Cat Fight In The Kitchen-Wattpad Rant

Things Writers Need to Stop Doing with their Female Characters

I have another list. It’s about: Things Writers Need to Stop Doing with their Female Characters 

1. Making makeup the enemy

This is true in more than one instance in almost every story. A) The main character never wears makeup because she thinks it’s slutty, B) You can pick out the “mean girl” by all the “makeup caked on her face making her look as fake as she is”, C) The MC doesn’t really get attention until she gets a makeover and starts wearing makeup.

Not wearing makeup does not make you a martyr. Wearing makeup does not make you a slut.

I’m not one of those people that believes in the natural beauty thing or the makeup should only be used to ENHANCE your features. I just don’t. It’s probably due to the fact that I’m one of those super crazy people that thinks of things in terms of shadow and gradient instead of line and shape. That makes a huge difference.

But I don’t think there’s a good enough reason to try to control whether or not people should have the right to.

Pretending that people who don’t wear makeup are prudes and people who wear makeup are fake is horrible. Seriously, it’s gotta stop. There’s a multitude of reasons people choose whether or not to wear makeup and none of them are bad.

If someone wants attention, fine. If they do it for themselves, great. If they don’t like how it feels or looks, awesome. Why is it always an issue? Stop it.

2. Making sex the enemy

This has several examples too: A) The MC’s arch nemesis is a girl that sleeps around, B) the MC has to “fix” the player, C) The MC is the last virgin standing.

I don’t think I’ve seen a Wattpad story where the female MC wasn’t a virgin and that was okay. Seriously, sex doesn’t make you a bad person. A guy (or girl) that likes sleeping around isn’t a project. Bouncing from person to person doesn’t make you evil.

There a lot of religions that will tell you that’s how it is, but I don’t think that. Whether you do or don’t, that’s great, just stop trying to make virginity a statement and quit trying to shame people.

If they’re a virgin, great. If they’re not, great. It’s all good. Some people like sex. Some people don’t. It’s not bad. It’s not a statement.

I don’t understand why sex was once a taboo but now it’s like an obstacle.

What do you people have against this? It’s like the MC has to be a virgin (because that’s the only way she’s worth anything) until she meets the love interest then she turns into some sort of Kama Sutra master.

That’s super cute, but no. Stop making your female MC hate anyone who has sex until she has it. That’s not cute either and it’s incredibly self-righteous.

3. Making all other females the enemy

How many times do we have to have the queen bee and her two little pawns being the enemy? It’s okay for girls to have girl and guy friends.

Just because my best friend was a guy doesn’t mean I hated every girl. On the contrary, I just liked being friends with everyone I could! You know how I decide who I wanted to be friends with? Whether or not they’re nice to me. Not whether they were a dude or a chick.

I love how we always blame guys and society for objectifying us, but really we are our own worst enemy. Seriously, whenever I hear people putting women down, 95% of the time, it’s another woman.

That makes me sad. C’mon. Girls are cool. We should have girlfriends. It’s cool. It’s okay.

4. Making bodies the enemy

I’ve said this over and over and over. I can’t get any clearer.

5. Making emotions the enemy

Seriously, ladies. How many of us are emotionless (I actually had a friend tell me yesterday she’s pretty sure I don’t have emotions and for some reason I found that as a compliment. I shouldn’t have. There’s nothing wrong with emotions.)

At least once a month I’m sure we’ve all had moments when we just wanted to scream or cry or throw something into a wall. It’s irrational and it’s annoying, but it’s real.

But we make our female characters suppress them because they’re “weakness”?

Having a female MC that cries or gets angry or irrationally upset doesn’t make her weak. It doesn’t take away from her kick-assness. Trust me, I struggle with this too, but it’s okay.

It’s frustrating to have a comment on a chapter complaining that a girl is being a bitch when she wants to have an emotional episode. But we girls have so many hormones and cycles and chemicals that we don’t have the luxury of being emotionless.

If guys had this much shit going on, they’d be emotional too. (I told my best friend that one time and he just told me it sounded horrifying. So I’d say he understands pretty well.)

Can we stop calling a female MC weak when she has an off moment or a slight meltdown? It’s okay. It’s normal. It’s natural. They don’t automatically make her needy or worthless. They make her real.

6. Making intelligence the enemy

All the slutty evil girls are dumb and the female MC is really smart, but that’s why she’s unpopular and doesn’t have any friends. Yeah, heard it. I’m not impressed.

Seriously I’ve never seen anyone ostracized in real life for being smart. Never. And I’ve been around (wait…that sounded so bad).

Can we have a female MC that makes good grades because she cares but that doesn’t make her a loser? It’s great to be smart. But it’s also okay if she isn’t a genius, top of the class, grade- A student. It’s okay if she needs extra help or tutoring. That doesn’t make her any less of a person.

Seriously, not having to study is great. But studying is incredibly useful. It builds character (I had a teacher that used to tell us that.)

Smarts aren’t the enemy whether you have them or not.

7. Making society the enemy

If someone calls you a bitch or a slut those words only have as much power as you let them. I’ve been called far worse than that by far better people and it doesn’t bother me. Why? Because tearing other girls down isn’t a good way to get yourself on top.

So what if sometimes I’m moody? Call me a bitch. It’s cool. But sometimes it helps me flip a switch and be a little agitated. Why do you think I have a rant book?

So what if I have nothing against sex? Call me a slut, but I like exercise. It’s not a big deal.

I’m going to tell you something my dear rhetoric teacher told me my sophomore year in college: they’re just words. You don’t have to let them mean anything. Stop blaming society for everything. Sometimes, you gotta be the change you so desperately want (I swear that’s a quote…that’s a quote, right?)

Words are what you make them. And I get it. It’s really, really hard to not be bothered when people are calling you names and such (especially in high school when you have no idea who the hell you are). But I’m going to tell you this one more time: words are only as valuable as you make them.

Stop blaming society for all a characters problems. Take a stand. Don’t let that language define the mood of your story and don’t let them guide your plot

Girls, we are cool. Let’s start recognizing that!

So what do you guys think? Anything to say or add? It’s cool. Go for it. I love hearing what you guys think. You guys are smart, lovely, funny, adorable people. That’s pretty damn cool.