KELLI STANLEY

She Can Bring Home the Bacon

KELLI STANLEY is an award-winning author of crime fiction (novels and short stories). She makes her home in Dashiell Hammett’s San Francisco, a city she loves to write about. She is the author of two crime fiction series, one set in 1940s San Francisco (featuring hard-boiled female P.I. Miranda Corbie), the other in first-century Roman Britain. Her novels include City of Dragons, Nox Dormienda, The Curse-Maker, and City of Secrets.

 

 

Women can run for president or hold up banks. They can fly space shuttles, invent new technologies, raise children, care for a household and family, run forgery scams, or mug little old ladies.

In other words, women are capable of the same acts—for good or bad, enforcing the law or breaking it—that men are.

So why do we need to think about women as detectives, as victims, or as killers? Because it has been only within the last half-century that women could even hope to hold some of the same careers as men. Legal battles, constant lobbying, and political and social pressure have opened new arenas for women, but the glass ceiling, according to the latest statistics, is still in place. Sisters in Crime, a nonprofit organization founded by Sara Paretsky in 1987, monitors gender inequalities within the crime-fiction publishing industry itself . . . and sadly, these are not going away.

Cultural traditions, lack of a voice in history text books, and the relative paucity of women in particular jobs or within certain professions throughout the twentieth century have led to gender stereotyping within our culture and entertainment media. Crime fiction writers need to be aware of these clichés in order to comment on them—or avoid them all together.

Woman as Killer. The murderess—a heartless killer devoid of the traditional virtues of mother-love who uses sex appeal to manipulate men—is a stock character in many hard-boiled and noir tales (think Double Indemnity), but really, her roots go back to Lady Macbeth and Medea. She is usually depicted as a sexualized being who uses sex but does not enjoy it. In other words, she is fully aware and in control of her allure but never allows herself to emotionally succumb to the man she hopes to manipulate. Her manifestly “unwomanly” nature is also sometimes conveyed through her disdain (and even murder of) children, as with Medea. She is often shown as strong and therefore identified as manlike. The relationship between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth is a perfect example of such traditional gender role-reversal.

Woman as Victim. You’ve all seen the movie. Young woman walks into basement (parking garage, abandoned house) alone, despite the fact that there’s a killer roaming around and her friends have mysteriously disappeared. Maybe the oldest gender cliché on and in the books, the victim is usually young, and not as smart as the reader or audience who is watching her walk into a trap.

Women, of course, are disproportionately victimized by violent crime, particularly serial killer cases that usually make headlines . . . but it is too easy to fall into a trap of your own by constantly depicting them as the helpless, weak prey of predatory criminals.

Woman as Detective. The female detective is a relatively recent character in fiction—she certainly doesn’t share the literary pedigree of murderess and victim. Though Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie’s Jane Marple have popularized the female amateur sleuth for nearly a century, the female P.I. is of more recent vintage. Thanks to writers Marcia Muller, Sara Paretsky, and Sue Grafton, the hard-boiled woman detective has gained acceptance and respect.

However, just as in the other categories, stereotypes abound. Perky young women who date policemen, tough-as-nails female cops or private investigators, and elderly women who can dispense advice and catch criminals are all commonplace. So you must be deliberate about your character-building . . . tough doesn’t always mean masculine.

Playing right tackle in football demands a certain kind of strength. Caring for an ill relative demands another. Women can be quite tough—anyone who’s been through childbirth can testify to that. You don’t need to resort to gender clichés to write a female detective.

So what do we do as writers? Not create any women victims, killers, or detectives? Not an option. Compelling fiction is published every year featuring every one of these categories. After all, women are victims of crime, as are men; women are murderers (the film MONSTER is an excellent portrayal of a female serial killer); women fight crime in the contemporary world as law enforcement officials and work as private detectives, and did so even in the past. The secret is to make your characters seem as real as possible—to make their motivations, actions, and behaviors believable and not gender stereotypes.

EXERCISE

Before deciding on the gender of your character, make out a list of characteristics you identify as feminine and masculine. Then make a list of a real person’s traits—someone close to you, or even yourself, if you can be objective enough.

Most people consist of a mixture of characteristics we typically identify with one gender or another. Figure out what the narrative purpose of your character is, and what mixture of attributes you’re looking for.

If you want to write about a female victim, killer, or detective, ask yourself whether or not you could switch genders without a problem. If you can, then either you need to develop a scenario in which the gender is intrinsic to the role as you envision it, or you could think about switching to a male point of view. And don’t forget that sexuality itself can be stereotyped—try experimenting with a gay or bisexual POV for one of your characters. Expand and explore the vast diversity of the human condition!

If the female character is your protagonist, develop her as fully as you can. Write about her before you write with her—she should feel real to you, and her reactions should be based on what she would do. What are her favorite foods? What kinds of clothes does she wear? If she’s a detective, women may notice details men typically don’t, just because of familiarity—and vice versa. A male detective who has children may notice a clue in a child’s broken toy before his childless female partner would. In other words, be aware of the stereotypes and clichés . . . and challenge them!

One of the most exhilarating aspects of writing crime fiction is living in your protagonist’s shoes. Whether she wears stilettos, Nikes, or hiking boots, follow where she leads. She won’t steer you wrong.