List of stereotypes of female characters

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Common portrayals of women in SF/fantasy that rely on stereotypes of gender, ethnicity, age, sexuality.

"The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines 'stereotype' as a simplified conception or idea that gets invested with special meaning by a certain group of people. An archetype is slightly different: It's a model or an ideal from which duplicates are made. Think of it this way: A stereotype is a box, usually too small, that a girl gets jammed into. An archetype is a pedestal, usually too high, that she gets lifted up onto. ... Stereotype or archetype, it's rarely a girl's own choice: It's a label someone else gives you to make you less or more than you really are."

lovers, wives, mistresses

• woman as nurturing partner / sex object (Deanna Troi in Star Trek: The Next Generation; Josella in John Wyndham's The Day of The Triffids)
• woman as sex fantasy object
• woman as sex fantasy made real - Pygmalion, My Fair Lady, and a hundred other similar adaptations
• hapless ingenue, innocent but sexually available to the Right Man
• bitter and/or suffocatingly small-minded, petty wife (see most wives as portrayed by Philip K. Dick)

mothers

• woman as nurturing mother (Dr. Beverly Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation)
• woman as nurturing mother, clueless about the world (see Have Spacesuit Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein: "It doesn't matter where my big boy goes as long as he comes home for dinner.")
• wicked stepmother (stepmother in Snow White and Cinderella)
• the mother of the Chosen Boy (Jessica Atreides from Dune; the Virgin Mary; Sarah Connor in The Terminator)

daughters

• spunky teenage girl (Podkayne)
• scientist's daughter

subordinates

• loyal female subordinate, such as a secretary (Duffy in Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man; Tildy in Pohl and Kornbluth's The Space Merchants; Eunice Branca in Robert A. Heinlein's I Will Fear No Evil)
• perky secretaries that are more competent than any of the male authority figures but who are happy to remain assistants, though it's the year 2500 and in space...

villains, rivals, others, unsorted

• woman as encapsulating Otherness; often monstrous evil, but also sometimes just the feared or inferior Other (Borg Queen in Star Trek: The Next Generation; hive-like matriarchies a la Frank Herbert's Hellstrom's Hive) see also Matriarchal Hives
• woman as cold, powerful, threatening, dangerous (the Ice Queen myth, C.S. Lewis' White Witch)
• woman as Pandora: curious, lacking self-control, leading to trouble (Eve in Genesis, Pandora in Greek mythology)
• woman as victim, needing rescue (the princess whom St. George rescues from the dragon)
• woman as controlling bitch
• the "perfect woman" (Ayla in The Clan of the Cave Bear, Menolly in Dragonsong): the woman to whom everything comes easily, who never puts a foot wrong, and whom everybody loves
• the black warrior woman stereotype - too powerful to touch; must be feared; may be sexually unattainable
• the dragon lady stereotype (or Asian warrior woman) - "exotic", alluring, and dangerous Asian woman with martial arts skills, undercover jobs, and frequent large dragon tattoos on their bodies: deadly but beautiful, with mad sex skills, but not attainable; may be good or evil. (Miho in "Sin City")
• the fat, mothering cook - she's never a major character but is often a foil to the young protagonists, who are wealthy, in the military, or somehow in a castle or wealthy establishment. She might load you down with food or smack your hand if you get into the lord's banquet. As a Black woman, she may be a mammy, that racist stereotype of the jolly happy slave/servant who mothers all the young white folk.
• professional old maid scientist (e.g., Asimov's Susan Calvin)* wise grandmother or nanny; especially in people of color, see the Magical Negro at the link below and mammy.
• the team member whose power or skill is actually fairly weak or ineffectual, or just never used to its full strength; her main purpose is as a token, or to reinforce the heterosexuality of male characters by acting as a love interest for them.
• dumb blonde
• evil little girl

See also Annoying Plot Conventions, Devices, Contrivances

References

• Bitches, Bimbos and Ballbreakers: The Guerrilla Girls' Illustrated Guide to Female Stereotypes by the Guerrilla Girls (2003) ISBN 0-14-200101-5. ISBN-13 978-0-14-200101-1.
• Stephen King's Super-Duper Magical Negroes" by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu