This is a list of both instant deal-breakers and accumulative deal breakers (if too many show up then I'll stop reading)
Ironic Sexism
A type of self-referential humor that indicates to the audience, âI know that you know that I know this is sexist,â with the underlying assumption seeming to be that as long as the sexism is overt, obvious or âover-the-top,â then it somehow loses its cultural power and is suddenly no longer a problem. Ironic sexism is dependent upon the false assumption that people no longer really hold retrograde sexist beliefs and therefore the very idea of sexism is now just a hilarious joke, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Woman in the Refrigerator
The term âWomen in Refrigeratorsâ was coined in the late 1990s by comic book writer Gail Simone to describe the trend of female comic book characters who are routinely brutalized or killed off as a plot device designed to move the male characterâs story arc forward. The trope name comes from Green Lantern issue #54, in which the superhero returns home to find his girlfriend murdered and stuffed inside his refrigerator.
Absence of Intersectionality
Intersectality was coin by Kimberle Crenshaw 1989 and is the acknowledgement that everyone has their own unique experiences of discrimination and oppression and we must consider everything and anything that can marginalise people â gender, race, class, sexual orientation, nuerodiversity, physical ability. An absence of intersectionality is when a story lacks well defined characters and/or the author has failed to take into consideration the challenges or advantages different characters might experience the same event.
Absence of racial Diversity and Poor Representation
Stories that have little to no PoC, despite stories being set in locations where there would be PoC, especially in fantasy or sci-fi worlds.
PoC characters w/ 'mystical' physical characteristics
This is when PoC are given different colour hair or eyes because of an arbitrary reason or spend majority of the story changed into creatures.
Poor Disability Representation
When characters with disabilities are not present or when they are magically treated through sci-fi or magic.
Trophyism
The tendency for men to view women as objects to be collected and displayed as status symbols of their sexual prowess or virility. These âtrophy womenâ then serve as a way for men to assert their social status among and relative to other men.
Male Entitlement & Toxic Masculinity
The conviction that men are owed something by virtue of their gender. It is the belief structure that tells men they deserve to have their whims catered to both culturally and interpersonally. One of the most harmful aspects of male entitlement is the belief that men have a right to survey and use womenâs bodies.
Women as Background Decoration
The subset of largely insignificant female characters whose sexuality or victimhood is exploited as a way to infuse edgy, gritty or racy flavoring into the story's world. These sexually objectified female bodies are designed to function as environmental texture while titillating presumed straight male audiences.
Ms. Male character
A female version of an already established or default male character. Ms. Male Characters are defined primarily by their relationship to their male counterparts via their visual properties, their narrative connection. When the female spin-off is an exact duplicate, she is sometimes referred to as a Distaff Counterpart.
Disposability
When an objectified person is treated as âsomething designed for or capable of being thrown away after being used or used upâ â a component of objectification theory.
Damsel in Distress
As a trope the damsel in distress is a plot device in which a female character is placed in a perilous situation from which she cannot escape on her own and must be rescued by a male character, usually providing a core incentive or motivation for the protagonistâs quest.
Damsel in the Refrigerator
The Damsel in the Refrigerator occurs when the heroâs sweetheart is brutally murdered and her soul is then trapped or abducted by the villain.
Dude in Distress
A comparatively rare plot device employing a gender inversion of the damsel in distress trope.
Euthanized Damsel
This typically happens when the player character must murder the woman in peril âfor her own good.â Usually the damsel has been mutilated or deformed in some way by the villain and the âonly option leftâ to the hero is to put her âout of her miseryâ himself.
Personality Female Syndrome
This occurs when female characters are reduced to a one-dimensional personality type consisting of nothing more than a collection of shallow stereotypes about women. She is vain, spoiled, bratty and quick to anger.
Violence Against Women
In the context of our work, this refers to images of women being victimized, or instances in which violence is specifically linked to a characterâs gender or sexuality. Female characters who happen to be involved in combat or violent situations on relatively equal footing with their opponents are typically exempt from this category because they are generally not framed as victims.