Earlier today, a friend posted something on her Facebook page ranting about the overused cliche for introducing characterization for female characters: sexual assault.  We’ve all seen this.  It’s in everything from Law & Order to Game of Thrones.  A woman needs motivations or background or some inkling of existing for purposes other than eye candy or as a prize?  Creators seem to default to rape.

Fundamentally, I think this is a result of decades of ingrained societal views on woman.  They’re weak, they’re helpless, they must be saved.  They don’t have the same holdings as men, either.  They don’t control families or businesses.  They don’t have wealth and power.  Since they don’t have access to these, the only true threat for a woman is to be violated in the most aggressive way possible.  It’s lazy and, frankly, offensive.

Content creators don’t seem to be interested in actually dealing with the trauma that follows.  Why is this woman out for revenge?  Sexual assault.  Why is this woman so skittish around others and keep to herself?  Assaulted.  But where is the part where this is actually addressed and dealt with?  Nowhere to be found.  It’s treated like a bullet point in an outline.  It’s rarely explored and handled with solemnity.  If I had to hazard a guess , I’d say it’s a compound problem: a lot of directors and producers and novelists are men, and they just simply fail to grasp the severity of the thing they’ve attributed to this character’s past.

And, as a content creator, I’d say I’m guilty of considering it.  Then I used my better judgment to conclude it was a bad idea.  It just didn’t fit, didn’t make sense.  And why, when the character is already facing a multitude of problems that don’t require an attachment to her gender identity?  She’s dealing with a fall from grace, with substance abuse, with guilt and grief, and literal demons taking swipes at her.  Those fit better, and they make significantly more sense.

For my part, I always think of George RR Martin’s quote of “Well I just treat women like people.”  I’m not entirely convinced he does, but all the same it’s my own motto: I want the characters to be more than simply women in a story.  I aim for a reader to see her as a person, as someone with whom to relate.  And at the end of the day, if I don’t accomplish that, I hope for the readers to tell me why so the next time, I do better.