Cartoonist Alison Bechdel in Chicago, 2012 Bechdel is known for creating the initial criteria of the Bechdel test (which the cartoonist prefers to call the Bechdel-Wallace test) in her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For (1983–2008). (more) Bechdel test media analysis Ask the Chatbot a Question More Actions Print print Print Please select which sections you would like to print: Table Of Contents Cite verifiedCite While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Select Citation Style MLA APA Chicago Manual of Style Copy Citation Share Share Share to social media Facebook X URL https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bechdel-test Feedback Feedback Corrections? Updates? Omissions? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Feedback Type Select a type (Required) Factual Correction Spelling/Grammar Correction Link Correction Additional Information Other Your Feedback Submit Feedback Thank you for your feedback Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

　　External Websites Ask the Chatbot a Question Also known as: Bechdel-Wallace test, Mo Movie Measure Written by Jordana Rosenfeld Jordana Rosenfeld is a copy editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica. Jordana Rosenfeld Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Last Updated: Dec 11, 2024 • Article History Table of Contents Table of Contents Ask the Chatbot a Question Also called: Bechdel-Wallace test or Mo Movie Measure (Show more) { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type" : "Question", "name" : " What is the Bechdel test? ", "acceptedAnswer" : { "@type" : "Answer", "text" : "The Bechdel test evaluates the presence and dimensionality of women in fictional media, requiring at least two women to talk to each other about a topic other than men." } } , { "@type" : "Question", "name" : " Who inspired the Bechdel test? ", "acceptedAnswer" : { "@type" : "Answer", "text" : "The Bechdel test was inspired by Alison Bechdelu2019s friend Liz Wallace, who, along with Bechdel, was influenced by Virginia Woolfu2019s observations on womenu2019s representation in fiction." } } , { "@type" : "Question", "name" : " What are some variations of the Bechdel testu2019s guidelines? ", "acceptedAnswer" : { "@type" : "Answer", "text" : "Variations include requiring both women characters to be named, to say more than five words to each other, or to share more than one minute of screen time." } } , { "@type" : "Question", "name" : " What did a 2014 analysis by the statistics website FiveThirtyEight reveal about movies passing the Bechdel test? ", "acceptedAnswer" : { "@type" : "Answer", "text" : "The analysis found that about half of a sample of movies from 1970 to 2013 had scenes in which two women discuss something other than a man, with the share increasing since 1970 but plateauing in later decades. Films released between 1990 and 2013 that passed the test had a 35 percent lower median budget than those that failed the test." } } , { "@type" : "Question", "name" : " What are some criticisms of the Bechdel test? ", "acceptedAnswer" : { "@type" : "Answer", "text" : "Critics argue that the test doesnu2019t gauge the quality of womenu2019s representation or determine if a film is feminist and that it ignores other aspects of identity, such as race and social class." } } ] } Top Questions What is the Bechdel test? The Bechdel test evaluates the presence and dimensionality of women in fictional media, requiring at least two women to talk to each other about a topic other than men.

　　Who inspired the Bechdel test? The Bechdel test was inspired by Alison Bechdel’s friend Liz Wallace, who, along with Bechdel, was influenced by Virginia Woolf’s observations on women’s representation in fiction.

　　What are some variations of the Bechdel test’s guidelines? Variations include requiring both women characters to be named, to say more than five words to each other, or to share more than one minute of screen time.

　　What did a 2014 analysis by the statistics website FiveThirtyEight reveal about movies passing the Bechdel test? The analysis found that about half of a sample of movies from 1970 to 2013 had scenes in which two women discuss something other than a man, with the share increasing since 1970 but plateauing in later decades. Films released between 1990 and 2013 that passed the test had a 35 percent lower median budget than those that failed the test.

　　What are some criticisms of the Bechdel test? Critics argue that the test doesn’t gauge the quality of women’s representation or determine if a film is feminist and that it ignores other aspects of identity, such as race and social class.

　　Bechdel test, metric used to evaluate the presence and dimensionality of women in fictional media such as films and television.

　　The Bechdel test is named for cartoonist and graphic novelist Alison Bechdel, who in 1985 introduced the original criteria of the test in her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For (1983–2008). In the strip “The Rule,” a character states that she will watch a movie only if it has at least two women who talk to each other about a topic other than men. In the 21st century those guidelines became known as the Bechdel test, a shorthand method to illustrate the dramatic gender disparity in Hollywood films. Bechdel herself prefers to call the test the Bechdel-Wallace test to acknowledge her friend Liz Wallace, who inspired “The Rule.” The friends were reportedly influenced by the 20th-century novelist Virginia Woolf, who observed in her essay “A Room of One’s Own” (1929) that she rarely saw women presented as friends in fiction.

　　Common variations on the original guidelines include the requirement that both women characters are named, say more than five words to each other, or share more than one minute of screen time. According to the Bechdel Test Movie List, a database that classifies more than 10,000 movies according to whether they pass the test, the oldest film that passes the Bechdel test is Georges Méliès’s silent film Cinderella (1899).

　　Movies That Pass the Bechdel TestGone with the Wind (1939)Adam’s Rib (1949)A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)Singin’ in the Rain (1952)Jaws (1975)Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)GoodFellas (1990)Jurassic Park (1993)10 Things I Hate About You (1999)The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005)Twilight (2008)Black Panther (2018)Cocaine Bear (2023)A 2014 analysis by the statistics website FiveThirtyEight found that about half of a sample of almost 1,800 movies released between 1970 and 2013 had at least one scene in which two women discuss something other than a man. The analysis also found that the share of movies that passed the Bechdel test had increased since 1970 but had plateaued in the later decades of the sample. In addition, the analysis found that the median budget of films released between 1990 and 2013 that passed the Bechdel test was 35 percent lower than that of films released in the same time period that failed the test.

　　Critics of the Bechdel test point out that it is unable to gauge the quality of a film’s representation of women or determine whether a film is feminist. Additionally, critics have noticed that the test fails to account for other relevant dimensions of identity and experience, such as race and social class.