Almost every time you stumble upon a well-liked morally complex woman, you’ll see someone raise THE counterpoint against her.
“And would you still like her if she were a man?”
Or something along those lines. The two game characters that really gripped me lately - Song So Mi from 2077 and Edelgard from FE3H both had this question thrown around. And I find this question mildly infuriating. Because it just so misses the point.
Sometimes, what people really mean is “what if they were not attractive”, to which I would answer absolutely yes. But that’s not how the question is usually framed. It’s framed as being about gender.
Thing is, to the question about gender I would answer “yes, still would, but probably less.” And yet not for the reasons the askers assume.
This question basically conflates gender to appearance, attractiveness or simply some outward characteristics, which is simply very wrong. Gender is complicated, multifaceted, performative and yet ingrained, and often just the fact that someone is of a certain gender already makes us unconsciously change how we approach them. In media we can see a curious example of this – in the games with player-determined protagonist gender and where the hero and heroine say mostly the same lines, there are often different interpretations, headcanons and imagery attached to them. If this character is voiced (meaning that it is a woman VA and a man VA saying mostly the same things), the gap grows even larger. Gender, by itself, brings buttloads of baggage, even if we do not notice it.
And different story beats, and behavioral patterns, and character arcs just can hit differently depending on gender. Returning to the initial two I mentioned. Do I just like unrepentant self-demonizing revolutionaries? Yes. But the fact that they are a hurt woman in a sexist world adds so much to it. Am I deeply affected by stories of escaping prolonged abuse, regaining autonomy, learning to love yourself again? Yes. But these themes shine in a new light to me when centered on a woman (and there is a reason such storylines are often focused on women). Because womanhood almost always comes packaged with struggles with bodily autonomy and objectification [I mean look at the harassment statistics or just ads].
And of course because I subconsciously rely on my own experiences when engaging with these themes. When centered on a woman, such storylines make me feel not just involved, but recognised. Seen, maybe. It's not about the looks. It's about personal connection.
I understand I’m somewhat relying on assumptions here, and this is in no way a well-researched thesis or a general rule. But I hope that maybe if there are people who felt the same way as I did, they would be happy to see that they have co-conpirators :)
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