Reading Portis's True Grit made me think a lot about this. His thirteen-year-old girl "reads" like a boy, but her subjectivity is more similar in some ways to my thirteen-year-old one than any of the teen romances I've read. Very curious.

Another question:

Are men and women who are lesbians able to break stereotypes of women "better" than straight women? (Vast generalization, I know.)

fliestohoney.blogspot.com

i think you kinda want to…

Elle

I think the challenge of writing female characters that don't fall into these stereotypes is that chart covers a LOT of character types but has a rather narrow definition of what a strong female character is. Seriously, if she has everything else but dies at the end of the second act, she's not strong anymore? Or if she's not the main character, which seems to be the flaw with Zoe from Firefly, who I'm sure many people would argue is strong? I find it interesting that they don't have an example of a strong female character next to that declaration. There's not even one? Superficial yes/no questions might make every woman fall into one of those categories. That, and there's a lot of cultural baggage associated with women, and it can be a challenge to break free without turning the character into a man with boobs (i.e. retaining some femininity).