Women Are Delicate

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An Omnipresent Trope Super Trope which can be assumed to exist in every form of media unless otherwise stated. In most forms of human society, the assumption is that women are the more delicate of the sexes or are more suited for nurturing than the more active roles undertaken by males of the species. Women tend to be physically smaller than men, possess less musculature, and estrogen (the key hormone that separates women from their opposites) tends to build physical attributes better geared toward nurturing. All of these things, and many others besides, have created the assumption that women are less "hardy" than men.

Nearly every form of media plays around with this in some way. There are some tropes (for example Stay in The Kitchen) which stereotype it while other tropes (such as Action Girl) outright subvert or avert it intentionally. From there, the combinations tend to get tricky. Some tropes treat it ironically (Waif Fu) while others such as Vasquez Always Dies reinforce it by having the stronger of two female characters be the disposable one.

In modern day culture, it is nigh-impossible to not have some sort of variation of this trope. Only in some hypothetical, idealistically gender-neutral civilization would that be possible, and that does not describe the world as it exists today. Even if unintended by the author, the audience will take whatever tropes used and add meaning to them. A girl who puts up a fight alongside her male colleagues will still be considered an "aversion" of this trope while a girl who appears meek and physically lacking will be a straight example.

And lastly, note that the word we chose to define this trope is "delicate". That word is not just about the woman's physical or emotional toughness. Delicate also means "careful, deliberate, thorough", which are also qualities women are stereotyped with such as with Women Are Wiser and Men Use Violence Women Use Communication. Delicate is the best word which summed up everything this trope is about. Please keep that in mind when adding/editing the subtropes.

No Examples Please. This page should be used as nothing except a listing of tropes which play with this in some way.

List of associated tropes.

Played Straight

• Acceptable Feminine Goals: She just wants a husband, kids and white picket fences. What's wrong with that?
  • Career Versus Man: She will almost always choose love and family over a difficult, lonely career.
• All Abusers Are Male: Commonly believed because of this trope, but not true in any capacity. Women can be just as abusive as men and most men don't seek to build a family just so they can have people to abuse and take it out on.
• All Lesbians Want Kids: Even the most Butch Lesbian is a slave to her nurturing instinct.
• All Women Are Prudes: Because women are delicate, they must treat their virginity and/or sexuality as a precious gem to be protected.
  • But I Would Really Enjoy It: She mustn't, but damn if it wouldn't feel GREAT!
  • Defiled Forever: A very repugnant trope commonly believed about a woman's sexuality. Namely, no man will want a woman after her virginity has been spoiled or she has been "violated". Even rape victims believe this about themselves, which leads to horrible implications both in Real Life and fiction.
  • My Girl Is Not a Slut: When a guy is outright offended by the idea.
  • Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains: Only seems to apply to women. Evil men seem to add to their costumes while evil women seem to subtract from them.
• Bastard Boyfriend: The man is cold or cruel toward his more delicate lover, but the relationship is played for titillation.
• Broken Bird: Life has been harsh, and the delicate girl has been shattered.
• Distressed Damsel: Because women are delicate, they must be protected and rescued.
  • Beautiful Slave Girl: She's enslaved by evil, but she's beautiful enough to invoke The Hero's (and the audience's) sympathy.
  • Chickification: When the Action Girl becomes defanged just to become today's Distressed Damsel.
  • Faux Action Girl: She wants, or claims, to be an Action Girl, but her actions subvert it.
  • Final Girl: Enforced in Hollywood because a last surviving female will seem more vulnerable and less likely to survive than a last surviving male.
  • I Have You Now, My Pretty: To show what a sick bastard your villain is, have him sexually molest his female captive. It doesn't tend to work when the victim is male and the roles are reversed.
  • I Have Your Wife: Husbands count, too, but are far more rare.
  • I Will Protect Her/I Will Definitely Protect You: A man vows to protect a more delicate woman.
  • Lady and Knight: The classic version plays this completely straight, but modern versions tend to play with it.
  • Save the Princess: The oldest one in the book.
  • Standard Female Grab Area: No matter how Badass this woman was earlier in the story, all it takes is a light tug on her upper arm, and the Chickification begins.
• Earth Mother: She creates, protects and nurtures all life on the planet. Her more dangerous counterpart is Mother Nature (below).
• Emotionless Girl: Serves the double purpose of letting you know something's wrong with her and making her seem more vulnerable as a result of her "condition".
• Fainting: The majority of uses for this trope are regarding the fairer gender and how they can't seem to take any sort of shock to the system.
• Females Are More Innocent: Every woman is more sensitive, wise, and pure than a man. If one or more of those qualities is missing, then it's because a man caused it.
• Feminine Women Can Cook: As long as a woman has more "feminine" traits, she'll be able to cook.
• Fragile Flower: The personification of this trope.
  • Girls Are Really Scared of Horror Movies: Because she's so sensitive, even fictional danger is too much to handle.
  • The Ingenue: A young, naive young woman who is very impressionable by the proper, or improper, party.
  • Ill Girl: This trope is taken Up to Eleven by making an already delicate girl even more delicate.
  • Innocent Flower Girl: She's pure and chaste, associated with the gentle flower.
  • Naive Everygirl: She's innocent and clueless. Just like our target demographic.
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Due to "maternal instinct", all girls love cuddly things.
• Guys Smash Girls Shoot: The more delicate and graceful field of magic is usually forte of women.
  • Black Magician Girl/Lady of Black Magic: For the girls who like to destroy.
  • White Magician Girl: For the girls who like to heal.
• Haunted Heroine: Congratulations; you're a girl in a ghost story. Now watch as you slowly lose any and all sense of reason.
• Heroic Build: In American comic books (and some other forms of media) the omnipresent body type is that of a hulking adonis for males and a slender, curvaceous figure for women.
• Heros Muse: The Hero is on a harsh journey, but he has a special woman to keep him motivated.
• High Heel Face Turn: Females Are More Innocent and, thus, will always turn to good when presented with the opportunity.
• Housewife: The role that most women were expected to play until about the mid-point of the 20th Century. Now considered a Discredited Trope.
  • Stay in The Kitchen: When the above trope is invoked.
• Hysterical Woman: Women are supposedly emotionally delicate. This is a woman who has been pushed too far and snapped, while most men are still capable of actioning rationally.
• I Broke a Nail: When played straight, it's used to show that woman is more concerned with her delicate appearance than the more important task at hand. When used ironically, it's used to show that even an Action Girl cares about her appearance.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her: Because apparently, there's nothing she could ever do to hurt him.
• Lady of Adventure: Though she keeps herself in the thick of danger, her methods of dealing with it don't necessarily involve physical exertion or force.
• Little Dead Riding Hood: Fragile little girl + red = dead little girl.
• Love Goddess: Almost every pantheon, real and fictional, has at least one female goddess dedicated to love, sex, matrimony and/or commitment.
• MacGuffin Girl: The MacGuffin is a female who needs to be protected from the forces of evil.
• Mother Nature Father Science: Her male counterpart is usually associated with cold fact and radical progress.
• Mysterious Waif: A fragile woman who hides a secret and typically seeks a liberator.
• Mystical Waif: A fragile young woman infused with magical power.
• Masculine Lines Feminine Curves: Curvers are visibly softer and more delicate than lines, which makes them perfect for drawing women while lines are perfect for drawing men.
  • Pale Females Dark Males: When you also need contrasting hues to emphasize the point.
• Men Are Better Than Women
  • Effeminate Misogynistic Guy: He embraces feminine attributes, but still believes in this trope.
  • Men Act, Women Are: Men accomplish everything. Women are just the scenery along the way.
  • Men Are Strong, Women Are Pretty: Yeah, this is Exactly What It Says On the Tin.
• Men Are Generic, Women Are Special
• Men Are the Expendable Gender: One of the more Unfortunate Implications of this super trope.
• No Guy Wants to Be Chased: A Man Is Always Eager, but it's unattractive when their women are more eager.
• Overprotective Dad: He always believes this trope wholeheartedly. Obviously, his daughter can't be trusted to make up her own mind.
  • Dating What Daddy Hates
  • Farmers Daughter: She's a simple, sexy flower who can't seem to resist the exotic city men who wander onto Daddy's farm. Possibly uneducated, and always emphasizes the Madonna Whore Complex (she's either a naive virgin the city man seduces or a jezebel man-trap).
  • The General's Daughter: She's typically seduced by the Military Maverick and daddy will fiercely protect his little girl.
  • Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: She's ripe for a High Heel Face Turn after she meets our strong, heroic protagonist.
  • The President's Daughter: It's for this trope that the President seems to never have sons.
  • Rebellious Princess: She wants the hero to have his Standard Hero Reward. Daddy is not enthused.
  • Shotgun Wedding: You took his daughter's precious virginity, so Daddy's going to make you marry her to preserve her honor.
• Menstrual Menace: Women are so weak that even their own bodies conspire against them and turn them into raving maniacs.
• Pregnancy Tropes
  • Baby Factory: A woman is tied to her biology, and some force conspires to use her for that purpose.
    • Mandatory Motherhood
    • Medical Rape and Impregnate
  • Pregnant Hostage: Takes this trope Up To Twelve; a delicate woman in an even more delicate condition is then placed into immediate danger.
  • Wacky Cravings: Used in fiction to indicate how irrational and crazed a woman can become in her delicate condition.
  • Someone to Remember Him By: Sister Trope to Men Are the Expendable Gender. The love of her life may be gone, but she has a replacement to help fill the void.
• Proper Lady
  • English Rose: She's posh and proper, and maintains her feminine delicacy with noblesque.
  • Every Proper Lady Should Curtsy: Speaks for itself.
  • Southern Belle: Large frilly dresses, perfect nails, curls and gracefulness make up this type of lady. She is the archetypical woman of the American South.
  • Yamato Nadeshiko: She moves very slightly and deliberately, is soft-spoken, and remains at home while her husband (usually a merchant or samurai) takes care of the everyday busywork. She is the archetypical woman of Japanese culture.
  • Princess Classic: Her characteristics are her beauty, extravagance, poise, and non-aggressive demeanor. She is the archetypical princess, at least since Victorian times.
• Tampon Run: Another one of those strange little quirks of what one calls "the female"; her body always seems to betray her at the exact wrong time.
• Team Mom: She's the teammate most known for being nurturing and offering guidance.
• Territorial Smurfette: The sole woman will always feel insecure and threatened when another woman is in her territory.
• There Are No Girls On the Internet: The internet has often been seen as a place where nerds come to congregate, and many said nerds do not know many (or ANY) Real Life women who are interested in the things they like. Thus, for a long time, it has been assumed that any girl on the internet was either a man in disguise or a precious, rare gem that needed to be treasured (and flirted with) fiercely.
• Woman Scorned: Be careful what you do with her feelings, because some birds you don't want to break.
• Women Are Wiser: A form of Positive Discrimination where women always the more sensible gender.
  • Men Use Violence Women Use Communication: Because men are stronger, that's their main method of problem-solving. A woman, however, uses tact and finesse.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Because of this trope, a character has trouble attacking a girl he believes to be delicate.

Aversions and subversions

• Action Girl: She isn't delicate at all, and can kick as much ass (or more) as some men.
  • Action Girlfriend: The girlfriend is the more Badass person in the couple. Considered an aversion of this trope which juxtaposes traditional gender roles.
  • Amazon Brigade: When you have an entire squad of Action Girls.
  • Badass Princess: An aversion of Princess Classic.
  • Battle Couple: When she's just as badass as her boyfriend.
  • Bodyguard Babes: When a group of badass women protect the person in charge.
  • Determined Homesteader's Wife: A tough homesteader requires an equally tough wife.
  • Glacier Waif: She can do impossible amounts of damage for a girl her size.
  • Jeanne D Archetype: A charismatic woman leads armies into battle.
  • Tomboy Princess: Often overlaps with the above, and is also an aversion.
  • Xenafication: The practice of making a more delicate woman into an Adaptational Badass just to avert this trope.
• All Women Are Lustful: Not only is she not shy or protective of her virginity or sexuality, but she seemingly can't get enough sex.
  • My Girl Is a Slut: When the guy is turned on by her promiscuity.
• Effortless Amazonian Lift: A woman lifts someone or something equal or greater to her body weight to show just how abnormally Badass she is.
• Gender Is No Object: A true aversion of this trope. Even with that, however, any gender role variations will appear somewhere else on this list.
  • Purely Aesthetic Gender: Used in games where gender is pretty much a Palette Swap. The character is statistically the same regardless of gender.
• Improbably Female Cast: For some reason, there are next to no men in this setting. Women do everything, including the things they probably couldn't, wouldn't, or shouldn't in Real Life.
• Ladette: This type of woman enjoys many of the same boorish, vulgar, and physical activities as men.
• Mistress and Servant Boy: The older, more worldly woman is the superior towards her younger, male assistant.
• More Deadly Than the Male: Because we automatically assume this trope, situations where it's the opposite (such as in other species, both real and fictional) are quaint and fascinating.
• No Womans Land: Where home sweet home is progressive toward gender equality, but every other place imaginable outright enforces this trope with sociopathic fervor.
• Plucky Girl: No one would fault her if she became broken, but she refuses to let that happen.
• Real Women Never Wear Dresses: The trope that tries to defy this trope by going in the opposite extreme.
• Seemingly Wholesome Fifties Girl: Where this trope is ultimately subverted, showing that the woman is not delicate at all despite all appearances.
• Tomboy: When "delicacy" just isn't practical. Traditionally, any girl who likes any sort of job or activity attributed to men is considered a tomboy.
  • Biker Babe: Motorcycles tend to be seen as a symbol of the phallus and masculinity, so a woman riding one tends to invoke Fetish Fuel.
  • Butch Lesbian: A tomboyish homosexual woman who eschews many delicate characteristics; often considered the "man" in a lesbian relationship with a more feminine partner.
  • Lesbian Cop: Since being a cop is "man's work", the woman is thus as man-like as could be.
  • Lesbian Jock: The same as above, but with sports.
  • Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: She's more butch than her boyfriend.
  • Outdoorsy Gal: She'll probably be outside getting dirty before the boys.
  • Wrench Wench: Mechanics is sometimes a dirty, heavy business. But she can hang with the best of them.
• Weakness Turns Her On: Being stronger than her man is her fetish.

Zig-zagged (neither plays it straight nor averts it)

• Abuse Is Okay When It Is Female On Male: Because men have been portrayed as the stronger, more dominant sex, this trope is usually Played for Laughs because the role-reversal is ironic.
  • Double Standard Rape Female On Male: Same as the above, except regarding rape.
  • Bastard Girlfriend: Same as the above, but with less rape. Maybe.
• Affirmative Action Girl: Deliberately subverts this trope, but only because it was played straight originally.
• Apocalypse Maiden: She has the power to destroy the world, and more often than not, it's up to a male protagonist to prevent that from happening.
• Apron Matron: She's in charge of the little ones, but she uses more vinegar than honey (and sometimes flat out violence) to take care of them.
• Badass Damsel: Yeah, she's delicate enough to get in trouble, but she's also Badass enough to get herself out.
• Action Mom
  • Mama Bear: She may be a very delicate and sensitive at heart, but God help you if you mess with her kids.
  • Monster Is a Mommy: When you find out a badass, terrifying monsters is mostly badass and terrifying because you messed with the aforementioned kids.
• The Baroness: Typically the militant female Dragon of the Big Bad. Variations can fit anywhere between sexy and feminine or butch and unattractive.
• Cute Clumsy Girl/Dojikko: She's considered to be "atypical" of most girls because she's more accident-prone, which in turn makes her seem MORE delicate.
• Dominatrix: A woman who dominates men for the erotic satisfaction.
  • All Women Are Doms All Men Are Subs: Because the image of a dominant woman is (usually) more attractive and invites less Unfortunate Implications than the inverse.
• Girls Need Role Models: In order to avert or subvert this trope, Media Watchdogs and The Powers That Be insert strong feminine characters into a story to act as role models, leading to any of the many tropes on this list.
• Good Bad Girl: Good girls don't do the things she does, but she's the exception to the rule.
• Huge Schoolgirl: A girl is unusually huge for her gender, and thus is self-conscious about her size.
• Is This What Anger Feels Like: The Pollyanna has just felt anger for the first time.
• Lady Land/Matriarchy: This could fall anywhere on the scale, depending on the writer's own discretions. There is no way to write such a place without producing some sort of accidental theme or Aesop about gender in general.
  • Kick Chick: She lacks the upper body strength of men. Thus, she relies on her sexy legs to do the fighting for her.
  • Lady of War: She's a badass battle maiden, but with the flourish and poise of a Proper Lady.
  • Little Girls Kick Shins: She's small and cute, but she knows where it hurts. Her targets are usually male, and this is usually Played for Laughs due to irony.
  • Little Miss Badass: She's cute, she's adorable, she's tiny, and she'll kick your ass.
  • Little Miss Almighty: She's cute, she's adorable, she's tiny....she's practically God.
  • Little Red Fighting Hood: The Little Red Riding Hood is subverted to be a badass.
  • She Fu: The more slender and delicate woman can perform more acrobatic maneuvers. Necessary, because she usually can't take a punch.
• Madonna Whore Complex: She's either an innocent, virginal flower or a total, shameless slut. There is no in-between.
• Magical Girl: This genre of Anime zig-zags on the type of heroine which fits the style. In the 70s, Tomboy heroines began making an appearance specifically to avert this trope. The Magical Girl Warrior subgenre was then created to create a more combat-oriented version of this genre.
• Magical Girlfriend: She's more powerful than her boyfriend, but is usually still subsservient to him.
• Mani Pixie Dream Girl: Her sassy and lively nature is her best asset to nurture and inspire her brooding and lonely boyfriend.
• Mother Nature: Can be ferocious and deadly, but at the same time, takes care of her "children" (namely all living things).
• Muscle Angst: Women are not "supposed" to be muscular, so being an outlier tends to result in a lot of teasing and angsting.
• Pregnant Badass: Pregnant women are even more delicate than normal, which makes a woman who can be Badass in that condition extremely exceptional.
• Psycho Lesbian: An antiquated (but still persistent) attitude that any woman who doesn't like men has something wrong with her.
• Quickly Demoted Woman: Getting our strong, successful woman out of the way so we can make way for the much more interesting male lead.
• The Red Sonja: She's a Badass Action Girl, but she will only be courted by a man who can conquer her.
• Sassy Black Woman: A result of both racial stereotypes and aggressive feminism. More often than not, she is juxtaposed with women of other races and cultures to show how much more assertive, confident, and "real" she is.
• Sexist Used Car Salesman: Either played straight to demonstrate how clueless women are about anything outside of their "scope" or used to demonstrate the exact opposite.
• Statuesque Stunner
  • Tiny Guy Huge Girl: She's bigger than her man, and it's played for irony.
• The Unfair Sex: Women are held to a different standard than men for arbitrary things. Most often, this trope is the reason why, even if it's inconsequential.
• The Woman Wearing the Queenly Mask: She would normally be more delicate, but she's in charge, and can't afford to show weakness.
  • Iron Lady: The above trope, but the modern version.
    • Silk Hiding Steel: The above trope but subtle and indirect. Likely also a Proper Lady.
• The Fake Cutie
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She appears delicate, but only to hide her teeth.
  • Decoy Damsel: When the Distressed Damsel is really just a trap.
  • Mata Hari: The beautiful seductress who is a spy under the enemy's very noses.
  • Wounded Gazelle Gambit: In this trope, a woman uses her delicacy (whether actual or feigned) to fool others.