What is the Bechdel Test?

*Originally published on 4/27/11


I am a frequent wanderer of TvTropes. I've mentioned it before, and things haven't really changed since. I recently came across a particular trope that I felt was worthy of discussion. This trope is referred to as the "Bechdel test". It was named after Allison Bechdel, a comic strip creator who basically listed out the criteria in one of her strips.

The long and short of it is that in order for a work to pass, it has to have two women talking to each other about something other than men.

The test makes sense in theory. Often in fiction, women are portrayed as obsessed with men and have little personality outside of that. So, it's understandable that someone create a litmus test to see how well rounded the female characters are. This makes writers turn the female characters into actual characters as opposed to props or plot devices.

There are some flaws that arise, however, when the test is put into practice. I understand that women obsessing over potential boyfriends is a vexing stereotype, but there are instances where sometimes conversations about men are just natural.

If two sisters are in a hospital to visit their sick father, of course he's going to be a topic of discussion. What if two mothers got together and made small talk about how their sons are doing in school? It's not that unheard of and it would hardly be looked upon as negative. I just found it hard to believe that by switching the father to a mother and son to a daughter that the same scene would suddenly become stronger.

What about general things like sports or movies? If two women are avid football fans, they're likely to talk about a game or their team. It wouldn't be surprising to see specific players get mentioned over the course of said conversation, yet despite this being something that builds character personality, it probably doesn't pass the test.

The thing of it is that only one scene needs to be included. That alone makes it pass. However, the test has grown beyond a simple pass/fail to create a whole spectrum. This allows for works that include such scenes frequently to get a "higher grade" than ones that only do it once or twice.

The common misconception is that the Bechdel test is a measure for sexism, when this simply isn't the case. As the TvTropes page points out, there are some misogynistic works that pass and feminist works that fail. It could be a contributing factor, but it isn't as cut and dry in regards to what the tone or message of the work is.

There are also works that don't feature a female character, or only one. People argue that these technically fail the test, but I would argue that they aren't applicable. If you don't have two female characters, there's no possible way you can get them to talk.

What if you have two female characters who are well rounded, but never meet, and thus never get a chance to converse because they are part of separate story lines? Is it really worth the trouble of throwing in a token scene of them talking about some random thing?

The fact that the test is so simple in nature is both the test's greatest advantage and greatest weakness. The fact that the criteria is so broad means that it's not that difficult to work around. However, the broad strokes also mean that some works will get lumped into the "fail" category, even though it did what the test wanted them to do and create a rich, well rounded, fully developed female character.

Another approach is to only apply the test where it's...applicable. What I mean is that, rather than judge a work as a whole, look only at the scenes that feature two or more women talking and apply the test there and there alone. This approach is taken from time to time, but not often. It's disappointing because judging the scenes themselves does a lot to fix the problems I mentioned in this article.

So, there you have it. That's the Bechdel test. A litmus test that was probably necessary, and helps guide writers into making more developed female characters, but also one that needs a bit of tweaking and fine tuning to ensure that it works the way it was most likely intended.