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The lovely and talented dsudis has recently done an analysis of Stargate season 1 according to the Bechdel Test. (splash_the_cat pointed out this great link describing what the Bechdel Test is if you aren't familiar with it.)  Upon noticing the general fail of the show, both when analyzed by sex and race, dsudis has done the admirable thing and has set out to fix the season 1 eps with fantastic little fill in scenes.  So far she has written Sisters in Arms which is Sam and Sha're in COTG, and Common Language which is Sgt. Hoyt (the unamed kidnapped Earth woman) and Sha're. I've been a fan of dsudis ever since I read her amazing and wrenching With The Dying that I have rec'd many a time already, but if you still haven't read it, GO NOW.  It's Daniel and alt-Teal'c in the past from Moebius. Lovely.

Anyway, the point of this. Bechdel Test. I decided to cast a critical eye over my own writing. I had a feeling going in that as a het ship whore who obsesses way too much over Jack and Sam, I was doomed to fail bitterly.  And I was mostly right.  I've written around 60 fics at this point, give or take a few comment fics here or there. And while 20 of these are actually gen (surprising), only 11 pass the Bechdel Test (boo!). 11.  Out of 60.  I'm running at less than 20%. That's just embarrassing.

Now, one could point out that there isn't exactly an overabundance of female characters in the Stargate SG-1 universe to begin with, but that doesn't really make me feel any better.  I find it interesting that three of the fics I had the hardest time writing recently all pass the test, and I have to wonder if it was this element in particular that gave me such a difficult time.  Was it hard to write because these two women never actually interacted on screen, or the fact that it's two women not talking about men?  God, I really hope the former, but who knows.  All three of these fics were also all written for ficathons, meaning I probably never would have thought to write a fic about Sam and Sha're, or Cassie and Vala without the prompt and looming threat of deadline. This makes me sad. (Oh, and the third fic? An SGA fic with mostly all OCs. Interesting. I had to make up my women characters.)

So what to do? Swear off het fic? Only write women characters now?  No, of course not.  I sat down and did this little anaylsis because I needed to make myself painfully aware of exactly what I am doing so that it will be much, much harder to ignore in the future. I want that little voice in the back of my head questioning, always questioning.  Because that's what we'd really like TPTB to do as well, right?

Meanwhile, I might just go peruse the leftover galpalficathon prompts again.  Wanna come with?