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Bechdel test
The Bechdel test (/ˈbɛkdəl/ ⓘ BEK-dəl), also known as the Bechdel–Wallace test, is a measure of the representation of women in film and other fiction. The test asks whether a work features at least two women who have a conversation about something other than a man. Some versions of the test also require that those two women have names.
A work of fiction passing or failing the test does not necessarily indicate the overall representation of women in the work. Instead, the test is used as an indicator of the active presence (or lack thereof) of women in fiction, and to call attention to gender inequality in fiction.
The test is named after the American cartoonist Alison Bechdel, in whose 1985 comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For the test first appeared. Bechdel credited the idea to her friend Liz Wallace and the writings of Virginia Woolf. Originally meant as "a little lesbian joke in an alternative feminist newspaper", according to Bechdel, the test became more widely discussed in the 2000s, as a number of variants and tests inspired by it emerged.
In a 1929 essay A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf wrote about the one-dimensional portrayal of women in contemporary fiction:
All these relationships between women, I thought, rapidly recalling the splendid gallery of fictitious women, are too simple. ... And I tried to remember any case in the course of my reading where two women are represented as friends. ... They are now and then mothers and daughters. But almost without exception they are shown in their relation to men. It was strange to think that all the great women of fiction were, until Jane Austen's day, not only seen by the other sex, but seen only in relation to the other sex. And how small a part of a woman's life is that ...
In film, a study of gender portrayals in 855 of the most financially successful U.S. films from 1950 to 2006 showed that there were, on average, two male characters for each female character, a ratio that remained stable over time. Women were twice as likely as men to be involved in sexual activity, and this only continued to increase over time.
According to a 2014 study by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, in 120 films made worldwide from 2010 to 2013, only 31% of named characters were female, and 23% of the films had a female protagonist or co-protagonist. 7% of directors were women. Another study looking at the 700 top-grossing films from 2007 to 2014 found that only 30% of the speaking characters were female. In a 2016 analysis of screenplays of 2,005 commercially successful films, Hanah Anderson and Matt Daniels found that in 82% of the films, men had two of the top three speaking roles, while a woman had the most dialogue in only 22% of films.
The rules now known as the Bechdel test first appeared in 1986, in Alison Bechdel's comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For. In a strip titled "The Rule", two women, who resemble the future characters Lois and Ginger, discuss seeing a film and one woman explains that she only goes to a movie if it satisfies the following requirements:
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Bechdel test
The Bechdel test (/ˈbɛkdəl/ ⓘ BEK-dəl), also known as the Bechdel–Wallace test, is a measure of the representation of women in film and other fiction. The test asks whether a work features at least two women who have a conversation about something other than a man. Some versions of the test also require that those two women have names.
A work of fiction passing or failing the test does not necessarily indicate the overall representation of women in the work. Instead, the test is used as an indicator of the active presence (or lack thereof) of women in fiction, and to call attention to gender inequality in fiction.
The test is named after the American cartoonist Alison Bechdel, in whose 1985 comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For the test first appeared. Bechdel credited the idea to her friend Liz Wallace and the writings of Virginia Woolf. Originally meant as "a little lesbian joke in an alternative feminist newspaper", according to Bechdel, the test became more widely discussed in the 2000s, as a number of variants and tests inspired by it emerged.
In a 1929 essay A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf wrote about the one-dimensional portrayal of women in contemporary fiction:
All these relationships between women, I thought, rapidly recalling the splendid gallery of fictitious women, are too simple. ... And I tried to remember any case in the course of my reading where two women are represented as friends. ... They are now and then mothers and daughters. But almost without exception they are shown in their relation to men. It was strange to think that all the great women of fiction were, until Jane Austen's day, not only seen by the other sex, but seen only in relation to the other sex. And how small a part of a woman's life is that ...
In film, a study of gender portrayals in 855 of the most financially successful U.S. films from 1950 to 2006 showed that there were, on average, two male characters for each female character, a ratio that remained stable over time. Women were twice as likely as men to be involved in sexual activity, and this only continued to increase over time.
According to a 2014 study by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, in 120 films made worldwide from 2010 to 2013, only 31% of named characters were female, and 23% of the films had a female protagonist or co-protagonist. 7% of directors were women. Another study looking at the 700 top-grossing films from 2007 to 2014 found that only 30% of the speaking characters were female. In a 2016 analysis of screenplays of 2,005 commercially successful films, Hanah Anderson and Matt Daniels found that in 82% of the films, men had two of the top three speaking roles, while a woman had the most dialogue in only 22% of films.
The rules now known as the Bechdel test first appeared in 1986, in Alison Bechdel's comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For. In a strip titled "The Rule", two women, who resemble the future characters Lois and Ginger, discuss seeing a film and one woman explains that she only goes to a movie if it satisfies the following requirements: