“Why does nobody write women?”

[DokiDokiTsuna]

I’m referencing the title of a YouTube video I noticed recently, talking about a certain phenomenon the OP decided to investigate during Artfight this year. Technically, I only perused the comments as I usually do; I did not actually watch the video, so I’m not going to link it or vouch for the statistical validity of their investigation. If you’re curious, you can always look it up yourself.

What I am going to do is discuss the question that inspired the investigation, because I think it’s really interesting. ^^;

First, my blunt response: if none of the creatives in your social media-sphere write or care about women…skill issue, tbh. :T I understand where the question is coming from, and I AM gonna discuss that, but frankly it’s not actually THAT hard to find artists and writers who regularly create female characters, love them, and treat them as if they matter. Like…it’s really not that hard. ^^;;;
If you honestly have no idea where to start, find any anime with a majority female cast and look in the fan sphere for people making OCs for that world. I guarantee you will find hundreds of OC girls of every level of complexity, whose creators all think they’re the best thing ever. Like, just try a little bit; you’ll find them so easily. ^^;;;;

Now for my more thoughtful response: so I’m pretty sure the implication is that creative society in general does not value female characters as much as male characters, and sees them as less complex and less worthy of consideration or attention (outside of objectification). And there are plenty of examples of this pattern of thinking, especially in fandom. =/ It’s not an unreasonable hypothesis, and if it was supported by statistics I wouldn’t be surprised.

Many commenters mentioned common fandom phenomena as anecdotal evidence for this, like male characters being ‘woobified’ and/or worshipped as ‘Tumblr sexymen’, and generally getting put on pedestals in ways that you just don’t see for many female-gendered characters.
Or on the contrary, female characters being demonized and labeled annoying “Mary Sues” for being even slightly unappealing, in ways that you just don’t see for many male-gendered characters.
Case in point: I have never seen a male character, no matter how genuinely irritating and unnecessary they are, get called a Gary Stu by a fandom at large. People will admit they’re annoying and unlikeable, but they don’t get reduced to a mistake and immediately dismissed the way a female character will. Critics tend to…actually dissect their actions and explain why they shouldn’t have done specific things. ^^ What a concept.

Outside of fandom behavior, people posited some other potential explanations for this observation, like the lack of substantial female characters in media for artists to be inspired by (ehhh, skill issue, but also I kinda get it), the idea that most OC creators are heterosexual women and just draw/write what they’re attracted to, societal ideas about male characters simply being more capable and deserving of being interestingly written, young artists just finding it difficult to draw boobs and trying to avoid them at all costs…lots of interesting ideas. ^^;

However, there was one explanation that I don’t think I saw anyone mention, at least not in depth– the idea that emotionally complex male characters are a highly entertaining novelty.

Society already expects women to be emotional and dramatic; that’s not novel. Similarly, society also expects women to be cold and stoic, if only so they’ll always be prepared to punish, mock, shame, and correct this behavior should it ever show up. Not novel. On the flipside, society expects (and demands) men to be cold and stoic, obviously; that’s not novel either.

But a man who is emotional and dramatic? Who explores his feelings and traumas through a thrilling story of intrigue and excitement? Who gets to be sweet and kind, cheerful and joyful, to suffer and pine, to maybe even grapple with the idea that, as a man, he’s not even supposed to feel this deeply, and explore that inner conflict too? That’s novel. ‘_’

Or, rather, it feels novel, because society still doesn’t expect or reward this behavior from a man. In mainstream media, emotion from male characters is supposed to come out in a very small number of specific contexts, in specific ways, with specific body language and framing. So breaking those norms with male OCs continues to feel fresh and interesting and exciting and unique. All qualities that young creators love to see in their work.

I truly think ^this is the best all-encompassing explanation; it kinda weirded me out that no one mentioned it. ^^; It even explains all the related fandom phenomena–- all the fantasizing and salivating and apologia for a male character who’s even slightly unique and expressive, or the headcanon creation of these traits for a male character who’s NOT that unique or expressive, but popular enough to ‘deserve’ it…it’s simply because it’s a novelty.

Anyway, the reason I came to this realization is because I actually saw it in myself, believe it or not. ^^; A while back on this forum, I asked myself why I stopped writing girl-centric stories for so many years…turns out, it wasn’t because I stopped consuming female-led media; to this day most of the shows I watch have female MCs. No, it was actually because I like doing unusual things and thinking outside-the-box with my characters, and doing in-depth explorations on ideas of vulnerability and love and belonging with male characters of various ages was very outside-the-box, and it’s only recently that I’ve finally explored enough to feel satisfied, and start wanting to come back to my roots. Or start exploring other things…I’ve been doing a lot with mentally ill and disabled characters lately…

Anyway-anyway, I don’t regret this. ^^; There’s nothing actually wrong with writing characters of an overrepresented demographic; I think most people are in agreement on that. However, it never hurts to do some self-examination and ask yourself why, especially if you don’t seem to enjoy writing characters of any other demographic at all. Besides it just being cognitively healthy to interrogate your decisions from time to time, it may help you identify weak spots in your writing: other people are gonna notice when only your conventionally-attractive male leads are decently written, while literally everyone else in the story is just a tool to facilitate the plot. But you may be having too much fun to notice if you don’t take a step back and look for those issues.

But what do you all think? Have you noticed that “nobody” in your artist sphere seems to want to write women, or are you like me and looking at this issue from the outside…? ^^; What do you think the reasons might be for this issue; and have they affected your character rosters?

[AizuKin123]

Honestly, I can’t judge this topic in full since I don’t have the intel or experience to measure whether my characters count as “well-written” in the larger sense, especially when it comes to female characters. What I do know is that when I sit down to create them, I give them as much depth and detail as I can — Velara, Liora, Lia, (future character arcs)— and I would never in a million years think of using them as props or just fanservice after putting in that much work.

For me, female characters aren’t accessories. They carry their own weight, their own pain, their own choices. I can’t imagine writing them only as a tool to move the story forward. That feels like such a waste.

I also think a lot of this comes down to perspective. Some writers treat female characters like the small cracks on the side of a pillar — not worth noticing, so they don’t bother fleshing them out. And when you don’t put in that effort, of course the character won’t stand out or have a line of focus.

That said, I’m not sure anyone can pin down one universal reason why this happens. Maybe it’s novelty, maybe it’s bias, maybe it’s habit. Who really knows?

[ArtGremlin]

I’ve never thought about this before It could explain why practically all the stories I write are more focused on the male lead. Their stories just feel a little more interesting to me. But I do feel like the female leads of my two most developed stories are very well-written and I love them equally to the male characters.

[sophialyn]

I 1000% agree with your statement “skill issue” BECAUSE IN MY OPINION IT IS
The problem with people not knowing how to write women isn’t because women are more difficult to write then men it’s because some writers view women as other and do not take the time to understand their own bias. I feel the same way about writers that refuse to write POC. They don’t care enough to take the time to write them.
And I’m not entirely saying that’s a bad thing, write what you want but don’t blame the person you don’t want to represent ya know?
Sorry if I’m being aggressive, I am very passionate about this topic. It was part of the inspiration for my book​
I swapped roles, the men are the emotional healer types and the women are the physically strong blunt types. Because I’m SICK of women being seen as difficult or men being viewed as weak for being human

[Oriflamme]

I would say it depends on where you look, but without actual number crunching, no one can know if it is true or not only that it feels true. But that might be confirmation bias or something else.

If it’s actually true, I don’t know how much societal sexism is to blame, because it is entirely possible that it causes the complete opposite to happen. I’ve seen several male targeted pieces of media to have a fully fleshed out primary cast that is composed entirely of women.

Something I noticed while watching Schwarzesmarken (A shitty 2016 anime, where east-german soldiers fight aliens using mechs), apart from the mc, most of the main characters that had a bearing on the plot were women. The fact that the official mech pilot uniform is a skin-tight latex outfit leads me to believe that it’s not because of feminism, or pure coincidence that the character gender ratio is so imbalanced.

The need to create cute waifus, often result in story in story where the only character male that is fully developed is the main character, and even then it is not always a guarantee(I’m looking at you, all the anime where the MC is a generic black air guy, with no discernable personality).

[DokiDokiTsuna]

If it’s actually true, I don’t know how much societal sexism is to blame, because it is entirely possible that it causes the complete opposite to happen. I’ve seen several male targeted pieces of media to have a fully fleshed out primary cast that is composed entirely of women.

I think a common misconception there is that female-led stories couldn't possibly be made with sexist intentions, when they 1000% absolutely can. ^^; That's...actually one of the biggest problems that many people have with anime; I put the 'objectification' caveat in there for a reason.

The thing you have to ask yourself is why the female characters are there and how they're used; you can't just use their presence as proof that there isn't a problem. A sizable percentage of female representation in media is either purely voyeuristic or made into something voyeuristic at every available opportunity. :T I mean, you said it yourself:

The fact that the official mech pilot uniform is a skin-tight latex outfit leads me to believe that it’s not because of feminism, or pure coincidence that the character gender ratio is so imbalanced.

I'll admit, when it comes to anime, sometimes this results in genuinely good female character representation, especially when the characters in question aren't, like, 12. A woman who is sexy and desirable and enjoys being that way, while also being powerful, feared, and engaging in character arcs that explore her real weaknesses, failures and ideals...I think that's a very well-rounded female character, the kind that many western viewers are starved for outside of anime. I'm very willing to forgive voyeurism as a motivation when it results in a story that has genuine quality character work to offer alongside it.

...However, this doesn't erase the 500 other anime (for every one of ^those) that slap incredibly basic or nonexistent character work on top of Sexy Highschool Girls: The Series and call it a day. The underlying problem is still a problem. ^^;

The need to create cute waifus, often result in story in story where the only character male that is fully developed is the main character, and even then it is not always a guarantee(I’m looking at you, all the anime where the MC is a generic black air guy, with no discernable personality).

I'm kind of intrigued by why you decided to add this point, considering the topic at hand...are you trying to say that the male characters are the ones actually being underrepresented, since waifus are so popular?

Because I kinda get that (especially after seeing how certain people react to male characters getting introduced into gacha games...it is comical; you'd think they were allergic XD)...but believe it or not, this also fits into what people were complaining about.

A couple commenters noted that when someone in their sphere DID include female OCs in their roster, it still felt shallow and dismissive. Every fantasy boy has a detailed backstory and complicated relationships with the other fantasy boys...while the fantasy girls are simply given the occupation 'fantasy princess' with no further details. For example.

Again, it's about intent-- like comparing 1,000 pieces of popcorn to one grilled steak. Even if there is technically more popcorn, simply by virtue of being popcorn (an airy, low-effort food that people generally eat just to have something to chew on) it is all going to be viewed and treated as a bunch of silly little snacks. Meanwhile, that one steak is going to be viewed and treated as a full meal...even in those cases where it's not even a good steak.

From what I've heard, the issue people have with the 'generic black-haired MC' in anime isn't just the fact that they're generic...it's also the fact that so much time and effort and attention is given to them anyway. Every conventionally-attractive girl in the story obsesses over this generic guy. Every non-generic guy is in awe of the strength and determination of this generic guy. We spend hours forced to listen to his generic thoughts and generic reactions to all the way-more-interesting characters, and we are expected to root for him to achieve his generic goals.

He is a rubbery, gristly, room-temperature steak STILL being treated as a full meal, while every girl in his vicinity is considered popcorn...even if everyone, the MC included, might actually find more enjoyment in a story from one of their POVs instead.
And it's annoying enough when it's a joke (like in many harem anime); it gets more annoying when it's simply the modus operandi, like in many shonen anime...which I feel are now garnering a reputation for creating genuinely fascinating female characters and insisting on treating them like popcorn even when it makes zero sense.

Like, when I was a kid, you'd just have "the girl character who does computer stuff or whatever" in the middle of a bunch of cool boy combat-wizards, and you could grumble about it but at least she had a place in the cast. If you were lucky, you could get a "the girl combat-wizard who just fights less and really only shines when there's a female villain around", and that could tide you over.

Nowadays though, it seems like you often get "the girl character who literally invented combat-wizardry and shares all her secrets with the boy combat-wizards, and she's super fun and has a great design and can kill literally anything" and you'd get really excited...until it turns out that she doesn't really have much screentime, and then gets brutally murdered to set up some super strong villain guy because...idk, the writer just got sick of her, I guess. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ I dunno, maybe it's just the circles I run in, but it feels like the beginning of a trend...

[kyupol]

I dunno but there's so many comics here that's "the villainess this... or that..." or reverse harem.

...and one of my comics features an army that meets DEI guidelines and is led by a woman. (This isn't a promotion thread but I've posted it already in many promotion threads)

[PapaDom]

Guess you can call me and everyone I know "Nobody" since I, for example, mostly write 95% of the time just females. And the others quite a chunk as well.

I guess the main issue with the "exploring men being emotional is new and exciting" is that most people who state this didn't watch a lot of stuff. I rewatch a macho anime from the 80s and even with the premise it has, the men do show their emotions quite often, even crying as well * gasp* : o
I would blame the writers of newer shows, since it feels like they just make a flanderized version of tropes and focus on the appearance of a character rather than making them flawed, but that happens if you want your self-insert to be the main protagonist. And to some extent the "fans" for not looking at more stuff besides their interest. But I don't want to say everything is bad. There are some hidden gems with amazingly well-written characters but it is hard to find them if they're under the radar for not being that popular and everyone's cup of tea.

I did not actually watch the video, so I’m not going to link it or vouch for the statistical validity of their investigation. If you’re curious, you can always look it up yourself.

You could at least drop a name. I saw like 5 different videos with the same title and didn't want to waste 35 minutes just to watch the wrong one.
Also kind of a bad research praxis tbh. What if the video agreed with your take but you never know it if you don't watch it.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

I guess the main issue with the "exploring men being emotional is new and exciting" is that most people who state this didn't watch a lot of stuff. I rewatch a macho anime from the 80s and even with the premise it has, the men do show their emotions quite often, even crying as well * gasp* : o

emotion from male characters is supposed to come out in a very small number of specific contexts, in specific ways, with specific body language and framing.

^^^I wasn't claiming that men aren't allowed to show emotion in media; just that this emotion is limited to expressions that are considered "correct" for the gender (which changes over time, and across cultures...acceptable expressions for a Japanese male lead in 1980 and an American male lead in 2025 are pretty different ballparks).
The way a man cries, and what they are allowed to cry about, for example, are more significant than whether or not they're allowed to at all, in this case. And generally, at least from what I've seen, female characters are allowed a greater range. There are expressions of grief that girls display (crying loudly, crying in someone else's arms, crying over interpersonal conflict) that usually aren't appropriate for boys, unless it's to show that they're particularly childish or vulnerable.

You could at least drop a name. I saw like 5 different videos with the same title and didn't want to waste 35 minutes just to watch the wrong one. Also kind of a bad research praxis tbh. What if the video agreed with your take but you never know it if you don't watch it.

...I'm not researching though? ^^;;; I'm just musing...
I apologize if you really wanted to see the video (if you're still curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrY4VUBPW3k) but technically it has no bearing on anything I said, so it wouldn't really matter whether you watched the 'wrong' one. I'm...not talking about the video, I'm talking about the idea behind it. As I explained...

I just figured our opinions would be very differently grounded anyway (as I am not a participant in ArtFight, and don't really interact with many original OC creators) and if I didn't even want to watch the video, why link it? It would be misleading...but like I said, if you're curious, now you can.

[vapidink]

I just think it's hilarious to say this in the context of Artfight when most of the OCs are furry. Watched the video, I agree with the larger points the creator makes, but I think there's a lot of context that's missed in "studies" like the one in the video.

Anyway, I agree with you on it being a skill issue if you find yourself surrounded by manly men characters. Like, c'mon, romance is a huge genre and it's largely held up by women writing female-led stories. One of the reasons I write mostly male characters is precisely because I found myself surrounded by female-led stories. I still do, tbh. All of the writing groups I'm in have a majority of women writing women and that's great, especially because there's a wide range of genres available in their works. I just got bored of that being what was mostly available.

After spending years writing women in leading roles, I tried something different. Because my stories have more male leads, I'm more prone to having more male characters available for artfight. Not because I don't love my female characters, but because I don't have the time to make reference sheets for all of my characters, so I usually do the leads. If I were doing het romance that would make it 50/50 on gender, but I'm writing mostly BL so...🤷🏻‍♀️

So, even though misogyny is definitely a thing in a more general context, I don't think that's always the reason why someone might not have a lot of women in their stories. I think the video came from surprise at having an expectation shattered, in this case that being a supposedly open-minded and inclusive community of artists being not as inclusive. The last part of the video nails the real problem though, misogyny in society at large and how it doesn't really go away in more progressive communities when it's internalized. But that's a whole other thing.

Also wanna give a shoutout to the terrible representation of women in media that has perpetuated harmful tropes and put people off writing women. That's definitely a part of the issue of why some people are put off of media with women. And people are also lazy to actually dig deep in their search for good stories and often miss some good ones.

[jwabeasley]

I saw the video you referenced a while back. I don't recall much about it though, so I don't think it was especially insightful.

People can pick any given subset of humanity and easily claim they're being written poorly, because there is not much quality writing in general (75-95% of everything is crap). People can then discount the dozen or so recent instances of good writing of that group because it isn't representative, and it isn't, but then you get a one-sided analysis.

Hollywood writing has been terrible for a long time, but the mediocre and merely trashy fade into blissful obscurity.

Nobody likes the hyper-competent stoic badass archetype in general, but sometimes men can be charming enough to pull it off even though women can't. Moana's Maui only works because he's the Rock, if he was a mostly average guy everyone would hate him, and a woman couldn't pull off that role in a satisfying way. Likewise, there are many poorly written femme bombshells that only work because they're played by photogenic women, and no men could play that role in a satisfying way (at least for general audiences). The specific trend of making a young woman a hypercompetent emotionless jerk who just needs to learn to believe in herself has never been very interesting to anybody who isn't an upper middle class woman.

That said, I think the trend lately has been for men, especially adult men, to be poorly written. In highly marketed popular series, often the men are either immature jerks (in men's media) or hypermasculine predators that magically drop all their interests in obsession to the plain jane audience insert character (in women's smut), or they'll be incompetent buffoons with no skills but sometimes they're cute to have around (in regular women's media). Men that can handle themselves and deal with issues like adults are few and far between.

But I'm with you. It really is a skill issue. There is no shortage of interesting women characters in mythology, literature, and media in any time period you care to discuss. That pulp sci-fi of the 1940s or trash wish fulfilment Isekai lack layered female characters is hardly enough to say that they aren't being written. The Youtuber just doesn't read much of the genres that prioritize women.

[PapaDom]

Yeah, but this proves my point again about people not watching a lot of stuff.
Like, there are media out there where the men do cry like you wouldn't expect it from them. Granted, most of the examples I can think of are comedies, but even some of them have their serious moments. Or movies where some men have a breaking point moment and are embraced by others and cry in their arms. But like I said before, it depends on what kind of media you watch, but it's definitely out there, and it isn't bound by gender, but rather by what the author wants to explore with their story.

but technically it has no bearing on anything I said, so it wouldn't really matter whether you watched the 'wrong' one. I'm...not talking about the video, I'm talking about the idea behind it. As I explained...

Yeah, but then again... you could talk about the idea behind it and the video could be having the exact talking points you could make. That's why research is a bit necessary, not to waste your time writing the exact same things somebody else said. But thank you for sharing the link nonetheless.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

That's why research is a bit necessary, not to waste your time writing the exact same things somebody else said.

Hey now, everyone has a different definition of 'wasting time'...for instance, I'd much rather spend my time writing out my thoughts than watching a video about a dubiously-accurate experiment whose premise I don't even entirely agree with. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ 'Research' isn't actually a prerequisite for starting a discussion about your own opinions.

And if I happen to bring up something that they already mentioned in the video...so what, exactly? It would really only matter if the content of the video was part of my point, meaning I'd be essentially repeating myself...but it wasn't, so I'm not. ._.

The only reason I brought up the video at all is because I quoted its title question, and wanted to discuss the same context of OC creation and fandom. That's all. Apart from that, there's no connection.

[cherrystark]

I have a lot of thoughts on the conundrum that is the "female character".

First, my blunt response: if none of the creatives in your social media-sphere write or care about women…skill issue, tbh. :T I understand where the question is coming from, and I AM gonna discuss that, but frankly it’s not actually THAT hard to find artists and writers who regularly create female characters, love them, and treat them as if they matter. Like…it’s really not that hard.

I don't think it's necessarily that they don't "care" about women or even a skill issue. I think too many creatives these days do not consider women as their own separate entity. Women are treated like shorter, softer, more "emotional" versions of men. And if their womanhood is acknowledged, they're either hypersexualized or ultra-aggressive. It's one of the two options, and they stick to played-out stereotypes. The writers sprinkle on cliches like sprinkles and expect us to glom onto them. I can forgive the original Mary Sue and the true Mary Sues because those characters genuinely just want to be a part of the media. However, in my opinion, practically every other "strong" female character nowadays is often a generic male template with the pronouns switched and generalized "strong" characteristics added on top. She's not allowed to be a human woman experiencing the world and reacting to the world as a woman would.

One of the main reasons I love female characters so much is that when you write a story from a female perspective, it tends to work. In my main series, my main character is an academic, and her husband and father are trained fighters. It makes 10x more sense for her husband and father to go fight the bad guys than for her to do it. She also has a baby at one point in the series, so her friends carry more of the physical load. It just makes sense because she's growing a human.

The Barbie Movie "worked" because, instead of taking a male story and adapting it to be a "girl" story, Greta Gerwig took an established plot outline (The Hero's Journey) and crafted it to be female-focused. The movie might not be to everyone's tastes, but it doesn't "lose" anything by being for girls. Brie Larson is a controversial actress since Captain Marvel is all "Grr, I'm a woman and therefore I'm strong," but when she's in Lessons in Chemistry or Room - female stories about power and survival. She's amazing.

I've seen it play out with countless other stories. If she's written to be a fully developed person, first reacting to the world. The character is great and the story is fun.

I don't try to compare male-led stories to female-led stories because the stories are fundamentally different. From what I've observed, most popular male characters are often intended to be self-inserts. I feel safe in assuming that every guy has at least one male character in a show he likes that he feels he could take over for and do the character's job just as well, if not better. Their casting choices are like 20% looks and 80% how cool they are. (Literally saw a thread about how The Last of Us would have been better if Josh Brolin played Pedro's part because Josh is cooler.)

Other stories are written as short serials, where we don't need characterization. Men value different traits, so having a shiny new love interest in each story is motivating. Pretty much all those characters were flat and one-dimensional until women started driving the fandoms. Male characters are more "fun" because they're "safer", like the female characters, they wish they could write just in male packaging.

At the end of the day, while these are only my opinions, I think people need to focus on writing fully fleshed out people first over anything else. Female characters hold up, but only if she's given the respect she's due.

[PapaDom]

Okay~...? Look, I'm not saying that you should stop writing long essays. If you love doing it and want to yap about a topic, don't let me stop you. But it's like if I made a topic called "Why don't men get sexualized in media?" without looking at the thing that started this thought process, it could undermine the credibility of my statement, create a strawman argument, and could make me look like a jerk if I don't value the opinions of others. That's the point of an open discussion like the one you created: getting the perspective of others outside my own view. (Also a bit rude and bound to miss the context if you just click on the video and just look at the comments, since you can never be sure if the commentators misinterpret what is said in the video. But that's just my opinion. ¯_(ツ)_/¯)

'Research' isn't actually a prerequisite for starting a discussion about your own opinions.

Okay, that's just half true. It's the two sides of the same coin, what you did is Side A but if I'm really curious about a topic, I want to check out more from it out of curiosity. That's Side B. Sure, I don't have to agree to everything someone says, but that's why "Agree to disagree" exists to understand their viewpoints and what made them decide to put their foot down on their opinion.

[KevinReijnders]

I’m referencing the title of a YouTube video I noticed recently, talking about a certain phenomenon the OP decided to investigate during Artfight this year. Technically, I only perused the comments as I usually do; I did not actually watch the video, so I’m not going to link it or vouch for the statistical validity of their investigation. If you’re curious, you can always look it up yourself.

Sooo, you clickbaited yourself into creating a thread

[TAMAnnoying]

Alright fine I'll bite,

But I'm not gonna talk about this coming from a "idk about YOU cause I write women ALL the time." Or "it's a skill issue lolz"

Let's really ask ourselves why people don't write women coming at it as a way to sell something to your audience-

SO as an audiance member I have recently gotten back into book reading and I'm reading books with dragons in it. The first book I read has a female lead and I was super exited for it because she was very boyish and raised to be more male centric which is my personal favorite kind of female lead- girls who jump in the mud. Now while I enjoyed the first book the second book was a massive disappointment because we took the young adult girl turn of tropes and the entire fucking second book was about her God damn love triangle.

The second book series I tried out has a male lead (much older man) as the main character and it has been a much nicer read because the story is about his relationship with his dragon- the war- the world- and everything that comes with it. He has a love interest but she's her own women and is off doing her own adventures and being her own character without having to constantly fret of love triangles or "I haven't gotten a message from her in 2 days she must hate me" bullshit drama I have to put up with in the other book

Now why is this? Should I have been surprised that the book with the young girl turned into a kissing book while the other didn't? Honestly? I really prob should have been

The reason why is because in most situations girls are not going to pick up a book series of a female lead unless there gonna see some kissing drama and romance it is something that is unfortunate but TRUE that the audiance is expecting it so to avoid this expectation being ruined most people will use male characters instead of female character (and often times older characters as well) to avoid this inclination that they should expect kissing scenes.

Sometimes it's not a skill issue or a dislike of women but knowing what the majority of your target audience is going to pick up. In most situations an audience member who is in their 50s will not enjoy a book about a 16 year old girl by the scheer fact they don't suffer from the same problems. And it's not a gender thing- it's every much a age thing. I don't watch anime anymore cause MOST shows are fucking teenagers or kids and I don't give a damn about their stupid school bully problems. Fortunately or unfortunately you have to understand that your main character will leave a first impression on a viewer- most romance books have female main characters and as such the cultural zeitgeist will dictate that if the main character in the book you just picked up in your local library is a 25 year old single woman- it's PROBABLY gonna be filled with romance- and if your like me who hates romance books- your gonna avoid female leads

[bulgariansumo]

I was too put off by the thumbnail to watch. But I'll take a crack at it. Your theory is interesting, but I feel like it's even more simple than that: Things with more guys in them are more popular.

Things with majority female characters tend to be aimed at girls/women. You'll get a Touhou or a RWBY here and there, but those are rare, especially to people who don't interact with gaming/anime spaces. Guys are more likely to be kept away from engaging with things that are for girls, while it's not as usual for girls to be kept away from more guy-oriented media. With that in mind, media for guys is naturally more popular. This leads to people making more male OCs, even in spaces that try to be more diverse.

[Zhengo]

I just checked out that video out of curiosity due to having participated in artfight myself this year. I kind of wish she went more in depth with how she collected her data as all of my characters on that site had very brief bios due to the fact that I didn't want to spoil too many things from my comic, so I was wondering if she considered the average tendencies of how bios were written per user vs just taking the character bios at face value. There were a lot of other things I wanted to know more about but that's beside the point since you didn't watch the video apparently.

I myself wasn't aware this was so much of an issue since fictional media is not necessarily lacking in female leads in certain genres (i.e. romance). I do think that female leads are overrepresented in romance and underrepresented in other genres, and maybe that's why in an OC creating site like artfight, people may be less interested in creating female characters since I assume not everyone there is that interested in consuming only the romance genre and so only have male leads to reference. Shonen anime and big fantasy gacha games are quite popular these days among both genders in the youth today, and the most popular works in these tend to not have very strong writing for their female cast.

Anyways for my own writing, I don't usually put much thought into the gender of my characters honestly. You could flip the gender of most of my characters and it wouldn't make much of a difference. For lack of a better description, what gender I determine for my characters just really depends on my "mood". I think the only exception for this is some "design-first" characters where I specifically make them male/female to contrast with their design. (This is a more sophisticated way of me saying that I like drawing feminine men...) But even then, I don't tend to make this design contrast their entire personality, I just draw what I like

I think some people think too hard about what a female character should/shouldn't be, that is for some reason not as prevalent for people when making male characters, and that might also just be because of the popular media tendencies to highlight a female character's 'womanhood' much more frequently. I.E. when a male character is much softer and emotional, cries a bunch, etc. they don't usually get called out for being "less manly", but the opposite, when a female character is more brash, rude, etc. they will more often get called out for being more "unladlylike"

I think it would help if people just decoupled the gender of their characters from the writing of them, of course, if your worldbuilding centers around a society with strict gender roles, I suppose that might be harder, though if it is a fantasy world, that would also make me question the need for this societal rule in the first place.

[susutaru]

I don't know the video but i made the experience, that the most female roles in Manga/Anime are....just annoying.
either the girls are bitchy, mary sues, crybabys, or other things. It's annoying!
And since the great genre Boys Love/Yaoi came up, women died for me even more XD'

But!
As an artist, I choose to put women on the line, thate are understand- and loveable to break this circle of doom. Cause we women aren't just big breast puppets, nor are we bitchy, mary sues or crybabys.