The Rule

The Rule, also called "Dykes To Watch Out For test" ("DTWOF test" for short), the "Alison Bechdel test", or, inaccurately, the "Mo Movie Measure", is a standard that requires that a movie satisfy "three basic requirements":

1. It has to have at least two women in it,
2. Who talk to each other,
3. about something besides a man.

This principle was established by Liz Wallace, a friend of the cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Bechdel used it in a Dykes To Watch Out For comic strip in 1985, and it has since entered into popular use.

The Rule originally only served as a movie-going principle, but its application has been extended to gauge movies, and assorted publications in general, from a feminist perspective. Whether or not a movie, book, or television show meets the Rule, or passes the DTWOF test, is helpful in determining women's importance in relation to each other within the work in question. Failure to meet the Rule is a strong indication that female characters are under-characterized or under-developed in the work. Rather than being seen as whole individuals, such under-developed female characters may only be stand-ins for generic female roles: wife, girlfriend, daughter, helpful subordinate, etc. These female characters may be relevant or interesting to the story only insofar as their characters are involved with or commenting on the men in their lives. Their essential characters or attributes are under-developed, leading to an artistically crippled work.

Source

• The original comic strip by Alison Bechdel, up at the Dykes To Watch Out For blog (also available at bechdel flickr)