The Rule
The Rule, also called "Dykes to Watch Out For test" ("DTWOF test" for short), or, inaccurately, the "Mo Movie Measure", is a standard which requires that a movie satisfy "three basic requirements":
- It has to have at least two women in it
- Who talk to each other 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.
Source
- The original comic strip by Alison Bechdel, up at the Dykes to Watch Out For blog