The Bechdel test or Bechdel/Wallace test was developed by Liz Wallace and became widely known after Alison Bechdel featured it in her comic Dykes to Watch Out For.
The Bechdel test is a test of female characterisation in movies. Passing the Bechdel test requires that:
- the movie [media] has at least two women characters;
- who talk to each other;
- about something other than a man.
Passing or failing the test is not an ironclad guarantee of well-rounded, feminist, characterisation but it is indicative of the problems of token women characters. A vast amount of geeky media fails the test.
Applications
The test has been applied to various media:
- tigtog applied it to a list of the “Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years”, with few books meeting the full criteria at Larvatus Prodeo
Variants
- Latoya Peterson has some drafts of a race version of the Bechdel test: racialicious.com
- Alaya Dawn Johnson posted the literal race version of the test and applied it to science fiction at The Angry Black Woman
- Lauredhel made a variant for children's toys, regarding whether there were two girls depicted in an advertisement and whether they were playing at being stereotypical women or not at Hoyden About Town
External links
- DTWOF: The Blog: The Rule explaining the history of the rule and displaying the original comic.
- Dykes to Watch Out For on Wikipedia