I’ve been working on a story for a while in which the main character is female. I know “men writing women” can be an issue and I am really trying to issue spot as much as I can to make her a compelling character with out any sexist bullshit. So in addition to reading a bunch of women authors I thought I’d straight up ask for advice.

For starters its a fantasy story so gender norms can be what ever I want. I kinda think gender roles are entirely bullshit so that’s my starting point. But if because of that I fail to address any real issues women have dealt with across cultures and history is she still going to be relatable?

How do I address emotion? Its a common trope for badass heroins to be relatively emotionless, ie if your an emotional woman you cant be a badass. On the other hand the emotional female is also a stereotype and making a character emotional just cause she’s a women feels just as sexist. My character is an artificer, basically an engineer, so a less emotional more logical out look on life makes sense for her, but I don’t want to be accused of either stereotype.

How do i deal with her physical description? Obviously I’m not gonna talk about how perfect her nipples are but she is loosely based off one of my friends is rather well endowed. Should I just leave that part up to readers imagination? There are a couple non sexual scenes where it makes sense for her to be naked but again I don’t want to come across as just some dude writing out his fantasy.

Speaking of sexuality how do I handle that from a women’s point of view? The friend she is based off is quite pretty and she knows it and uses it to her advantage and it would be perfectly in character for my character to do the same thing. But I don’t I’m sure there are pitfalls to me writing that sort of thing. I also have no intention of writing explicit sex scenes but sex is a part of life and something that’s very likely to come up in the story but not being a women I’m worried my handling of it would be skewed.

I’m sure I have more questions I’m not currently thinking of but any advice on these issues would be appreciated…