Bechdel Test (no spoilers)

For anyone who is curious, yes, I specifically gave Zandra Bechdel that last name because I planned all along to have her and Saffron passing the Bechdel Text when she finally first appeared on screen. I have enough feminist leanings to experience shame over the fact that in all the years the strip has been running, that's almost the first conversation between any of my characters that passes said Test. I guess the closest I've come is with the short 2014 series of Saturday strips which start here, especially if "Febrifuge" is female.. which you know what? She probably is, now. Yes, they do mention Crazy Rhid's name, tho they're talking more about his former home than the man himself. Oh.. and there's this Sunday comic...

One of my greater regrets with the strip is not having included more female characters over the years. One of the more major examples being Rufus: if I were starting the strip today, I would definitely have hir be female, Rufella or something. She would look and act almost exactly the same, including her relationship with Eunice. The 44f trio is another possibility.

And Zandra's first name is a shout-out to the webcomic Zebra Girl.

Surely the conversation between Agita and her daughter counts?

Your problem is that three of your four main protagonists - the E boys, Rosemary and Comshaw - are male and one of them is in almost every scene, so e.g you don't often see Rosemary conversing with somebody else of any gender in the absence of one of the guys, even though she's a well-realised independent character.

There's a brief discussion between Sina and Wrawa in strip 286.  Again, Rhid is mentioned, but for tactical rather than romantic or social reasons, so I'd say it counts.

Then in strip 847 you have Camora and Rosemary talking (with some prompting from Hax); then starting from 980, Myrrh and Shona; then in 1000, Myrrh and Ilsa (their previous conversation was about Philbert, but this one isn't); 1003, Rosemary and Camora again, ditto 1011; 1056-1080, Sina and Skuy; 1254 on, Sina and Skuy and Hopbefever - and I'm sure there are plenty of others.

The Bechdel Test is an important contribution to the discussion of the representation of women in media.

That said, I can't imagine anyone reading MoE and not thinking that females (of whatever species) are represented as strong characters whose sex and gender is way less important than their human (if I may use that term here) character. When I think of your female characters, I think of powerful people with agendas that are not particularly driven by their femaleness one way or the other. I mean, geez, look at your female character list: Rosemary, Camora, Myrrh, Audrey, Agita, Fern... Whenever I think of a random MoE female, I'm all "what an interesting person." That's what it's about.

It's cool that you bothered to explicitly pass the Bechdel Test, but I don't think it was necessary :-). You already won.

whitehound wrote:Surely the conversation between Agita and her daughter counts?

Technically, I believe no, because they talk about Comshaw and (indirectly) Mortimer. When they discuss Human books, yes.

Yes to everything PO8 said, plus, the only characters whose physical appearance seems to be of much importance are Mortimer and whatever mostly-but-not-entirely-male thing the Finaglers are. And an enormous sort-of-male-ish rubber ball with feet who likes to grow mushrooms on his head.

One would really have to search deep up their own ass to label your comic as sexist. You have females (and males) all over the competency and masculine/feminine ladder, all complex and very few of them are noted just for the fact that they are female. Almost none of them have the sole motivation of "find an attractive mate". The Beckel test is a rough indicator, not necessarily a deep judge of depth.