Tuesday, March 19th 2024    |   


Bechdel test

Thursday, March 19, 2011   |   S.M.I.²L.E.


Here's a simple test for gender bias in all forms of fiction:
  1. It has to have at least two women in it,
  2. who talk to each other,
  3. about something besides a man.
Although this test sets a pretty low bar and definitly doesn't define a work of fiction as automatically feminist, it's easy to remember. It's also easy to remember that on the website bechdeltest.com, little more than half of the movies listed pass all 3 of the test's requirements.

From Wikipedia: The test is named after the American cartoonist Alison Bechdel. In 1985, she had a character in her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For voice the idea, which she attributed to a friend, Liz Wallace.