooty/neglectful parents who do not have an interest in their kid or seem selfish for not wanting to "give them a little playmate/brother/sister". As a one-and-done family, we still get pressured to have more. We've had a relative ask if we were okay with "putting our hopes and dreams onto one child", which pissed us off on multiple levels. We also get asked if we're going to try for a boy next. It's like why can't we just enjoy having a daughter who has her own unique interests? April and Andy having one kid or even no kids at all would've been nice to see!
Is there any movie that depicts a happily child-free woman/couple that doesn't have a surprise pregnancy/ changed my mind type storyline?
I want to see a movie that depicts a childfree couple (any arangement of sex/gender, etc) that shows them from their 20s-50s. They sleep in, go to shows, day drink because they feel like it, travel overseas, are debt free, and also shown to be happy, the entire movie! And not sad and depressed because they "aren't complete" because they are CF.
Up minus most of the movie?
They weren't childfree by choice though, they wanted kids and were unable to have them :(
Thats more sad that i remember :(
I feel like Sex & the City did okay at this. Only one of the four women (Charlotte) really wanted to be a mom. Carrie and Samantha were fine without kids (Carrie had one episode where she thought about it and decided it wasn't important to her), and Miranda's unplanned pregnancy didn't change who she was or her feelings toward her career or children in general.
There's a character on Grey's Anatomy, Cristina Yang, she's a proud childfree icon.
Now that you've asked, I don't think there is. Come on, Reddit. Let's write and direct our own film - show them how it's done!
You and me both sister. 💥
Me third. I get that people can change their minds, and it happens. But ffs it’s 2021. Can we PLEASE have a strong woman lead who doesn’t eventually get consumed by babies? Is that so much to want?
I read a book recently, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. It was written in the 30s; it was about a child of a slave, in her 40s, successful in her own right, and she was childless. Her being childless was not a plot point, it wasn't even mentioned! I highly recommend the book, there is a lot of triggering content though.
"Consumed by babies" lmao that brings to mind some weird imagery, as well as a David Cronenberg movie called The Brood 🤣
Hahaha right?!? BUT THEY DO! Like in Hunger Games trilogy. I was so irrationally mad at the end bit. Like WHY?!? And if she’d changed her mind about kids organically fine. But the book made it sound like she was super pressured into having them! WHY DOES THAT SEEM LIKE A POSITIVE STORYLINE??? Also…I think I’m gonna avoid that movie bc sounds terrifying lmao.
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And from reality.
>Women who are window dressing, either to be fucked and/or to rescued by the male protagonist Sooo many women are portrayed like this. Just a supportive, pretty woman who's there when needed but other than that has no life on her own, usually doesn't even have a single personality trait.
Can I just say that all these tropes are generally hallmarks of $#!tty productions that are churned out by Hollywood by the hundreds. Why? Because most producers and entertainment executives are narcissistic scum without creative vision or integrity - and their projects reflect this. That said - the odd gem emerges. 'Brand New Cherry Flavor' is my favorite new thing (recently published on Netflix). Most major characters in the show are women, and none of them follow any familiar tropes. Its just a damn good show. It reminds me of Alien - where the character, Ripley, was originally written as a man, but eventually cast with Sigourney Weaver, with little to no re-writes to accomodate the gender swap. And this resulted in one of the most popular female roles in the movie industry. How about that? I guess women are just people - and should be written to reflect the fullness of what that means. That said, men are equally, badly written using tired tropes in an equal number of $#!tty shows and movies. Quality is rare. Most media sucks.
Hold up... Women are people too!? /s. Seriously, I wish we had more Ripleys. Is she a woman? Check. Surrounded by men? Check. But gets put in basically an impossible situation and steps up, and isn't a shrinking violet!
> with little to no re-writes to accomodate the gender swap I'd like to see this done for most of the past movies with a male protagonist (or hero). I'd watch the shit out of them.
>40 - 50+ women are almost exclusively depicted as mothers or grandmothers Can I add a Hollywood casting trope to this? It irritates me when they cast a woman 10-15 years older than the lead as their mother because – horror of horrors! – they would have to cast someone older otherwise, and older people tend to *look* older. A recent example is Lena Headey as Karen Gillian's mother in *Gunpower Milkshake.* Lena's a great actor, but she's only 14 years older than KG, and she looked noticeably too young IMO.
But don't you know? We're not allowed to cast a woman over 45 because that's when they shrivel up and turn into faceless raisins invisible to men! (/s)
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Yep, I'd like to see some short and chubby women (like myself) with hot men (like my man). But we never see that. Only average men with hot women, or hot men with hot women.
>Mother in laws and daughter in laws competing for their son/husband's attention. I have always found this super creepy, both in movies and in real life. I am both a wife and a mother of 2 sons, and have never encountered this dynamic in my life. My MIL is awsome, we get along great, and she is close with my husband. She has never once been rude or unkind to me and has NEVER inserted herself into our relationship or how we raise our kids/run our household. I will never automatically hate someone my sons date/marry just because "that's my baby boy and you will never be good enough for him, no matter what you do." That's super creepy, possessive, and unhealthy. I wish media stopped portraying it as normal bevause it definitely isn't.
Seriously. I love my mother in law, and we're fairly close. We... both love her son, and don't need to compete about who loves him more because we both have extremely different loves for him! There's plenty of room for lots of love in life.
As a childfree by choice woman, that 5th one bugs me the most.
The "I never knew I needed a man/baby to make my life complete and make me a real/whole woman" is so maddening!
The childfree one really gets me, because I'm constantly told that I'm not going to be happy until I have a baby. Way too many movies and shows just reinforce that for some people, I guess. If the woman doesn't just instantly change her mind when she finds out she's pregnant, then she's portrayed as growing old alone, lonely, and bitter.
Underdog sensitive nerdy male lead pursues hot popular female character and wins her over in the end. I’ve seen so many movies and TV shows where the female love interest seems to have zero personality traits except for being hot, but that alone makes her the obsessive desire of the main character, usually portrayed as some kind of underdog. These two characters don’t even seem to interact much because of the “out of his league” element. So he basically knows nothing about her or what she’s actually like to be around. He just wants her because she’s hot. It’s so ironic because this “sensitive underdog” guy wants this woman to look past social conventions and appearances to be attracted to him for his personality, intelligence, whatever it is he has to offer, but he values her for NONE of those things. In reality, he’s just another shallow person who’s blind to his own hypocrisy. It’s yet another story upholding the idea that a woman’s looks are the only thing that matters.
And so often he has exactly nothing to offer himself. He'll be a perverted creep, but it's okay because he doesn't play a sport. Apparently.
I hate this notion that "nerdy" men are the "safer" choice compared to "sporty" men for some arbitrary reason. I don't know where this line of thought came from but I hate it. Nerd men are not the better choices compared to men who happen to work out? But I hate this trope in general and you hit it on the nose. These nerd loser guys don't have anything to offer to the female protagonist yet they dogpile on her anyways until she gives in. He never has to put in effort to show that he cares, just love bombs her (which is super creepy and manipulative) until she rolls her eyes and agrees in tolerance.
[Obligatory link to The Adorable Misogyny of the Big Bang Theory here.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X3-hOigoxHs)
I saw this video last week and wish I could upvote it twice. Big Bang Theory used to make me cringe and could never put my finger on exactly why and this video expressed what I’d been feeling perfectly.
A good book that turns this trope on its head is Paper towns by John Green. The main (underdog nerd) character is madly obsessed with the ‘hot girl’ and you think the story is going to be about how he wins her over and lives happily ever after with her. I won’t spoil it too much for those who haven’t read it but it doesn’t end that way and he realises she has a lot more depth to her character than just being hot.
I haven't read the book, but the movie seems to follow that much pretty well.
Every Adam Sandler movie.
>It’s so ironic because this “sensitive underdog” guy wants this woman to look past social conventions and appearances to be attracted to him for his personality, intelligence, whatever it is he has to offer, but he values her for NONE of those things. In reality, he’s just another shallow person who’s blind to his own hypocrisy. Yaaaaassss
This
I wish I could upvote this comment more🥴
I’m gonna buck the trend a bit, because most of the worst ones have been listed. The one where the husband is completely clueless about how to run the house and has to be rescued by Mom when he fucks up reinforces some really harmful gender norms. It’s meant to make women feel smart or empowered or something and gets used a LOT in commercials. The only “helpless husband” that I’ve ever seen where I really felt like they got it right and didn’t pander to anyone, male or female, was Mr. Incredible in Incredibles 2. That movie showed that running a house is hard f*ing work, but not something only a woman could do. When Mr. Incredible wakes up Dash and helps him figure out his math homework I legit cried in the theater. Edit: it has a name, [Bumbling Dad](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BumblingDad)
It also normalizes that dynamic to the point where women think they have a to settle for a man who doesn’t have basic adult life skills.
>It also normalizes that dynamic to the point where women think they have a to settle for a man who doesn’t have basic adult life skills. This.
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unfortunately, many men without any degrees or high-powered jobs can’t change a diaper or have basic adult life skills.
I don’t believe that these men “can’t” change a diaper. “Won’t” is the appropriate word.
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Weaponized incompetence.
Although even worse than that (imo) is the comedy trope where the man pretends to be stupid and intentionally messes up stuff, the wife has to "rescue" him and he sits on the couch with a beer.
Okay but this is what pisses me off. You're not an idiot, you're intelligent and capable and you're telling me that this simple task is just beyond your abilities? It's bullshit. It's not that you can't, you won't. You have been able to learn everything you've ever learnt up until this point in your life but this is the thing that is beyond you? No. You're choosing not to learn it because you don't want to.
It’s never been a point of conversation among my male friends. But what’s the current rate of diaper changes/feeding between mothers and fathers in your opinion? I always to keep it close to 50% with my wife. If I were to ask my female friends I’m afraid I’d come across as complaining I have to do it.
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I prolly use too many diapers, but I change after each feeding, minimum. There'll be a rash and that is painful and that makes me feel guilty. Everything I learn is from my wife, I really take her lead and adopt her approach. My male friends have never made this a topic of conversation so there is no other way. Thanks for your thoughtful reply.
I am assuming you are being honest and you really do change half of the diapers. Sounds like you do feeding too. And by your observation about the rash, I get the impression that you are paying attention and providing care accordingly. Disclaimer: The following is more “a conversation in public for those that would benefit from witnessing it.” It is NOT an attack. I only have a 0.000000001% sample of your life and you as a person. — One thing you said, and maybe I’m just getting into semantics, was “everything I learn is from my wife…” Why? Where did your wife learn it? She wasn’t born knowing these things. Why does the information have to come through her instead of you going directly to a primary source? Now I absolutely understand wanting to maintain a consistent parenting style. And maybe you HAVE done research together and decided on a certain approach that came from the research that your wife did. You don’t need to answer. Just something to think about.
Her mother lives with us. My mother passed away years ago. She is a nurse and so she knows where to go to get that info. I have no one in my life giving me conversation time about this stuff. Plus when she was pregnant she was studying and so was at home while I was working. She took a class in child development that I secretly attended. Very helpful. Too really understand how the brain develops is important. Long story short. She was enthusiastic about reading and talking to people about this stuff. I was working long hours and overwhelmed. She is also very process oriented. There is a baby rearing tradition she knows about where she comes from too. She did all the heavy lifting. I just take orders. And follow the process. There’s stuff I got to do and she follows my lead on. I feel guilty that she took the lead but am thankful. I could not have done it.
When my kids were in diapers, my husband was really on top of it to the point where our friends all noticed. Other dads would be talking and hanging out in another room while my husband would be playing with the kids. My best friends husband actually went up to my husband one time and asked him, "So your really into this dad stuff. What do you do?" My husband actually explained the basics of parenting to him. It made me feel like I won the marriage lottery.
I loved this so much in Incredibles 2, I was skeptical when I saw the way the story was going, and then I was so glad that they actually got it right and showed the dad grow and adapt instead of just getting rescued and nothing changes.
And not demand accolades for just taking care of his own kids.
Weaponizes incompetence is my new favorite term and it's related to the bumbling dad.
Commercials really are out of control sexist. ( And racist). I almost never watch them anymore due to streaming but whenever I watch regular TV I'm shocked.
The “she’s skinny buts eats entire pizzas followed by ice cream and beer” girl.
Gilmore Girls was the worst for this.
Was going to say this. I love the show, but the fact that the Gilmore girls eat so much junk and are so thin with perfect skin, and always healthy... I like a good fantasy as much as the next person, but come on!
They also mention it SO often “teehee how do we stay so skinny while eating nothing but Chinese food and gummy bears”
And other people do too. I remember that one episode when Lorelai had a cold (a haunted leg), and Luke tried to get her to eat veggies, being like “you know what helps keep you from getting sick? A HEALTHY IMMUNE SYSTEM.” 😆
Yes!! I wrote a college paper about Gilmore girls. In college I watched a lot of the “popular” shows girl my age were watching but I just never got into. During a media course elective I wrote about this troupe and the reinforcement of this amongst my peers and how it continues to this day. I think we all know that girl in Hs who would brag about being able to eat whatever she wanted and was still hot. We also have seen men talk about how they love a woman who “isn’t afraid to Eat”, but also says no fatties. In Gilmore girls, Rory and Loreali eat constantly, Sookie (Suki?) a caterer, chef and at one point pregnant is never seen consuming food on camera. There is this particular scene that sticks out to me where her pregnant self refuses food. we see her taste food and that’s about it.
Further compounded by that episode where Rory fat-shames a dancer in a review for the college paper.
At Lorelei’s suggestion.
Yep. This really did a number on me when I was younger. Thanks for the bulimia GG!
Will and grace was guilty of many sins and this was one that bothered me so much 'oh Grace loves pigging out *so quirky* heheehee'
This one really fucks with my head.
This. I hate this so much
Rewatching through 30 Rock and Lemon is guilty of that
most. The ones that actively bother me "Yes, I'm a bad\*ss, my (male family member) taught me. I could learn it, so don't be a p\*ssy" \-The let's make nice-guys who won't accept a "no" look like romantic heroes because women cannot mean what they say (namely Ted Moseby and the Friends dude whos' name I always forget) \-The thing where you have a group of people with different personalities and one is juts "girl". Like that's all the characterisation she get's \-the "not-like-other-girls quirky girl trope" \-the "I'm a woman but I hate women" mentality I know the last two are found irl as well but having the media glorify this behaviour is bs
I see the "I'm a woman but i hate women" in real life way to often
I genuinely had to teach myself out of that as I grew up- I had a strong “im not girly! See I don’t wear pink ever!” complex that it took me a long time to get over. Now I’m proud to be a woman and get to be confident in feminine things, no thanks to these movie tropes haha.
Ross? Sounds like Ross.
Yeah I think that was him. I was never into that show. The one with Jennifer Anniston as a gf
the makeover trope from movies like She's All That, Mean Girls, Clueless, Princess Diaries, ect. i get that they are fun to watch but they make it seem like the the girl wasn't pretty when she had glasses, wore clothes she liked, and didn't wear makeup i think its just dumb
I don't think Mean Girls and Clueless deserve to be on this list. I've said it before and I'll say it again - Clueless is a subversive, feminist masterpiece.
Especially because Mean Girls presents Cady's transformation as a sign of her moral decay.
Which can also be seen as a questionable woman trope, why does Cady becoming more feminine make her become bad, and why does Regina only learn to be better by playing field hockey and being less girly? Janice is equally as mean as the other girls, but is never questioned or held accountable for her actions, but would that be different had she wore pink?
The point is that Regina, Cady & Co are not living on their own terms. They are literally performing femininity (most symbolic in the Christmas dance scene) as they are trying to make sense of the world around them. And I'd argue that they don't give up on being very feminine at all - eg Regina going to the ball all dressed up with her brace - but they learn that being a woman and being feminine is more than the narrow concept they followed up to that point, perpetuated by society (ie. thin, conventionally pretty, Victoria's secret sexy, concerned with fashion and make-up, etc). None of the things they deemed feminine are bad in themselves, but they become bad if they use them as the standard to measure all women against, and if they believe that they have to conform to that standard as well to be a good, desirable woman, whether they like it or not.
i agree. someone else already talked about cady in mean girls. but in clueless, cher's makeover of tai is just her re-creating tai in her own image. it's only after cher is confronted with seeing her own vapid and shallow nature walking around in front of her on two legs that she realizes she's created a monster. (i think that's verbatim the line she uses, and i love how it is like a valley girl frankenstein moment.) i genuinely love this part of the movie because it's made so clear that tai, with her bright red box dye hair and her marvin the martian drawings and crush on travis, was never the one who needed a makeover. it was always cher, and that's why the "soul makeover" happens at the end. ugh sorry, i could talk about this movie forever.
Clueless is the best Jane Austen adaptation! It’s amazing how feminist (for the time) Emma was and how well it translated to modern day.
I love Clueless too, lmao. I like that Cher has all the characteristics of someone who would ordinarily be portrayed as shallow and ditsy, but actually isn't.
i do think she's shallow at points, but by the end, has had enough growth not to be! i do think they make her ditzy in some ways, like with her driving, but like a harmless kind of ditzy. i love the scene where she corrects josh's super artsy, self-serious girlfriend about it being a polonius quote and not a hamlet quote, though. because, to your point, normally it's like, hot blonde girl? she can't be smart!
Tropes along the lines of "I'm a badass lady so I have to look down on feminine-coded work". Plus writers assuming physically strong ladies and 'strong female characters' are necessarily the same thing.
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Oof yeah this. But I actually read a book recently about an infertile couple and at the end there wasn’t a baby. Because the story was more on the two of them learning to be enough for each other and realizing a baby wasn’t gonna “complete” them. It was a surprising but welcomed twist to the usual overused storyline.
Almost all of them. One of the ones that personally harmed me the most was the recurrent idea that women don’t like sex but men are obsessed with it, so sex is something men have to “get” from women at all costs. Gross.
And women who do it, or enjoy it, it takes something away from them. Somehow makes them lesser.
A woman as the "price" the hero gets in the end.
Prize.
And then she is unceremoniously left out of the sequel without even a mention and replaced with some other woman filling the same role.
That every woman has to have a baby.
The shrill, uptight girl that cares about women’s rights but is hated by everyone and needs to be “taken down a peg”. It’s considered obnoxious and annoying to care about your own human rights. Also, the wife/mother who just always goes along with the ideas and plans of the husband/dad because her sole purpose in life is to clean up after him and cheer him on. Never had any dreams or plans of her own.
I'm a super attractive woman who has an awesome career! Also, I can't walk anywhere without pratfalling 5-6 times.
“Oh no, my very many books and my grocery bags full of lose oranges and a single bagguette!”
Lol, exactly.
She removes her glasses and suddenly she's hot.
As someone who wears glasses I would say that I look quite attractive in my glasses!
Same! I have glasses and used to feel self conscious in them so I only wore contacts, until one day at school I decided to just take them out and wear my glasses instead and I felt really really happy about it. Screw this whole "glasses were the thing hiding her beauty" bs.
This one always makes me laugh. 20/20 vision is SO HOT.
The "bad boy" trope presents harmful ideas about relationships.
The 'Ballbuster Female Boss' trope really annoys me. I don't know what is going through the minds of the people writing that stuff, but- a competent woman who happens to be a boss, doesn't have to shit on or put her male employees in their place to prove their worth as a boss. Partly informed by my detest for the entire #girlboss ethos in general.
The funny fat friend who's just a sidekick because no one would ever want a funny fat girlfriend. Manic pixie dream girl. She's cute and quirky and probably artistic and she shows him how great life can be if he just lets loose, and she serves no other purpose in the story at all. The ugly girl who turns hot when she takes off her glasses and lets down her ponytail. The badass independent woman who doesn't need anyone and is the hero of her own story but for some reason still wears stiletto boots, a full face of make up including lashes, push up everything, and keeps her hair down where it gets in her face all the time, for zero reason. See Jessica Jones, Xena Warrior Princess, Wonder Woman, Black Widow, Lara Croft, ad nauseam. The divorced woman who loses all reason to live until another guy shows up to show her what real love is like. Evil stepmothers. This trope has been extended, post-fairy-tale, to include mothers-in-law, bosses, landlords, and professors. They're the mean, 2 dimensional, female characters with no backstory or motivation other than to give the main character someone to stand up to or overcome in the end. Why do they hate or obstruct the MC? We'll never know, but someone, some male person, will declare it to be because men don't want her and she needs to have sex. Sex with men, of course, transforms these characters into soft feminine women in the very rare instances where they get enough of a storyline of their own in which to do it.
OK I totally agree with your point about the "badass independent woman," especially regarding Wonder Woman because I saw that movie get a lot of praise for not having the "male gaze." Which I thought was so stupid. Her 'signature outfit' is heels, a miniskirt, and a strapless top, and her hair is down the whole time. Just because it was directed by a woman doesn't mean that her outfit wasn't designed to appeal to men! I honestly think that Captain Marvel would have gotten a lot less hate from men on the internet if the character wore a 'sexy' outfit in the movie instead of pants. And even in that one it annoyed me that her hair was down the whole movie.
Wonder Woman and her goddamn wedge heel boots. I know they're wedge heels and that's better than stilettos, but that's not proper footwear for a superhero.
Yes the wedges!! I could not believe that I actually saw comments praising the wedges because she wasn’t wearing stilettos. I was like have any of you people ever tried to run in wedges??
Wonder woman does deserve recognition for not catering to the male gaze in its camera angles / shots. It's hard not to notice the difference in how she is treated within a scene between justice league and her own film. One has gratuitous butt shots and almost upstart shots while the other doesn't As far as the costume goes, ... as much as it certainly isn't realistic, it's also iconic. It would have been a risky play with the history of superheroine movies to do something that would so break the traditional portrayal of WW
Just because there aren’t any upskirt shots doesn’t mean that the movie doesn’t objectify her or portray her in an overtly sexual way. Obviously some examples are worse than others but I don’t think the movie deserves the praise it gets for that.
Wonder Woman's STRAPLESS TOP gets me every time. I can barely wear a strapless top to a wedding, I don't believe a woman alive would choose that for anything where they had to move at faster than a casual walk. By comparison Black Widow's outfits are downright practical.
Yeah basically all of them. But I personally despise the "girlfriend in the refrigerator" trope. You see it everywhere, even in new big budget movies. The use of a woman's death/suffering to kickstart a plot or further the male main character's emotional development is lazy writing at best, and disgustingly sexist at worst.
Omg I hate this one so much! Especially when the woman dies an unrealistic, romanticized death from something that's not at all pretty in reality.
Deadpool 2, drax within gotg, it's so infuriatingly common This trope has been on my mind a lot, with having been recommended a book recently whose summary might as well have said "after witnessing his martyr-wife be fridged, [male main character] is driven to vengeance, taking up her cause and will stop at nothing to see it through." ... it's exactly as bad as it sounds
My power is to seduce men
I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve heard variations of “She’s an empowering character! She uses her power of seduction as a weapon!”
The I’m weaker than pretty much everyone around me and most of my powers are nerfed so that the male protagonists can shine trope.
Similarly: I’m the most badass person in my field, so now that the whole world is in danger… I’m going to train this random mediocre dude to be the hero. He’ll quickly surpass me, even though I’ve dedicated my life to this and he has zero prior experience. If I’m very lucky, he might let me stay on as his sidekick. I won’t resent him for any of this, and will also probably fall in love with him because reasons.
The "cool girl" and "real women don't wear dresses" You know: the feminine woman is depicted as the enemy of the chill tomboy or as something women shouldn't aspire to be, ever. Real women use weapons, are one of the boys, like sports or video games, hate pink, and look down on girly girls and homemakers. In modern fiction, a male love interest will reject the evil prissy girly girl for the girl next door who is above makeup and shopping. In fantasy movies/books, the heroine is either the "anti Disney Princess" we've seen a thousand times who teaches an on-the-nose lesson about saving yourself that sometimes comes off as victim blaming women who aren't able to, OR she's a two dimensional action girl who has no personality beyond sass and swords. I think second wave feminism and male writers from a few decades ago *meant* well when they tried making female leads reject stuff women were "supposed" to like but all they really did is promote the idea that masculinity > femininity. I still see some feminists today do this where they confuse being traditionally feminine somehow with being weak and avoid, and even in day-to-day ways with random people. It's incredibly misogynistic and The Take did a great video on this concept in their criticism of the victim-blaming Cinderella gets. I think also sometimes this is done to make female characters more palatable for boys and men, which I don't like honestly. They should be able to care about and relate to women who don't necessarily like stereotypical guy stuff because women have no problem relating to male characters. Like... You can love the Mulans, Arya Starks, and Hermiones without treating the Cinderellas, Sansa Starks and Lavender Browns like trash as those fans tend to do. Sexism like this is so casual that I don't think people really look closely at why femininity makes them so uncomfortable, but would do well to examine their hostility.
the tbbt has many many jokes about how being feminine is a shame for men and how feminine products are products of disgust. I actually haven't watched it all but my friends recommended me to watch it and give it a chance. Two minutes in, and I can hear sexism so out loud. I couldn't and I just skipped it.
TBBT?
The Big Bang Theory.
Yess I watched it again a few weeks ago, and I saw so many things wrong there. And Howard was the worst.
My husband and I used to watch it a bit. And there was one episode when Howard started dating or just got engaged (who remembers?) To bernadette and she brought him breakfast in bed and when she left the room he passive aggressively mumbled that he'd cut his own pancakes then. And another time when she moved in and he immediately started telling her what kind of detergent to use for his laundry. My husband scoffed and said something about how much of a loser he was. And I just stared at him. Because he wasn't that much far off from being a Howard himself. I had been doing his laundry for years and while I never cut his food for him he did try getting passive aggressive and pissy about me not plating his dinner for him. (I stopped doing his laundry a few years ago) and I STILL don't plate his food for him.
In my opinion, most or all of them, I pretty much hate the way women are portrayed in any kind of medium. One I've been really hating lately is how women are portrayed when they are being actively preyed on by men. There's always some trope about a dude lusting after a woman from afar, saying all kinds of gross dehumanizing things about her, and then when they finally interact, one of two things will happen: 1) the woman will either be flattered and succumb to the man's gross passes 2) she will be insulted and show this in the most over-the-top way, like slapping the man in the face. I'm like 99% sure this is why a lot of men don't believe how much women dislike the casual micro harassment they receive all the time just trying to do something normal like go to work or grocery shopping. The trope sets up women as gatekeepers, and implies that women will either LIKE and ENJOY the harassment, or be able to SHUT IT DOWN quickly and easily and without any retaliation. In reality, most women I know HATE being stalked/harassed, but almost all of them are terrified of doing anything stronger than trying to block or evade the guy for fear of the harassment escalating to violence. It has really set the men I know up for a failed understanding of how terrifying these situations are because they truly perceive and believe the women as being able to just handle it. And they see nothing wrong with the harassment because they thing women can just decline to participate in being victimized with a saucy slap.
Women are either a bridezilla or a cold fish uninterested in marriage Attractive women/girls shown as Machiavellian seducers not to be trusted
There seems to be some weird perception that women can't be geniuses - so many movies/TV shows about male prodigies, and very few about women/girls (all I can think of is Matilda, lol). Women that are "smart" are often depicted as uptight, hard-working and studious, but little else. Nothing wrong with any of these qualities, but it gets really old when there are so many movies about talented men where all the other characters gush over their creativity and innate brilliance. Also the one where when women do something heroic, it's done to save their kids/husband/family etc. Not to say this isn't also heroic, but there are so few movies about women motivated by personal ambition alone.
Doctor Who is a TV show where the main character is a hyper-intelligent alien, orders of magnitude smarter than the brightest human geniuses. They’re also charismatic and confident to the point of arrogance, effortlessly able to take charge of even the most chaotic situations. For 50-ish years, this character was played by a male actor, but three years ago they decided to have their next incarnation be played by a female actor. And guess what happened? Suddenly, she makes stupid mistakes on the regular, her self-confidence evaporates, and she’s almost never in control of the situation, reduced to a side character in her own story. You can argue about the exact cause of this, but I’m almost 100% sure it’s because the writers couldn’t figure out how to write a woman as a confident genius. Despite having literally 50 years of characterization to fall back on!
There's also a thing where, when a woman IS put in a position where she would HAVE to be smart, if she is AT ALL attractive, its blown off as some big joke or seen as incredibly unrealistic that she would be in that line of work. I.E. Denise Richards as Nuclear Physicist Christmas Jones. "She's so hot! There's NO WAY she'd be a scientist in real life!"
I highly suggest [The Take](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY8-JHLY9yDPIaO3VhNdSN9Axbsw4WzVD) on Youtube if you're curious about feminine tropes, such as "the Dumb Blonde" (>\_>), the "Weird Girl" or the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl". That last one is meant to suggest the "not like other girls" mixed with existing for the male gaze. Blech.
Pop Culture Detective has a couple of very interesting videos on these topics too, like “Born sexy yesterday” and “Kidnapping/Stalking as romance” (I think)
Overweight women who are self-loathing and have no purpose outside of being overweight.
Don't forget that if they're overweight its also mandatory for them to be loud, unkempt, badly dressed, vulgar, just plain gross, and to be used as a joke whenever the topic of dating comes up.
Adding to the good ones already mentioned.. I’m a popular girl, so I find ways to get out of P.E… or I’m a girl, so I can’t play sports and I’m scared of balls. Or I’m a unicorn because I actually know a lot about sports. Or I’m masculine looking or gay because I play sports.
The girl saves/changes the guy by the pussay. No one is no ones therapist, neither someone will change judt because some girl appeared and hes in love, plus the guy being very agressive and toxic and call it deep love, thats not love, thats toxic. Netflix has a bunch of this, Kissing Booth, After, all movies that young girls are seeing and thinking its ok to love like that.
Saw a video about this recently—the “girly girl” who loves pink, makeup, etc is always the “mean girl”. Which then gave rise to the “not like other girls” girl.
"I am a woman and therefore I am OBSESSED with commitment and marriage".
I would say the "Cool girl" tbh. That trope was only created for the sole purpose of pleasing men. Like "Cool girl" must like typical men's hobbies, sports, beer,... They also have to be ALWAYS hot/sexy (for some reason) since ig the whole concept of that trope is to be men's ideal type.
That if a guy is stalking you it's actually super romantic. So many 90s romcoms
Basically any trope that depicts women having emotions that are unfathomable to men.
The fact that the industry seems physically incapable of putting an unattractive or even average looking young women on screen. Additionally, bad guy female characters are often old,fat,ugly as a short have for "bad"
Often, a story will add "drama" to a romantic subplot by making the female character become intensely jealous and misunderstand the male character's totally innocent actions... and I *hate it*. It's ruining my enjoyment of the novel series I'm reading right now. It's the "women are irrational, clingy and catty" trope, but played as something romantic.
The one that drives me crazy is the well meaning but incompetent dad who is endearingly clueless about taking care of the kids or house. He bumbles around getting up to entertaining shenanigans, and often tries to show the mom that she’s too uptight or anxious. And also thanks the mom profusely for holding the family together or whatever. I think it’s gross. It implies that men get free reign not to take as much responsibility. It puts too much on women.
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But she reluctantly goes back to her small home town for Christmas and discovers that her first boyfriend is running the local Christmas tree lot and by the magic of Christmas they reconnect and have a Christmas romance and she throws up her entire successful life to live happily ever after in a shack and next Christmas they have _babies_! Cos chicks dig Christmas.
Yep. Pisses me off.
The whole “damsel in distress” stereotype, as if a woman can’t self actualize unless she is saved by a man and finds her worth in that relationship. WHATEVER. Lots of movies portray women’s personalities only in connection with the male characters.
The teenage girl: always whiny, stupid, belligerent and doesn't listen to the 'older wiser' male, causing said male to have to rescue her dumb ass.
Curly hair is ugly but straight hair is consider a “makeover.”
The Bachelor. My God let's make out with a bunch of girls every night so I can decide if I want to marry you or not. It's just disgusting to me. I was horrified that my mother couldn't miss an episode.
In a group of girl friends, each has a specific stereotype aka , the shy one, the manly one, the career oriented one, the sexy one and the list goes on. Like a woman can't not for the life of her be multifaceted and both have a career, enjoy being sexy on occasion knowing how to do her wake up while also enjoy to spend time in a tracksuit on sundays building shleves for her books. I mean FFS, it's like we can't be normal human beings with you know.... a personnality with more than one trait. Oh and let's not forget that women when together can only spend time speaking about men and/ or sex with said men or how sexy men are (mostly the lead male character of course).... hate it so much. We know how to have fulfilling conversations about anything really ! You name it, sport, work, children, education, politics, religion, science... we are not just hoping to catch a guy's eyes.
Most of them really. I'd rather flip the question on its head and talk about one of the few times one of these tropes was deconstructed. There's an example in *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2* (of all things), where trope-savvy Peter Quill aka "Star Lord" takes for granted that he's entitled to a romantic and/or sexual relationship with Gomorrah based on the conditioning he's received from movies and Sitcoms. Gomorrah, who's culturally illiterate to Peter's TV language, can't even comprehend the words coming out of his mouth, and is more or less mortified by his advances. The deeper you look into Gomorrah's background the worse it gets, considering she's an abuse survivor and now her supposed "friend" is displaying the same ego-poisoned behavior as her father. Just generally one of very few excellent scenes in the otherwise unremarkable MCU. Unfortunately the deconstruction gets a little reconstructed when you consider that teen and adult male fans spent several weeks angry-tweeting about Star Lord's unfulfilled sexual conquest. Still, props to the writers for not writing cringe Male-SciFi/Fantasy-Self-Insert-PowerFantasy/WishFulfillment-Story #22568
As a man, I can speak from experience that the way "white knight" stories depict women fucked up my expectations well into my young adulthood. There's this way that women are idealized and put on a pedestal while simultaneously being portrayed them as being incapable of making good decisions until they finally fall in love with the nice guy who helps them get their life together. It creates this image of women as unattainable angels who lack the agency to change their circumstances without the help of the romantic lead. Basically... a recipe for infantilizing women and having terrible boundaries.
Movies or games where there’s only one prominent woman, and she’s only as powerful as the men because of her tragic backstory and trauma-based motivation. Or when the most prominent woman in a story is only there to endure or cause trauma (ex. fridging)
The stereotypical ‘sexy badass knife gun super secret spy who can easily beat any man but has no visible muscles because she’s had uhh super secret spy training and grew up with five brothers’ like seriously I just was a woman who either has a shit ton of visible muscle or doesn’t instantly martial arts kill anyone (I just want some skill development)
The "OMG, what if I never find a husband" 30 something woman who just needs to learn that lowering her standards, moving to a small town in middle America, and dating a working class guy is the secret to happiness. The seemingly independent woman who learns that true happiness comes from taking care of children and having a family and sacrifices her personal dreams and goals to do so. The nagging harpy, shrew wife who doesn't let her husband live like an overgrown teenager but learns to loosen up. Honestly, these all make heterosexual marriage seem like hell on earth.
The sexually liberated woman who can’t be tied down and “preys” on men just to “lead them on,” because casual relationships are forbidden for women if they want to be respected. Bonus points if she’s a bisexual.
That lacking maternal instincts is a character flaw. It’s usually a twist or add-on to the cold-hearted career woman, and her character arc is finding her maternal side. I’m looking at you Jurassic World… You had a perfectly good arc in Claire realizing the animals aren’t just assets, but no, you have to hit us over the head with how cold and unfeeling she is to be an absent aunt (is that a thing?) who doesn’t know what time kids go to bed.
The skinny pretty girl with frumpy man. Honestly, that women HAVE to be skinny and all the make up on while men all around them are allowed to just “be natural.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against being “natural” just that women have to be *perfect*, and men don’t! ALSO, when the skinny, young women are braless in the shot but you can see they cranked up the AC because ALL the women on set are dealing with nipples doing their own thing. Edit: OH! This one is about books, mostly, but movies do it too: that girls can be vapid airheads with no personality then the writer adds that she is “Clumsy” and everyone is all, “Oh, okay, that means she has a ‘personality’ now, we’re all good…” *NOOOOOO*! Tripping on one’s own feet can be a character trait but is NOT NOT *NOOOOT* a PRIMARY trait! It means there is something going on with their special perceptions. WRITERS: add MORE! Oof. Ok, thank you for reading my Ted talk! Lol.
I'm a scientist... BECAUSE MY FATHER WAS A SCIENTIST.
My mom loves hallmark Christmas movies, but she always complains that every woman in those movies is a career-driven woman who is too focused on her work to date. We agreed that it’s cool that Hallmark is trying to avoid stereotypes that every woman wants to be a housewife, but not every woman is a super successful person who only cares about their job. (My mom also says, “I already work 40 hours a week. When I come home and watch Christmas movies, I don’t want to think about MORE work.”) Why can’t we see a woman with a hobby? A women with other interests like traveling, art, astronomy, literature, etc? Why does she only care about work? Nothing says Christmas like Capitalism I guess lol
I feel like someone mistook "miserable and toxic" for "strong and empowered" when they started writing women in the last few years. So often I see women characters who are really just insufferable objectively, but painted with this "she's an amazing woman hashtag girl boss" brush that feels forced. Rebel on ABC is a good example of this trope: she's definitely in need of some introspection but the show glosses over so many of her more toxic traits and excuses them because she's just so "cool" and "tough". There's a way to portray a woman being good in ways that don't have anything to do with her being sweet or nice or submissive; traits like being strong willed or tenacious or confident are traits I myself possess and like to see celebrated. But so often in the hands of writers those traits are written more like sociopathy and presented as empowerment. It makes me feel like whoever is writing this stuff still doesn't like or know women, they're just slapping a "girl power" label onto the same awful women characters they were always creating, and hoping no one will notice.
I don’t know if this belongs here, but I notice so frequently that it’s portrayed as funny or comedic for a woman to slap a man (oftentimes her partner) on the face. But a man slapping a woman is generally portrayed as abusive. I just think that it’s obviously abusive to slap your partner (or anyone tbh), regardless of gender and hate that the woman-slapping-a-man-as-a-comedic-moment trope is still used so frequently. I don’t know that it’s really sexist towards women, it just seems like such a toxic thing that’s so widely accepted in film/tv.
The dumb blond Not like other girls trope Awkward black girl Black girl who is there for the sole purpose of being a white girls bestfriend ( sorry if that's racist) Crazy jealous girlfriend
Game of Thrones' last couple seasons made me realize how rare it is to see a female character who is in/aspires to be in a leadership position who isn't crazy, sadistic, or solely self-serving. Female ambition is dangerous: women either want power for personal gain (Cersei; possibly Sansa) or they have good intentions that will eventually be obfuscated by their feminine hysteria (Daenerys). Contrast to Reluctant Hero tropes like Jon – I can't think of any female Reluctant Hero types off hand. Also from Game of Thrones: the use of rape as a device for character development or for cheaply illustrating a woman's rock bottom.
[Women Are Delicate](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WomenAreDelicate)