What is a Strong Female Character?

Storm was strong on many levels. She had to prove herself to Cyke, but she also had to prove herself TO herself- her leadership of the X-Men in many ways conflicted with her life-affirming philosophy. She had to balance the job she was doing against her relationship with Kitty, amongst others. She had to decide to get her powers back, even though she had come to terms with losing them, for the good of the team. She had to decide to die, to save the world. What more do you want?

I would have confidence in your writing and ignore all the crazy people with their deconstructive microscopes. If you engage anyone about the portrayal of your women, they will most likely make you feel like a bad person for having written someone the way you did. A lot of "strong women" characters are considered strong because they are preoccupied with showing up men. Don't go that route.

Strong female character? Well, a lot of people will throw around the names of their favorite characters and tend to justify it with a ridiculously long post that very few people have the intention of reading. I, myself, am tempted to state Psylocke as a strong character. However, that is debatable, and when I get down to it, I do not honestly believe that she has been written that strong for many years. So for the sake of a clear answer and clear example, I will point to one character, the aforementioned Storm.

To me, there is not a stronger character, male or female, than Storm (except before the Xavier-is-a-jerk trend started). I think this starts with her mutant power and the manner in which she holds it in check and displays such self-control. Women characters in the Marvel Universe tend to lack this, doing whatever they please, following their own passion, whatever it may be, but Storm exercises self-control. Due to her emotions being so closely tied to her abilities, this launches Storm's self-control of her emotions as the highest priority to Storm, and she keeps it in check, and we kind of expect that from her, because she has become so good at it, but it undermines her constant achievement. In a comic world where women can be written to be emotional and following their passions ("doing their own thing"), Storm operates independently, though not exclusively from, her emotions and passions. 

More so, Storm has not been defined by who she was dating. Often women characters in comics have been known to be the "girlfriends". This has never been the case with Storm. I think that's part of what made her marriage to Black Panther so pure, because it wasn't a gimmic, it was between equal characters who have made it on their own. From a characer point of view, this shows great strength on Storm's part to not be afraid to be alone as opposed to settling, dating for the sake of dating, or being an appendage.

She doesn't victimize herself. Many characters find their weaknesses overbearing, their life's choices too hard to deal with. Storm has both, but doesn't let either define her. She has claustraphobia, but that doesn't define her like Rogue's (former) insecurity in not being able to touch another person. Mostly because Storm never let herself, never victimizing herself because she was black, because she was a woman, or because she is a mutant.

Perhaps most prominently is her moral code. Storm is a woman with high standards for morals, and she lives them out. She is a moral rock, quite honestly, in a mansion full of adultery, lies, and a bunch of other crap. Unafraid of the climate she is in, she takes control and moves the dream forward.


I guess if I had to sum it up in one word, it would be independent. Not independent as "I need no man," but operating independent of (not exclusive from) emotions, perception of her passions, whether anyone else is doing the right thing,...and independent of herself. It is this selfless effort that pushes the dream of Charles Xavier effort.

Whats really interesting about this question (and I'm glad you asked it) is that it open ups the double standard of race/gender in comics. I mean no one has criticized you for asking what does it take to write a "strong Woman" in comics, which means that everyone accepts that it is a hard task and that it is something to do carefully. (It kinda has this underlying,unsaid point that we can all agree on what constitutes a strong woman). But whenever we talk about racial/ethnic diversity or non-heterosexual characters in comics, people act as though it is something that is just easy to do, like a white, American Anglo-Saxon middle-class writer might not have difficulty in portraying a character like Luke Cage or maybe a Thai character "properly" (again this makes the assumption that their is some "proper" model). I find that to be hypocritical. If we can accept that a male writer to convey this idea of a "strong" female character is a slightly difficult task, then the same should apply to writing ethnic/racial minorities or LGBTQ characters. I hope that made sense

Originally posted by Blackcyclops Whats really interesting about this question (and I'm glad you asked it) is that it open ups the double standard of race/gender in comics. I mean no one has criticized you for asking what does it take to write a "strong Woman" in comics, which means that everyone accepts that it is a hard task and that it is something to do carefully. (It kinda has this underlying,unsaid point that we can all agree on what constitutes a strong woman). But whenever we talk about racial/ethnic diversity or non-heterosexual characters in comics, people act as though it is something that is just easy to do, like a white, American Anglo-Saxon middle-class writer might not have difficulty in portraying a character like Luke Cage or maybe a Thai character "properly" (again this makes the assumption that their is some "proper" model). I find that to be hypocritical. If we can accept that a male writer to convey this idea of a "strong" female character is a slightly difficult task, then the same should apply to writing ethnic/racial minorities or LGBTQ characters. I hope that made sense

Interesting that CC (in his heyday) was so good at writing strong (but not stereotypical) women. Storm is the obvious example, but we also have Kitty, Dani and Ilyana.

I'm thinking about this whole "strong character" thing...

I think that the term "strong" is very subjective. My definition of stong may be different then yours , different from person ___. I think it would be helpful if you defined the parameters you are referring to.

Edited by Moreprint4Onyxx - 29-Dec-2009 at 4:12pm

Being a strong female character doesn't necessarily mean being a good one does it? (Good as in righteous, not as in interesting)

By your definitions it seems Mystique would be a very strong female character.

I also believe that villains can be strong characters. Strength does not necessarily mean having a moral core and a lot of scruples. It depends on what each one considers to be a defining trait that makes a female character worth remembering.

Originally posted by InsipidLust These are all interesting observations, and really I posted this rather believing that I would receive a number of different views on the subject. Blackcyclops brought up a good point about the double-standard of people finding "strong women" difficult to write but no one ever seeming to ask about ethnic characters or characters of alternative sexuality, but I think that's because those things are still considered somewhat taboo topics of discussion. Perhaps this is not true in all social circles, but I don't know of many places where one could throw down the kid gloves and really discuss what it takes to write a realistic "black" character, for example, because in my eyes at least while there is a kind of cultural flora that grows amongst people of a certain race (for the most part, though this isn't always true) one person's experience as a black man is likely to be different from anothers. The problem with asking a question like that is this, I think: Women and men are visibly separated in terms of their roles from birth most of the time; as times have become more progressive the division between races has become a little less blurred in our countries and though the mass media still set races apart from one another in a lot of ways I think most people understand the underlying truth of our humanity--that despite the color of our skin we are really all of the same race, that race being human.Still, when an ethnic group receives violent treatment in a medium, groups will rise to protest that on occasion--I just don't think it is as common for ethnic or sexual groups as it has been with women and I think a lot of that is because while writers and such tend to be very careful with their use of ethnicity a lot of writers tend to do just about what ever the hell they want with women.But also, strong female characters are basically the meat in terms of the characters within the X-men, so opinions on them are ripe I think. Anyone can form a sound opinion on their portrayal because everyone who has ever read an X-book has seen one.

Honest truth? You lost me. I don't know what you are saying.

Ok, I THINK I understand. To equate, there are very few writors who can portray gay characters with any kind of reality. One of the few good points I will give Fraction is that he treated Northstar as just another character, with a relationship, like anyone else.

I agree with Crutey's base point in that I think it doesn't seem like there's an awful lot of difference between a strong male and a strong female character, other than a strong female needs to be seen as being slightly mentally/emotionally stronger than social norms have us believe our expectations should be.

But then back to the point-- you have characters like Storm who, in my eyes, transcend expectations that comic fans have of women, black people, African people and someone with such a tragic history. In fact, the only real evidence of her early-life trauma that manifests is her claustrophobia. Kitty Pryde's first appearance, she makes a comment like "Gee, Ororo, we have black kids at our school, but none of them look like you,", which for the time is a fairly innocent comment-- No, I imagine there are incredibly few white-haired, blue-eyed black women in the real world, but if someone was to make a comment like that to a 'developing' black character, it would be seen as somewhat racist. Storm always HAD to be a strong character, on the basis that she was (one of, if not THE) first black female super-hero. Had she had a fairly bland personality, she wouldn't have seemed so strong a character. Whilst she is a very moral person, she also accepts that there are times when she may need to deviate from these morals in order to do the right thing-- such as ripping out Marrow's bomb-heart.