The Bechdel Test: The First Step Toward Equal Gender Representation In Fiction

 You may have heard of the Bechdel Test, but for those who aren't familiar, it's a three-step test to determine how well a work represents women. To pass, a work of fiction must:

1. Have at least two female characters...
2. ....who talk with each other...
3. ...about something other than men.

It's a simple test, and one that doesn't account for many potentially problematic elements regarding women, but it's a quick and easy way to determine whether the creator of a work made a serious effort to include women.

Step 1: Two Female Characters

This is the most obvious step, but you may be surprised by how many works of fiction can't even manage this. Obviously, many works don't include any women at all in notable roles, albeit sometimes for understandable reason (for example, a war movie in a time in which females were prohibited from serving), but many others choose to have only the most basic representation of women, known as "The Smurfette Principle," which has a few problems.

First, including a single woman is rather lazy. Women make up roughly half the population, and while not all works need a 50-50 split between the genders, it's fairly noticeable when only one member of the cast is female.

Second, the sole female character tends to be defined by her status as a female, as if her gender is the only notable thing about her.

Third, the female character often ends up being defined by her relationship with a male character, usually the lead's love interest. I'll go into more detail on Step 3.

With a few exceptions(for example, a work in which there's only a handful of characters and/or the characters only work if they're male), there's generally no good reason to not make at least two characters in your story female, so this should be the easiest one to pass. Now comes the trickier part- getting the characters to interact.

Step 2: Talking With Each Other

This seems like the least obvious step, but if you think about it, there are good reasons why the two or more female characters should interact with each other.

For starters, it's almost inevitable that any recurring characters will end up interacting, at least a little. While The Lord of The Rings has three notable female characters- Arwen, Galadriel and Eowyn- and they play significant roles in the story, none of them end up meeting.

Characters' interactions often bring out new sides of themselves, and in Fire Emblem, the Support system is a good example of this. For example, in Three Houses, Ingrid's supports with Dedue show her overcoming her prejudice against the people of Duscur, while her supports with Dimitri explore how her fiance Glenn's death affected both of them. On the other hand, Faye from Shadows of Valentia only has one support chain with someone besides Alm- Silque, whose attempts at befriending her she rebuffs for the first two thirds of the chain- which helps reinforce how Faye's life revolves around Alm. While Ingrid can't reach A supports with any female characters for some reason, at least she has more meaningful relationships than Faye, who can't even support with her other childhood friends, does.

Another reason why this step exists is that in many cases, females who only exist to be the male protagonist's love interest will seldom talk with anyone besides that love interest, or perhaps the male lead's romantic rival, and thus end up as a "Satellite Love Interest" who is only defined as the love interest of the protagonist and has no other meaningful relationships. The male character doesn't have to be their love interest- it can be their father, their brother, a male teacher or some other person- but an unfortunately large number of female characters are defined by their relationships with males.

This step is a bit trickier than the first, but it shouldn't be too hard to think of a situation in which two female characters can sit down for a one-on-one conversation. As for the subject, that leads us to Step 3.

Step 3: Talking About Things Besides Men

This step is more obvious than #2, if not as obvious as #1.

What characters talk about generally shows what they're interested in. Not only is it borderline sexist to have female characters obsess over male love interests, but it's also rather boring, to boot. Giving a female character some interests apart from the men in her life helps make her a bit more interesting.

Similar to what I expressed in the Step 2 section, plot-relevant characters tend to be involved in plot-relevant discussions. Good writers have to use their dialogue efficiently to advance the plot- exposition, character development, worldbuilding, etc.- so Satellite Love Interest characters' scenes tend to solely be devoted to their romance with their love interests. Having females talk about the story, and do so with each other, gives them a bit more agency and relevance to the plot.

Additionally, in many works with male-dominated casts, men are the only ones who do things worth talking about, so the female characters inevitably talk about male characters most of the time even if their arcs don't revolve around them. This can be true for some works that pass the test, but for many works, failing this step is a symptom of having a plot that's solely driven by men.

This step is probably the most difficult to pass without going out of one's way to do so, but if the story has a significant female cast that is relevant to the plot, it should happen naturally.

Shortcomings

So the story you're writing, or one you enjoy viewing, managed to pass the Bechdel Test. Does that mean that it's achieved gender equality? Not necessarily.

It's possible for a work to give female characters little personality or agency while still passing the Bechdel Test. For example, imagine a TV series in which the two main characters, Alice and Beth, are purely defined by their relationships with their crushes and  have few interests beyond fashion and picking up boys. All it would take is one conversation about clothes to make the series pass the test, despite the fact that the two are not good female characters.

The Bechdel Test is also a rather low bar to jump over, especially depending on the work. Two female characters may not be much to ask for if the cast numbers in the dozens, and one scene that fulfills the requirements is hardly significant if the series goes on for years; this may be why it's mainly applied to movies, which are usually one and a half to two and a half hours long and have relatively small cast sizes.

There are many other gender-related issues in fiction- double standards, "fridging" female characters, and so on and so forth- that are a bit harder to detect in a test. This is partly because those issues are a bit more debatable than the issue of female representation; for example, the plot twist in the first chapter of Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony is either a brilliant twist or a waste of a strong character's potential, depending on who you ask. As such, it's harder to tell whether a work has those problems, much less identify them in a simple three-step test.

Conclusion

Passing the Bechdel Test is not necessarily proof that a work treats female characters as equal to males. However, the Bechdel Test is useful in other ways. It's a simple test with quantitative standards(two female characters, one dialogue scene that does not involve men), so it's easy to tell whether a work passes or fails. As such, passing the test is nothing to celebrate, but the test is a good way to tell how serious a work is about representing females among the cast.