My Love-hate Relationship with Wattpad

Double Standards

Double Standards.

We've all heard about it. You must be living under a rock if you claim you haven't.

In my opinion, it's also known as Males vs Females. At least that's the simplest way to break it down.

About 90% of the most misogynistic books I've ever read were written by female authors. And it always gets me thinking...aren't these authors supposed to be activists toward female empowerment?

And the most horrifying aspect of it all is that we have young girls reading and digesting these kinds of stuff, believing that that's how our society is supposed to be.

Take Wattpad for instance.

Most Female protagonists in Wattpad books are portrayed as a weak, dumb, utterly and completely stupid, not given the leadership role. They're always the assistant and never the boss, the employee and never the employer. The intern and never the CEO, the baby mama of the Mafia boss and not the mafia boss himself.

And these same misogynistic books are written by the females on this site. How sweet and endearing.   

I love Suzanne Collins so much for how she portrayed Katniss in her book, "The Hunger Games".  We see two sides to the female protagonist and that's what I call duality.

Katniss is fierce but soft. Determined, but level-headed. Smart, but steady. Beautiful, but intelligent. I always assumed that this was how females were supposed to be portrayed in books, and not as oppressed, dump, weak, stupid but pretty.

The only genre whose authors do justice to their female protagonists are Fantasy Writers, and even with that, the results are always Unsatisfying.

Fantasy authors always tend to exaggerate the uniqueness and qualities of their female protagonists, and that leaves me scratching the back of my head sometimes. Like bro? We've all had enough of that same old character development. You guys should start spicing things up a bit.

Contrary to that, I'll give a thumbs up to some female authors in the Werewolf genre. I've been seeing a handful of mentally strong and bold Female alphas these days. This is what we need!

Yes, I said a handful. As disappointing as that sounds, half a loaf is better than none.

Females are much more than just their outer look or physique. On this app, female protagonists are either portrayed as an eye candy, a pathetic dimwits or both. Yeah, some authors actually have this mindset that blending both ways is the smartest move ever. That is, the character can be an eye candy but weak, oppressed and can't think for herself at the same time. Imagine being a beauty with no brains.

Most of these authors don't hit the mark of what I call a Good Character Development.

Some of these authors end up making their pretty, but dimwit characters loud and vague at the end of the book, and they actually call that a good character development. Bro, I think you deserve an Oscar or maybe an Emmy for nurturing that thought.

Now, let's go back to the Hunger Games and focus on Katniss. Why? Because per today's topic, we're focusing on female protagonists. 

From the start of the movie. We can immediately tell that in the absence of her father, Katniss has taken up the role of a breadwinner. And with her mom still being alive, this tells us that...

1. Our female protagonist is supportive but family-oriented. (She isn't portrayed as another pretty face who sits around, fancies boys and makes noise all day)

As the movie progresses, we begin to see a new side to our protagonist.

2. She submits herself to the system, but observes everyone and is more than determined to fight for her survival. She may not have been the strongest and most versatile fighter among the other contestants, but she certainly used her observation to become one of the best strategists in her group. In short, Katniss didn't beat the others in the Game with her muscles, all she used was her brains.

At the end of the movie, we see a completely new side to our protagonist and that was to be expected.

Suzanne Collins gave her protagonist what I call character. She didn't submit to or oppress her protagonist under the misogynistic rule of our society.

Katniss wasn't dump, loud or another pretty face from the start of the movie. She was her own person. A person with a character. A character I wish I could see in books written by authors who share the same gender as this writer.

I know some of you might try to defend this by saying that every female protagonist is different. And as such the protagonist shouldn't be given the ability to think for herself in the case of a Werewolf book where the protagonist is a weak oppressed Omega Luna so that the plot can still move on.

As ridiculous as that sounds, Wattpad writers should know that a protagonist can be mentally weak, but can also be given the ability of discernment. This ability should be able to help her navigate through her difficulties instead of always providing a solution to her as a writer.

That's what I call spoon-feeding.

It's about high time some writers stopped projecting and looking down on their female characters.

Question: What's the title of the book you read which had a capable female lead?