Image Credit: Jacob Owens via Unsplash

When it comes to measuring feminism in film, the Bechdel Test is often the first tool people reach for. There are websites and databases online that allow you to input a movie title, and in return, they will tell you whether a movie passes The Test or not.

In its passing criteria, the Bechdel Test unofficially requires a given source of media to have two distinct and developed female characters, who engage in conversation with one another, about any topic that does not mention a male counterpart. 

Named after Alison Bechdel, author and artist of 1985 comic strip “Dykes To Watch Out For”, the Test has rapidly become a cynical measure of how feminist a movie, or a source of media, is at its core, even despite this not being Alison Bechdel’s initial goal. However, many thus far have failed to consider the true extent to which this truly reflects the female experience, while also failing to consider men in feminist debates and conversations. 

This three-part checklist has, over time, been applied too loosely to determine whether a film is feminist or not. However, in return, it does not appropriately reflect the complexity of women’s experiences both on and off screen, with it often being counterproductive in its message and inaccurate in its conclusion.

Throughout time, obsessively applying the Bechdel Test risks over policing women and their conversations. The Test does not specify which male the two female characters in a movie, for example, should avoid speaking about. Brother, father, cousin, partner – the Bechdel Test pays no attention. An emergency, casual conversation, academic settings – the Bechdel Test does not discriminate; any mention of a man makes the media anti-feminist.

Measuring feminism merely by the rates at which women involve men in conversation actively erases other factors coming into play. Contextually, it fails to account for which women get the utmost opportunities to secure a job within the film and acting industries in the first place, with women of colour and queer women still actively misrepresented. In particular, an example of this was expressed in the Combahee River Collective’s statement dating back to 1977, which suggested that inclusion requires interlocking systems of oppression, such as sexuality, gender, race, or disability, and acknowledging that they can coexist. Perhaps inclusion is how we should measure feminism in movies – instead of measures such as the Bechdel Test.

The treatment of women on and off set during production is not considered within the Bechdel Test. Blatant sexism from production teams continues to be called out by female actors such as Emma Stone, Jessica Chastain, and Thandiwe Newton. It sounds like we should feel lucky that the Bechdel Test is not a male invention, and yet its failure to consider how women are treated during the production of their work is not far off from male-induced violence. An example of this is the production of Jennifer’s Body (2009), which included the role of Megan Fox’s character and herself outside of the role, portrayed by the press as a sexy maneater, when in reality, the movie’s core message sought to touch on female sexual violence in the music scene, almost jeopardising it with the media’s sexualisation of Fox in the early 2000s.

Movies touching on feminist themes or including openly feminist actors, such as the movie A Star Is Born (2018) featuring a lead role by Lady Gaga, or the Marilyn Monroe tribute movie Blonde (2022), do not pass the Bechdel Test. Does this mean all of the other work done to touch on these topics, both by the movies themselves as well as by the actors involved, goes to waste?

The Bechdel Test is a quantitative measure which is often mistakenly used as a qualitative one. It determines, numerically, what conversations are had between who, and having two women not speak about a man adds up to progress within women’s rights, issues, and experiences of inequality, according to the Test. 

Furthermore, this risks perpetuating the idea that female conversations are only valuable – and feminist – if they do not revolve around a man, as if to say men cannot have feminist conversations too. Non-romantic interactions are rapidly disregarded, which harms female experiences at its core, assuming that the only times women speak to men or about men is in the pursuit of romantic interests.

Mistakenly using quantitative methods to record qualitative data simply does not work, and the limited consideration and strict criteria of the Bechdel Test risk its analysis going in a direction opposite to that of feminism. Its failures to account for individual experiences, including those of intersectional identities, only create further problems in representation. If you are looking to determine the level of feminism within a source of media, the Bechdel Test is not your friend. It might have worked for comic books in the 1980s, but nowadays, I personally prefer to watch a movie and consider its context, discourse, and content, before I regard it as anti-feminist.