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I'm attempting to write a novel, an historical fiction with a small fantasy component (time travel through a portal). The travelers (main characters) are a young couple from the late 23rd Century who are (without preparation or intent) transported back to the late 14th Century. The setting is Venetian-ruled Croatia, though that has little to do with my question.

In my version of the late 23rd Century, at least in the part of the world where these two were raised, is what we might call "post woke"; the mentality of people in their time and area is one of equality, acceptance of differences, and egalitarianism. As such, the male half of the couple struggles with the notion that, in order to blend in to the 14th Century, he has to do things like hold doors for women. This is a simplistic description of what he goes through, but it should suffice here.

Which brings us to my struggles (as a male writer) with writing the female character from her own POV. She's a modern woman of the 23rd Century, albeit young (twenty years old). She can take care of herself, and eschews the idea of needing a man in her life to do much of anything for her save perhaps lifting large, heavy objects. She is, however, feminine, and I'm... not. So I don't have confidence that I can write a female protagonist who has agency without sounding like "a dude writing a chick".

So what tips do you have for writing properly feminine female characters who have agency? I'm particularly interested in hearing from women writers, though tips from anyone are appreciated.

On "Jo Writes Stuff", Jo has produced an epic analysis of whether or not a character is a "strong female character"; and a test to go with it. Here is her instructions on How To Use The Test.

She has stopped any new analysis, but here is a list of All The Characters She Reviewed.

I believe this can help you with some of your issues; just writing a post-woke female character.

For the most part, other than sexual attractions or attentions, I think in the 23rd century the answer is to write female characters and male characters rather similarly, but NOT as women becoming like men: More like meeting in the middle, or both sides going to some extreme.

For example, consider makeup: One route is to eliminate it; women no longer need it in the post-woke society. But the other route is to make it universal: Your male character may have some trouble in our modern time, because like all men of his time, he doesn't usually go out without makeup. (The same was true for men in some royal courts a few centuries in our past).

Your guy might have acquired many habits and attitudes we might consider "feminine", and what we consider acceptably "masculine" today may come to be considered just rude in the 23rd century. Like men interrupting women, or clerks and managers speaking exclusively to a man instead of to both the man and woman.

Or on the flip side, your male may be just as motherly and devoted to kids, and know everything there is to know about childcare and raising children, and doesn't defer to women in the least in that respect. In his time, men are expected (by both other men and women) to be full and sensitive participants in childcare.

For the most part, I would just have your 23rd century people not perceive any difference between interacting with men or women. As a psychological trick to help you do that and get past your own cultural bias, she responds to and speaks to men as a modern woman would respond to and speak to another modern female stranger, saying or doing the same thing: Gender makes no difference to your time traveler. The opposite trick for your time traveling man: he responds to and speaks to women the same as a modern man would respond to and speak to another modern male stranger.

And though they are a couple, they engage with each other as friends. If you intend to have romantic or sexual scenes in the story, make them equally desirous.

There is seldom a need for designing a "strong male character", But I'd use Jo's checklist in the same way. Here are her questions; the link above has details on what you should consider for each question.

1. Does the character shape her own destiny? Does she actively try to
   change her situation and if not, why not?


2. Does she have her own goals, beliefs and hobbies? Did she come up
   with them on her own?


3. Is her character consistent? Do her personality or skills change as
   the plot demands?


4. Can you describe her in one short sentence without mentioning her
   love life, her physical appearance, or the words
   ‘strong female character’?


5. Does she make decisions that aren’t influenced by her love life?


6. Does she develop over the course of the story?


7. Does she have a weakness?


8. Does she influence the plot without getting captured or killed?


9. How does she relate to stereotypes about gender?


10. How does she relate to other female characters?

Good luck.

Woman here. :)

I think what your female character would struggle with most is that suddenly she does need her man beside her - for safety, for being treated a certain way by other people, etc. It doesn't matter how feminine she was in the 23rd century, it doesn't matter if she liked cooking and staying at home and having doors opened for her, being suddenly deprived of the choice in the 14th century is going to hurt.

So how is she going to maintain her agency when the setting actively deprives her of it? There are two elements you can consider.

First, sometimes a strong character is deprived of agency. A POW isn't suddenly made a weak character by virtue of being deprived of virtually all agency, confined and abused. After becoming a POW, the character would be faced with a question - "what next?" They'd have to make a choice, pick a goal, be it "escape" or "survive" or "lead a rebellion", and then they'd be struggling to achieve that goal.

Same for your female character: her freedom has been considerably curtailed. What next? How does she choose to respond to the new situation? Whatever active choice she makes, whatever goal she picks, as long as she gets that choice - she has agency. I'd elaborate more, but @Amadeus has said it all, better than I would.

Second, and that comes after the first point, not instead, you could do some research. There were strong independent women in medieval times. Doña Gracia is my favourite example. There are others. Find out how those women came to hold prominent positions, what they had to struggle with, and what systems were in place to allow them to rise to where they did. Doña Gracia dealt with Henri II of France, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Popes Paul III and Paul IV, and Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. All those prominent men accepted her as someone who one could, and should, have dealings with.

Armed with this knowledge, and depending on where you want to take your plot, your female character could become formidable indeed.

While I'm not qualified to advise you on this specific question, I do have some good general advice. Start by doing some research in the form of interviews with someone who resembles your character (it doesn't need to be a writer).

Obviously you won't (probably!) find a time traveler, but you can talk to young women in male-dominated fields. You can also talk to older women about what it was like to be young in the (presumably more sexist) past, or women who have lived or traveled in more "traditional" parts of the world. You can also read work with strong female characters by women writers and see what choices they make. Doing the research is a good general strategy for writing characters with demographics that don't match your own.

A really good resource for you would be the book Kindred by the science fiction writer Octavia Butler. It is written from the POV of a modern young woman transported through time, against her will, into the life of a slave woman in the pre-Civil War American South.

Femininity simply means embracing traditionally feminine activities, such as being nurturing, delicate yet skilled work (like needlework), preferring dresses over shirts, taking pride in a feminine appearance (lipstick, long hair, well-groomed and generally shaved body hair).

Believe it or not, there's a lot of ways someone who is feminine can have agency. Hell, most female lawyers are still very feminine (as looking conventionally attractive, sadly, wins cases, both in men and women), yet are no doubt in charge of their own destiny, yes?

Even a housewife can have agency; as long as it's what the woman wants rather than a role ascribed to them (a la an arranged marriage or something put upon her by her husband) then she's a woman that's chosen to be a housewife.

Here's a good example of someone who is clearly feminine and has strong feminine-coded skills, yet is clearly also a woman who is in charge of herself and is genuinely competent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3dv9NYrkUE