Welcome, welcome one and all! We’re pleased to announce that we have created for you a very new, very inspirational, very empowered female protagonist! That’s right, we are out here representing the woman, the female, the goddess herself. Who is she? Let’s see if you can guess.
She’s clumsy, but also graceful — especially in combat. Particularly, in combat she’s never done in her whole freaking life, but somehow masters in three weeks. She’s sad, but not too sad because she’s hot and that fixes like 99% of her problems. She’s the “chosen one,” but she doesn’t want to be. That’s what makes her cool. Her name is Everyberry Mistymountain and she loves animals. Nature? Her thing. She never showers, but smells amazing. Her makeup? Always on point. There’s no makeup in the dystopian world? She uses charcoal everyday and has a perfect smokey eye. Also, no body hair. Ever. And, as always, she has to choose between two men. A blonde and a brunette, both of which are white. Oh, and she somehow manages to go the whole book without a personality, allowing the reader to imprint themselves on her. She is not actually a person.
Alright, alright. We’ve all seen the TikTok videos making fun of the female protagonist. And in case you haven’t, it follows a similar format to what I’ve just described above. Basically, it aims to point out the absolute absurdity that is the blueprint of every female protagonist ever. Even my girl Katniss, who I love and worship and think has been done a great injustice by society (her story was not a love story. It was a literal dystopian nightmare that forced her to trauma band for survival, but anyways. )
The point is, many of our female protagonists fall into the same categories. They are otherworldly creatures whose entire being contradicts itself. Now I’m not harping on the characters. They, like many of us, never asked to be here and are making the best with what they’ve been given. But the authors…come on y’all. It’s 2025 and we can do better. At least I hope we can. Everything is in flames already, but maybe we can save the female protagonist. Not save her, but like save her. You get it.
But fear not. I’m not going to just throw you into the deep end without direction and say “sink or swim.” No, I’m not heartless. I’m going to give us some examples of good, complex, well-written female characters. Let’s draw from these women and leave the Bella Swans in the past (no hate to Kristen Stewart, we love her).
- Evelyn Hugo, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Ah yes. Evelyn Elena Herrera. Or should I say Evelyn Hugo. The fictional movie star who clawed her way from nothing to everything and lived to regret it. A tragic character wrapped in layers of glimmer and stardom. I love this woman, particularly because she’s not, in my opinion, a good woman. Which makes her, to me, more real. That’s not to say real women are bad women, that wouldn’t be true, but women are messy. I feel like I should be screaming this from the rooftops, real women are messy. It’s a slogan splashed across every feminist piece of merchandise you’ll find and it’s true. It’s timeless. It’s in every self-help book there is, and yet, it’s often overlooked and dismissed.
I think we also misinterpret what “messy” means. Messy is not waking up in the morning with bedhead or having ketchup on a work blouse. It’s not dropping things and watching that mocha frappe spill all over the floor. It’s not messing up the perfect makeup look or having chipped polish. That’s not messy, that’s just human.
Messy is more…complex. It’s raw and honest. Vulnerable and, at times, repulsive because it tugs at our most closely kept secrets. Makes us face and cower at the overwhelming mass of our own mess. It’s the betrayal of a friend and the crushing guilt that follows. It’s the things we’ve done to survive the fist of a loved one that haunt us at night. It’s the sacrifice we’ve given to climb out of our own personal hell into something we claim resembles heaven. Messy is grief and regret and pain and loss. Messy is what drives us to see a therapist. Messy is real.
Evelyn Hugobeautifully embraces her messy. She lays it before us, refusing to hide her abuse, her trauma, her story. She weaves all of the broken bits of her life into a beautiful gown that she wears with pride. What she has done, what she has felt and experienced, who she has loved, and who she has hated. They are not things she is ashamed of. She does not hide them in the hopes of being a perfect protagonist. She lets them spill from her veins, writing a story in bloody ink that we consume as if it is not just her life force, but also our own. She is human. Twisted, bruised, repulsive, gorgeous, ingenious, and powerful all at once. She isn’t a blank piece of paper waiting for us to imprint on her. She is unapologetically herself. Messy and all.
And lord is it refreshing.
- Sydney Adamu, The Bear
Adamu and ambition. That was the first connection I had when Adamu appeared in the scene, eyebrows raised at the mess before her and sleeves rolled up ready to work.
Adamu enters The Bear with one goal — to start again and find success after she faced a gut-wrenching failure with her first restaurant. She is haunted by this failure, the dismissive words of her father, a racist and sexist society built to watch her fail, and the struggles of an often absent and distant business partner. And, yet, despite all of this, she pursues her dream. She refuses to let failure after failure stop her, choosing instead to seek hope in the small moments of victory. She demands a seat at the table.
Women, especially women of color, are often dismissed in the workforce. Deemed unable to obtain or naturally possess the skills necessary to accurately and efficiently complete the tasks required of them. Adamu rebukes this, insisting that she has the expertise necessary to not only achieve what society has told her is unachievable, but to surpass it. She knows her worth and refuses to let the messages of others dim her confidence. This amazed me.
I live my life in relative privilege, but parts of my identity have made it so that I receive daily messages that I am “weaker,” “less,” and “inferior.” Over time these messages take their toll, ask anyone who has been on the receiving end of them. That ability to hold onto what you know to be true, to hold onto your worth, is incredibly difficult. It is one voice, your voice, against hundreds of thousands of others telling you — reminding you — of your worthlessness. To stand against that flood of foretold failure is an exhausting battle.Adamu makes this look almost effortless, reminding each and every woman, and each and every woman of color, that they can do it too. That the flood is wrong.
She does all of this relatively alone. Adamu does not need a white saviour or a knight in armor to come to her rescue. In fact, she is often the one coming to the rescue of others.
Carmen, her business partner, often becomes lost and overwhelmed in his quest to open The Bear. He frequently spirals into pits of anxiety and depression that he then takes out on others. Adamu takes none of it. She is fearless in her efforts to stand up to Carmen and refuses to be the subject of his outbursts. She reminds him that while struggling with mental illness is understandable and normal, he is still responsible for his actions.
So not only does Adamu possess the will and the strength to hold herself accountable and believe in her worth, she is able to do it for others. And she does it all while waking up at 4:00 a.m. every single day.
- Annabeth Chase, the Percy Jackson series
Here we have another woman who knows her freaking worth. Annabeth has the spunk I always wanted and never had. She has the eyebrow raise, the eyeroll, and the exasperated sigh down, and I will forever be jealous of it. She is unafraid to point out the obvious, highlight the flaws, and correct the mistakes — I love her for it.
So often women are told that being direct is rude, being honest is cruel, and being in charge is bossy. Any attempt to take up space, voice a thought, point out an error, express an idea, or have an opinion are immediately shut down and shamed until women feel guilty for even taking up an extra inch of space on the bus. Annabeth says to hell with all that. She knows her ideas are good, she’s confident in her ability to manifest them, and she gives zero f*cks about what anyone thinks of her as she implements her genius. We should all be Annabeths.
She is an all around incredible protagonist and frankly we could be here all day (or night depending on when you’re reading this) as I list her goddess-like qualities. But I want to highlight, for a moment, the key characteristic that made me fall in love with her, Annabeth does not make any attempt to hide or dim her intelligence.
In high school, I had a boyfriend. He was lovely and he was very, very smart. One day, as all high schoolers do (or used to anyway), we took the SAT and a few short months later we received our results. I remember looking at mine immensely pleased with myself. I shared everything with him at the time and could not wait to show him that months of studying and fretting and biting at my fingernails had paid off. I was bursting with excitement when I saw him the next day. He had also received his score the night before and we’d agreed to tell each other in person. I bit my tongue and let him go first.
He had scored 50 points below me. An excellent score! But something in my brain snapped and I found myself stuttering out a false score. A score way below his, a lie. I hated myself as soon as I said it. He reassured me that I did well and that I could be proud. He looked relieved. As we walked to class, my brain was spinning. Why did I lie? Why do I always lie? I lie about test scores, teachers feedback, papers I’ve published, awards I received. I hide it all. I pack the achievements away in a little box and shove them in the corner where they go uncelebrated and unseen. I do not celebrate my intelligence, nd I hate it.
Annabeth was the first time I had seen a woman rebuke this. Refuse to shove her talents and her smarts into a box. Refuse to dim her light for the sake of a man or a boyfriend or a friend. She did not lower scores or stutter out lies. She was honest. I envied her, I still do.
I want to be like Annabeth. I want to be proud of what I’ve done.
- Every single woman in Bottoms.
I don’t even feel the need to explain this one. Go watch it and if you haven’t fallen in love with these unhinged women by the end, then I can’t explain to you where you went wrong.
- Akane Tsunemori, Psycho-Pass
Look, finding non-offensive, strong, confident, and intelligent female characters in anime is near impossible. I can count on one hand the ones I’ve found and two of them are from the same anime. So you can imagine my relief when I found Akane Tsunemori in Psycho Pass.
For those of you who don’t know, Psycho Pass is an anime set in the near future in Japan where a system, called the Sibyl System, is used to read the mental state of all citizens. If a citizen’s mental state deteriorates beyond a certain point, they are arrested by detectives and brought in for therapy. The series raises questions about mental health, how we treat and view those who struggle with mental illness, the government’s role in ensuring the stability of its citizens, and more. It handles these intricate and often controversial subjects with an exceptional amount of grace. However, where it really succeeds is in its portrayal of female characters, particularly Tsunemori.
Tsunemori is a detective in the series who works to find and subdue people who have been identified by the Sibyl System. The first season details the beginnings of her career and her partnership with a young man named Shinya Kougami. Her character in these first few episodes resembles that of a typical female anime character, meek, prone to error, and less intelligent than her male counterpart. However, as the season progresses we see her gain more and more confidence in her abilities. She learns to trust herself and her instincts and follow her intelligence. She learns to take risks and value her worth and contribution as a detective. By the second season, Kougami fades away and Tsunemori takes the stage starring as our protagonist.
She works in a male dominated field, surrounded by prying eyes and doubt. And yet she continues to execute her work flawlessly and directs those around her with ease. She comes into her own as a character and as a person.
It is this growth that makes her so incredible. She didn’t come onto the scene an immediate bad*ss. She grew into it, she learned to adapt, and to believe in herself. Well written female characters don’t come off the presses automatically perfect and ready to go. They struggle and learn and overcome both internal and external obstacles to embody their full potential. This growth and journey is essential to their development as strong female protagonists. It’s boring if we go from meek and in need of saving, to an immediately perfect hero. Show their growth. Show their struggle. Show how relatable they are. Show them a Tsunemari.
So, what do you need to write a strong female protagonist? It’s simple really. You’d be surprised that so many missed it. They need to be messy. They need to have ambition. They need to be able to stand with and against those around them. They need to have faith in themselves. They need to have intelligence and confidence in their intelligence. And they need time and space to be able to do all this.
In summary? They need to be human.
We have the blueprints to write good female protagonists all around us. They live in our homes, go to our school, work at our jobs, take up space on our media. They are our mothers and sisters and friends and girlfriends and leaders and bosses and mentors. They are right before you, demanding to be seen and heard. To be written. To be respected. To have their stories told. All we have to do is look at and, most importantly, hear them.