NEWSFLASH: Don’t Use The ‘Fridged Woman’ Trope
I predominantly write crime fiction and thriller, which means I kill a LOT of characters. Some of them, inevitably, will be female … because, *obviously* (shrugs).
However, because female characters were *just* dead bodies and sidelined too long in novels, movies and TV, it matters how writers kill them. I’ll explain why.
One of the most unpopular, toxic female character tropes is ‘fridged woman’. Every single time I post about the fridged woman trope on B2W’s social media, I get pushback. They’re always some variation of these two arguments …
- ‘B-B-But it’s not HER story!!’
- ‘So I can’t ever kill female characters??’
I get it. It can seem confusing. So, let’s put it under the microscope and break down why this trope is a problem. I’m also going to talk about how you absolutely CAN kill female characters without falling into that same tired pattern. Ready? Let’s go!
‘Wait a minute … WTAF is the ‘fridged woman’ trope???’
Before we get going though, it’s probably a good idea to explain what the ‘fridged woman’ trope is. (After all, every now and again I get emails telling me I’ve spelled ‘frigid’ wrong on the cover of the How Not To Write Female Characters free B2W ebook! Le sigh).
The term ‘fridged woman’ was coined by comic book artist Gail Simone. She came up with ‘fridging’ in response to a (now) infamous Green Lantern comic. In said comic, the hero’s girlfriend is killed and stuffed into a fridge to motivate him.
The problem wasn’t that she died. It was that her death served no purpose except to give the male lead ‘feelings’. The female character is essentially reduced to a mere prop. Bleurgh.
Another issue is the ubiquity of this trope. It was EVERYWHERE for ages in the 80s, 90s and 00s. Think about it … how many times have heroes’ wives or girlfriends been murdered?? Even bloody Batman can’t save the woman in his life, apparently (thanks Christopher Nolan!).
Yes, Obviously You CAN Write Male Leads
Let’s address the first point: ‘But it’s not her story!’
Of course it’s absolutely fine to write a male lead in your screenplay or novel. It’s also fine for female characters to die in stories that centre around a male protagonist.
We saw this recently in Netflix’s smash hit Adolescence. The story was about the radicalisation of young boys online, NOT the shocking death of the murder victim … but she was not ‘fridged’. (As I always say on this site, it’s fine to write *anything* as long you as you do it ON PURPOSE and this very much was).
Again, the problem isn’t the death itself. The issue is how reductive it becomes when a female character’s primary function is to die just to motivate the male lead. Think about it:
- The female character is almost always a love interest.
- She’s often passive in the story (ie. she has no real agency).
- Sometimes, she’s literally just a body, frequently killed off-screen or discovered after the fact as a beat in the story.
This makes the character disposable. She exists not as a person with her own arc or motivations, but purely as a plot device.
When this happens over and over and over again across media, it stops being just a trope. It starts to feel like a statement: women don’t matter except in how they affect men.
Here’s the kicker: even if you don’t see the issue, your target audience or reader does. Women make up roughly 50% of your potential readership or audience. They hate the trope. Some men hate it too!
It’s become so ubiquitous that it reads as lazy and cliché. Authenticity is the name of the game in the 2020s. If you want your story to resonate, you need to move on from this outdated motivation.
You simply must find new ways to inspire and motivate your male leads, end of.
Yes, You CAN Kill Female Characters!
Now, to the second point: ‘So I can’t kill female characters??’
Again, you absolutely can! As mentioned, I write crime fiction and thrillers. My (fictional) body count is high enough to warrant a forensic team. And YES, plenty of those dead characters are women.
Remember, the key here is HOW you do it. You can kill a female character any way you like, as long as …
- She’s a character first. She needs agency, motivations, and impact beyond her relationship to the male lead.
- Her death isn’t just about motivating a man. If the only consequence of her death is that the male lead gets sad or vengeful, you’re probably veering into fridging territory.
- Her death matters on its own terms. If her death drives the plot forward or ties into her own arc, great. If it’s just to give the male lead something to be angry about, not so much.
I’ve killed female characters in all kinds of ways:
- Some have been heroic
- Some have been tragic
- Some have been completely f–ked up
But none of them died just to prop up a male character’s story. That’s the difference!
A Quick Test For Your Writing
Want to kill a female character in your story? No problem. But ask yourself this …
‘If the female character survives instead, would the story have to fundamentally change … or would the male character just have to find another reason to be sad/angry/vengeful?’
If the answer is the latter, you’ve probably got a fridging situation on your hands. REWRITE!
Last Points
Audiences and readers – especially women – have seen enough dead wives and girlfriends to last a lifetime. They don’t want female characters used as emotional fuel for male characters. They want more.
So, kill your female characters if you want to. Just make sure their lives – and deaths – mean something.
Because women in stories, just like in life, should never be reduced to plot devices. MORE: No, The Bechdel Test Does NOT Deliver Great Female Characterisation
