Caution: Memetic Vector

[cdave]

At a recent BSFA interview I asked Jaine Fenn if she had heard about Charles Stross applying Bechdel test to his books, as her first novel was one of the few I had read recently that did have women talking to each other about something besides a man. She said at the time that she hadn't heard of that test, but hadn't written a strong female lead by accident. She's just realised that her next two novels don't pass.

I need to update my reading list for the year. It's tempting to apply the test to all the books as I do so.

Comments

[cdave]

JSpam IP:110.132.116.195

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Can i finally admit to getting a bit fed up with fandom's obsession with this test? i mostly read non genre fiction - yes a fair bit written by women and really quite a lot of it involves women having conversations that aren't about men! This is methinks primarily a sf/fantasy genre problem (perhaps crime too? which i don't read but somehow i doubt it actually as whenever I have read one they seem to discuss er crime. But yes not many W to W convos..)

[cdave]

You're fed up with the fandoms's obsession with this tes, but admit that genre fiction is much worse at passing it than non-genre fiction is?

Surely this means that there is something worth looking at here.

Is it that genre fiction generally tracks a single protagonists tale (who is usually male), and non-genre fiction gives it space to meander more, or is there a more worrying societal issue?