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Original poster

The Bechdel Test

52 replies

illcounttothree · 17/06/2014 22:42

Hoping someone can help me out.....

I've nearly finished writing a book. It's a young adult novel about swords and sorcery and snogging, and I want it to pass the Bechdel Test. I have some really interesting female characters and they have plenty to say that isn't about boys or men.

And because I like a challenge, I don't want there to be just one conversation not about boys or men (which I believe is the requirement) but I want the protagonist to have a non-boy conversation with every other female character.

So here's my question: for a conversation to pass the Bechdel Test, are you allowed to mention a boy/man in passing, or is it strictly No Men Allowed? There's one bit where my protagonist is talking to her mother about when her crazy, uncontrollable psychic powers started to manifest themselves in her childhood, and her dad gets mentioned in passing. In a 1700-word conversation, her dad is mentioned twice for a total of 60 words. Does this conversation pass the Bechdel Test?

I'm genuinely interested in people's thoughts on this!

OP posts:
rinabean · 17/06/2014 23:40

The Bechdel Test is at its core a lesbian test, ie is there anyone in this that you could reasonably ship (assuming that like in most things there aren't any actual lesbians). It's not really a 'feminist' test, there are things that are very feminist but don't pass, things that are not feminist or are even anti-feminist but pass.

"I have some really interesting female characters and they have plenty to say that isn't about boys or men." sounds good. You don't need to be adding up the number of characters in a words that reference males.

Bifauxnen · 17/06/2014 23:35

Tbh you'd be better just writing good women characters. The Bechtel test doesn't measure how good or how feminist a film is, or how good the women characters are, so it's not a test as such. It's a tool that highlights representation (or rather lack of representation).