How to Balance Writing Strong Female Characters and Strong Male Characters

The other night, I was watching Illumination’s new movie, Migration (What? You say young adults can’t watch animated children’s movies? Well I did, and I’m not ashamed).

It was a pretty good movie, as far as they go– I was pleased to see a lack of political agenda, and the characters were sweet, although the plot could use some work (then again, it was about a family of Mallard ducks migrating to Jamaica, so what did I expect?)

But the biggest problem I found was one that I come across many times in movies: while Mac, the father of the Mallard family, was everlastingly supportive of his wife Pam, I didn’t see a single scene in the movie where Pam supported anything Mac said, especially when talking to or reprimanding their ducklings.

Subsequently, just this morning I was looking up book reviews for a UHB (Unidentified Hardback Book). The novel had several poor reviews on the basis that the novel was too “sexist”, with the girl being a complete damsel in distress.

I sat back and looked at both sides, wondering why it’s so hard to find books with happy mediums. It’s either the girls are strong and the guys are weak (more common in modern-day media), or the guys are strong and the girls are weak, and we never have a healthy balance of both genders having their strengths and weaknesses. Now with woke agendas running rampant, the idea that “it doesn’t matter what gender you’re born with, you can choose what gender you want to be” is aggressively injected into secular TV, movies, books, and more.

What’s a writer to do? Everyone loves movies with spunky female characters and submissive males. And the modern world has been so poisoned against guys being the strong ones that even the word “sexist” makes people want to run and hide.

Well, today I’m going to share how to write characters that balance both sides: strong males, AND strong females, by taking examples from popular TV shows and books.

Before we begin, it’s important to know: I believe in the absolute truth of the Bible. The Bible states that God made humans male and female. So I’m only dealing with male and female genders in this article.

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Why the Commotion?

Why is there so much clamor and arguments over gender roles? Just last month, a football player making a commencement speech to a group of Catholic college students mentioned the high calling of being a mother and a wife. This brought him a host of backlash.

Why is our modern world so antagonistic against females being female, and males being male?

Some of these fears have reasonable roots. A little over a century ago, women couldn’t vote because of sexism. During World War II, women got a taste of the “man’s world” while all of the boys were across the sea at war, and since then it seems we’ve been on a fast track to destroying anything that suggests men and women are “different”.

But it’s more than that. Because along with this “anything you can do I can do better” ideology, the rise of gender fluidity has come with it. Suddenly you don’t have to be male or female: you can be genderless, like cacti, and certain species of fish.

If you want my opinion, it’s all centered around the role of men.

I don’t know who originally said this, but I once heard the quote, “When the men are weak, the country is weak. When the men are strong, the country is strong.” And this doesn’t just apply to physical strength– it’s also moral strength.

We are told in our modern-day culture that chivalry and all the ideals of men being the strong protectors of their families is sexist and wrong. For a man to be masculine is almost blatantly labeled as something shameful.

It’s part of Satan’s attack on the family and fathers. Satan HATES families, and he especially hates fathers. Why? Because that’s what God wants to be to us: a perfect Father, loving, protecting, and disciplining his children. It makes Satan gag. So what’s the best way to drive people away from God?

Start demonizing fathers. Make masculinity something abusive and abominable.

Now, please note, I am NOT in any way trying to say that abuse doesn’t happen– it does, and I hurt deeply for those who have gone through it. My own family has not escaped this scourge of abuse that sin has brought in this world.

But at the same time, we as Christian writers, who probably have more impact on the world than anyone else with the power of written word, must stand up to these lies. We have the power to change the mindset with our pens.

God made them in His image, male and female, and He called it good. This is the truth that we are supposed to write. Both males and females have their strengths and their weaknesses, and the beautiful part is, God designed us so that we would balance each other out and reflect His glory.

The question is, how do we as writers express this truth without falling into the extremes ourselves?

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Being Strong Doesn’t Mean Making Others Look Weak (AKA Don’t Use the Doofenshmirtz Method)

Dr. Doofenshmirtz isn’t much of a villain, as far as antagonists go. None of his plans ever work, and most of them are honestly quite ridiculous.

But one of the catchphrases that he almost always uses when explaining the plan to Perry the Platypus is “making everyone/thing else (fill in the blank) by comparison”.

Doofenshmirtz seeks to be greater than other people by taking something away from them. And that is honestly the core of the gender role problem. See, we don’t have to make the male characters weaker to make the females look stronger by comparison. And we don’t need to make the females weaker to make the males stronger by comparison. We can have both.

Take the story of Esther, for example. Was Mordecai any weaker because he wasn’t the one to go before the king and plead for his people? No! He was the messenger, keeping people updated and spending much time on his knees pleading for the Lord’s help. He was the one who encouraged Esther to do what needed to be done. And that took courage.

Part of what makes something strong is that it can be so without something else needing to be weaker. And as writers, it’s important that we don’t cheat our readers by making one sex weaker so the other looks stronger by comparison. No, women are not as physically strong as men– but this isn’t a “someone else’s gain is your loss” situation. We were made to be different. Women are strong in different ways than men. Our differences compliment each other.

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t make women physically strong or have the same career roles as men. As many qualms as I have about the TV series Ninjago, especially in its later years, one of the things I appreciated was that the girl characters could kick butt as well as the boys. BUT the boys were strong too, and they didn’t have to make them weak to make the girls look strong. There can be a balance of the girls being tough AND feminine.

So how do strong females and strong males work in romances?

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Chivalry Is Not Dead

At some point in history, the old manner rules that a man should hold open a door for a lady, get her chair, or numerous other similar actions were labeled as “sexist” and horrendously old-fashioned. Nowadays if a man were to hold open a door for a lady, she would be offended rather than touched.

Among the vast majority of married couples in fiction, especially children’s shows, the men are very submissive to their wives. Almost too submissive. And rarely do you see such respect towards the man on the woman’s part.

Part of this stems from another poisonous ideology. In the Bible, it says that women should submit to their husbands, and taken out of context this verse was used to justify abuses and disrespect. But that isn’t the context of the verse at all.

The Greek word for submit in that passage really means “to lift up”. And that takes strength! When the Bible says women should submit to their husbands, what it really should be read as is “women should support their husbands”. And it’s mentioned within that passage that men should protect and love their wives, not the love of romantic passion, but the hard, Christ-like love that does not envy or boast, but is patient and kind. Love takes sacrifice, and I don’t think we see enough of that in media.

How does this adhere to writing romance? Well, one great example of this is found in the original Star Wars trilogy and the prequels. Leia and Padme both know their ways around a blaster and are more than capable of defending themselves. But what else do we see? We see Padme believing and telling Anakin that he can fight the darkness and return to the light, even on her deathbed. We see Leia softening the calloused Han Solo and helping him learn that there is much more to life than money.

On the flip side, we can take a note from Nova McBee’s book Calculated, as Kai Chan, who’s had to fight his own inner darkness over the years, subsequently helps Jo Rivers learn that there are people that she can rely on. Kai becomes a safe place for her to let her guard down.

Or in Dee Henderson’s O’Malley series. In every book, there is a romance, and the men respect what the girls can do, the girls respect what the guys can do, and even the tomboyish Lisa isn’t afraid to ask for help from a guy when there’s a problem she can’t handle on her own.

Strong male and female characters don’t need mere sexual attraction to be in love. Strong romance comes when they are willing to work toward love. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 says, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

Note that it doesn’t say, “A wife should always agree with her husband no matter what” or “a husband can never instruct his wife”. This kind of love applies to all people, but it especially applies to romance.

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So, How Do We Do It?

So the question is, how do we as writers do this?

1. There is nothing shameful in gender-specific roles. I think there’s something beautiful in the female hero settling down to take care of a family. And we need more dads who are strong, loving protectors.
2. Don’t use the Doofenshmirtz ideology when it comes to your characters. One person’s gain is not another person’s loss, and there is nothing worthwhile from trying to make yourself look better by comparison.
3. Female characters can still be tough! But they don’t have to be as tough as the guys to have worth. They can kick butt all day, but don’t be afraid to make them take a hot bubble bath for the fun of it afterwards.
4. If you have romance, part of that process is the characters learning to support each other. Show that process. Show the difficulties of being different from each other and how the beauty of romance and marriage brings that together.
5. Don’t be afraid to make your guys masculine and your girls feminine.

(BTW, if you want more tips on writing male characters, check out my article: How to Write Strong Male Characters)

In our world, it’s really hard to find good examples of how to write balanced characters. And in a world where we are told we can choose our gender, we as writers need to speak up and write stories that advocate and support the individual strengths of the male and female characters.

Some of my favorite books that have excellent examples of this are:

• The Fireborn Epic, by Gillian Bronte Adams
• All books by Dee Henderson
• The Bible
• The Calculated series, by Nova McBee
• The Hybrid duology, by Candace Kade
• Wayfarer by K.M. Weiland
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• Fawkes by Nadine Brandes
• Extension Squad by R.M. Scheller

As we are surrounded by the intense confusion surrounding gender this month, it’s important to remember truth, and our roles as writers to speak and write it.

So, go out and write some awesome, strong male and female characters.