Should This Character Be Male or Female?

For months, I've wondered "What's the best way to pick whether a character should be male or female?"

This started partially because I knew some feminist writers who wanted more female characters, so it made me wonder what justification I had for making a character male or female.

It started partially when people kept asking for superhero movies with female main characters.

It started partially because I had a character who was male in the initial idea, but as the character changed more and more, the character eventually turned into a female, but the fact that the character was male or female had nothing to do with the plot, so it made me wonder "How should I decide whether I should make this character male or female?"

After looking at various strong female characters and asking various writers their opinions, here are the answers I've formulated so far.

How to write a character's gender:

1) Check to see if any part of the story is dependent on the character's gender.

Check if that part of the story needs to be dependent on the character's gender.

2) Check what effect the character has on the audience based on the character's gender.

Parker from Leverage is your stereotypical weird character - almost like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory, but slightly less of a jerk. funnier because she's a girl. If she were a guy, she might come across as someone who tests your patience (like the Eleventh Doctor from Doctor Who).

Whereas if the Tenth Doctor (from Doctor Who) were a girl, that character wouldn't be very interesting. He's much more interesting as a guy.

I once wrote a character who needed to be absolutely adorable to the audience to get the story's theme across. For a little while, I tried making that character a girl to see what effect it would have on the audience. As a guy, this exact character is adorable. As a girl, this exact character might be a little annoying or seem weak. So I kept him as a guy so he would get the right effect on the audience.

Not every character will have the same situation as Parker, the Tenth Doctor, or this character I was working on. Look at what effect your exact character has on the audience depending on the character's gender.

3) Check what effect the characters' gender has on the other characters.

A charming female character might have a harder time charming women but a better time charming men.

A charming male character might have an easier time charming women but a harder time charming men.

It all depends on who the character is and who characters are around that character.

4) If you're writing a story that requires the help of others (like a film, radio show, or stageplay), check what resources you have.

Is only one person logistically able to play the role? Do you only know one person who could really pull off that role? Did you write the character with a certain person in mind to play that character? Then make the character into that person's gender.

5) Check if the rules of the world demand that the character is a particular gender. If the rules of the world are "women don't have as much power in this world" and you need the character to have power, a male would make sense with the story. If the rules of the world say "The women are the fighters in this world" and you need your character to be a fighter, it makes sense to have the character to be a woman.

6) If the character is the same in all of those ways, just pick a gender and call it good.

How to NOT write a character's gender:

1) Don't make the character's gender about based on anything but story, character, and logistics.

As soon as someone starts making story choices (even as small as a character's gender) based on politics instead of based on story or character, politics starts to become more important than story or character in the other parts of the work and the story and character suffer when something becomes more important than story and character.

2) Don't make the character's gender a major character trait.

Most of the female characters who truly are "strong female characters" are strong characters because they are characters who happen to be female. This was how Joss Whedon and George R.R. Martin said they each wrote strong female characters.

And when you look at the female characters in Parks and Recreation, the fact that they are female has very little to do with their characters. That's part of what makes them well-made characters - they are well-made characters first, and they are a particular gender second.

Likewise, when a character's main trait is that he's "manly", the character is pretty boring unless he takes that manliness to eleven like Ron Swanson (from Parks and Recreation) and The Man Your Man Could Smell Like (from the Old Spice commercials) do. So whether you want to write a character whose gender is male, female, or one of the non-binary genders, make sure that gender isn't a major character trait. Instead, make the character an interesting and fleshed out character who just so happens to be a particular gender.

Does representation matter? Of course it does. People should relate to characters in ways that let the audience know "I can do hard things". But (and here's where people are going to start disagreeing with me), I think gender is the most superficial way that someone could relate to a character, except maybe race. In fact, pretty much any label is a pretty superficial way to make someone relate to a character.

I'm Mormon, and I don't relate to, well... any Mormon character. The Mormon twins from Ocean's 11, 12, and 13 are so unlike me that I don't relate to them at all. Their "Mormon-ness" actually gets in the way of me relating to their characters, since being Mormon usually implies certain things about a character that are never shown in the Ocean's franchise. The Mormon characters from the Kirby Heyborne comedies are usually paper-thin characters that sometimes even designed to mock their character type (like Will Swenson's character on The Singles Ward), so I don't relate to them at all. I don't think "If the characters on 17 Miracles could accomplish their big task, then so can I", because Mormon-ness isn't enough to make me say "They are like me."

I'm male, and I don't relate to every male character. I especially don't relate to a character just because he's male.

I hope that females don't start relating to characters just because they're female. If they do, then we really don't have enough different female characters in the media, because both women and men should be able to relate to a character based on character traits.

A cheery workaholic would relate to Leslie Knope more than Ron Swanson whether the workaholic is male or female.

A misanthrope would probably relate to April Ludgate more than Andy Dwyer, regardless of the misanthrope's gender. Someone who was raised on TV would relate to Abed Nadir when they watch Community, regardless of the viewer's gender. People might think that I'm not necessarily in favor of having more female representation in shows. I am in favor of well-written characters, whether they're male or female. And I am in favor of people getting the message "Your story is important, too". I'm not in favor of a character being female only so the character can be female or so the movie can say "Your story is important, too". Because honestly, if Hollywood and "the media" think that every woman will relate to Wonder Woman just because she's a girl, that's kind of lumping every girl into one person by assuming that a woman's only character trait is "being female". That's kind of a low look at women. I think a character can be male or female and still have the purpose of female representation be more effectively fulfilled as long as the character shares deeper character traits with the audience than just the character's gender.