Strong Female Roles: Boring or Misunderstood?

[Adam Allen]

So we're all on the same page, evolutionary psychology is bunk, and that article was reiterating that in a polite way.

Seriously, I'm in graduate school for mental health therapy, and I have never encountered evolutionary psychology being taught in any academic setting.

Apologies for the tangent, but it's frustrating to me, because the science behind mental health get doubted/dismissed too often as is, and confusion created by pseudoscience doesn't help.

[Kirby101]

So we're all on the same page, evolutionary psychology is bunk, and that article was reiterating that in a polite way.

Seriously, I'm in graduate school for mental health therapy, and I have never encountered evolutionary psychology being taught in any academic setting.

Apologies for the tangent, but it's frustrating to me, because the science behind mental health get doubted/dismissed too often as is, and confusion created by pseudoscience doesn't help.

I think they problem is when someone argues that psychology can all be explained in evolutionary/genetic terms, rather than our genetics is a foundation for much of our psychology. But not the reason for all of it. We are definitely hard wired for a lot of things, but that doesn't mean we are incapable of overcoming it. Dawkins also did work on non-genetic evolution withing cultures, with his theory on memes. (BA in psychology here)

[Adam Allen]

What I mean is like here, Major Schools of Thought of Psychology:

https://www.verywellmind.com/psychol...hought-2795247

And I mean, schools/forms of therapy: Bowen/transgenerational, Structural, Strategic, MRI, Milan, Whitaker, Satir, Psychoanalytic, Object Relational, CBT, and there's a lot more, but most of those I did not pull from memory, so no point in transcribing the whole list from a class document -- but I trust you will believe me when I say, no aspect of Evolutionary Psychology was ever mentioned. Like, at all.

I'm saying, my concern is applied mental health. Evolutionary Psychology is not any part of that, as far as I have ever seen. I would be surprised if any accredited school producing people who can be licensed to diagnose and treat mental illness is teaching Evolutionary Psychology. There are legit, helpful models of the human mind, but EP doesn't have one, I don't think.

[Kirby101]

I understand what you are saying AA.

[Agent Z]

I would like to contend one simple point - Are you saying there is not an agenda on the part of creators to reposition female characters?

Every writer has an agenda.

[Vakanai]

Every writer has an agenda.

Yes, but but not every portrayal of a character in film can be chalked up to the writer. Writers don't just write the script and hand them off and that's it. There's editors, there's various producers who make this or that suggestion, it gets sent back with notes and memos and requests adhered to for rewrites and more rewrites, often times it might go to another writer, in some bad cases several writers rework it before final script approval. Then the director might have an idea while shooting for a scene not written. Actors adlib. Things change in post on the editing room floor.

The writer's agenda isn't always what we get on screen.

[Mister Mets]

We do have alternatives. But people complaining about the type of female characters that are the subject of this thread would rather focus on the type they hate than just watch stuff they like.

But it does seem that the actress who kicked off the discussion sees a lot of scripts about one type of woman.

[Agent Z]

But it does seem that the actress who kicked off the discussion sees a lot of scripts about one type of woman.

But that's one actress.

[Catlady in training]

There’s another way to look at this: before they write a story, authors must put themselves in the place of their characters. It’s possible that the authors feel freer with women to write their own fears and failures than if it was a man. Culturally, woman talk more freely about their emotions and comic is a graphic medium. It’s maybe because women are a better choice rather it’s an opinion on real women on average.

I don't mind individual cases, I like many of these stories - DPS, Wicked is one of my most favorite musicals, etc. But when taken together, it seems like this is happening a lot more to female characters, especially when you consider how often we have characters with that much of powers.

I would like to contend one simple point - Are you saying there is not an agenda on the part of creators to reposition female characters?

Are you saying there was not an agenda to only portray male, white, chistian, cis and straight characters as protagonists for decades in western media?

[4theEarth]

What I mean is like here, Major Schools of Thought of Psychology:

https://www.verywellmind.com/psychol...hought-2795247

And I mean, schools/forms of therapy: Bowen/transgenerational, Structural, Strategic, MRI, Milan, Whitaker, Satir, Psychoanalytic, Object Relational, CBT, and there's a lot more, but most of those I did not pull from memory, so no point in transcribing the whole list from a class document -- but I trust you will believe me when I say, no aspect of Evolutionary Psychology was ever mentioned. Like, at all.

I'm saying, my concern is applied mental health. Evolutionary Psychology is not any part of that, as far as I have ever seen. I would be surprised if any accredited school producing people who can be licensed to diagnose and treat mental illness is teaching Evolutionary Psychology. There are legit, helpful models of the human mind, but EP doesn't have one, I don't think.

What you are pointing to is the therapeutic psychology rather than the theoretical which like the Psychoanalytic has its underpinnings in a theory of ideation. Kirby 101 rightly mentions Dawkins as one like Chomsky that found utility in evolutionary principles being used to sort objects by survival or by drift. It is a helpful tool in linguistics which for my money is a legit, helpful model of the human mind. Some people in academia do too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolut...logy_(journal)

[captchuck]

I think we need a variety of female personalities in comics. We don't need just one stereotype. Let's have more weak, strong, funny, dull, brilliant, not-so-brilliant and interesting female characters.

[4theEarth]

Are you saying there was not an agenda to only portray male, white, chistian, cis and straight characters as protagonists for decades in western media?

Agenda as in a conscious program to promote a series of beliefs?

No.

or as a societal amalgam of beliefs around a concept of power and masculinity evolved from role selection?

well yes.

Nowhere am I suggesting that roles or concepts of gender cannot be changed. It is the means by which they do or don't that I am calling into question. Simply putting out counter examples might work as an agenda to excluded populations may open possibilities of surviving. That broader success though would depend though on if they were popular beyond those that are seeing themselves represented. Boring one note characters of any gender are not popular.