How can we illustrate the Mental Sex of our Main Character? The following point by point comparison provides some clues:
Female Mental Sex: looks at motivations
Male Mental Sex: looks at purposes
Female Mental Sex: tries to see connections
Male Mental Sex: tries to gather evidence
Female Mental Sex: sets up conditions
Male Mental Sex: sets up requirements
Female Mental Sex: determines the leverage points that can restore balance
Male Mental Sex: breaks a job into steps
Female Mental Sex: seeks fulfillment
Male Mental Sex: seeks satisfaction
Female Mental Sex: concentrates on “Why” and “When”
Male Mental Sex: concentrates on “How” and “What”
Female Mental Sex: puts the issues in context
Male Mental Sex: argues the issues
Female Mental Sex: tries to hold it all together
Male Mental Sex: tries to pull it all together
In stories, more often than not, physical gender matches Mental Sex. From time to time, however, gender and Mental Sex are cross-matched to create usual and interesting characters. For example, Ripley in Alien and Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs are Male Mental Sex characters. Tom Wingo in The Prince of Tides and Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October are Female Mental Sex characters. In most episodes of The X Files, Scully (the female F.B.I. agent) uses a(n) Male Mental Sex and Mulder (the male F.B.I. agent) uses a(n) Female Mental Sex, which is part of the series’ unusual feel. Note that Mental Sex has nothing to do with a character’s sexual preferences or tendency toward being masculine or feminine.
Sometimes stereotypes are propagated by what an audience expects to see, which filters the message and dilutes the truth. By placing a female psyche in a physically male character or a male psyche in a physically female character, preconceptions no longer prevent the message from being heard. On the downside, some audience members may have trouble relating to a Main Character whose problem solving techniques do not match the physical expectations.
Excerpted from
Dramatica Story Development Software
