Two things caused this post to percolate in my mind over the weekend.

1. A few mentions of the “Bechdel test” scattered across social media.

2. Continued Marvel Cinematic Universe movie marathon with my husband.

For anyone unfamiliar with the Bechdel test, it states that a work of fiction only passes the test if two women have a conversation with each other about something other than a man. Originally put forth in a comic strip and intended as a gauge of gender inequality in fiction, it has become a bit of a feminist litmus test to determine whether a story contains strong female characters.

I first heard of this test a few years back and didn’t give it much thought, but it’s been pushed back into my mind lately, so just for fun I’ve been looking to see how various stories conform to it. An ad on my Facebook for a movie where two rich girls conspire to kill one of their stepfathers made me chuckle a bit–I have no intention of seeing this movie, but since the whole movie is about them murdering a man, I doubted they would refrain from talking about it.

Then we watched Captain America and The Avengers one right after the other. I noted that neither Agent Peggy Carter nor Black Widow talk to many other women in the films. They are, after all, living in a man’s world–and when they do talk to others, it will often be about the latest bad guy they need to take out, or about men they work with as equals or even command. So–still talking about men. Are these tough, powerful women not strong enough for the champions of the Bechdel test?

Ultimately, the test itself is rather meaningless. Some have noted that many films that pass the test do it because the women in it have a conversation about babies or housework, which definitely doesn’t fit the feminist agenda. This simple criteria tells us nothing about how strong a woman is or how she even relates to men.

But to take it a step further–looking at women and their interactions in this way presupposes that if a woman is relating to a man with interdependence, it’s automatically a weakness. That any need to need someone in general or a man in particular is a Very Bad Thing. This, at its core, constitutes my contention with the so-called Bechdel test. When you get down to it, there’s a worldview difference regarding men and women and their dependence or independence that separates me from the feminist storyteller.

See, I don’t believe that a woman who is dependent on a man can’t be strong. I don’t believe that dependence is a sign of weakness. We aren’t islands. We need each other. Women need men, and other women, and mentors, and allies, and even enemies. We need those around us to not only make us stronger, but to stand in the gap for us in our areas of weakness. Men also need women, as well as other men.

Think of the predators who seek to separate one animal from its herd when hunting. A carnivore can’t take on a whole group–but it can take on a single beast. Because none of us, no matter how strong we are, are invulnerable. We need people different from us to help us. To lift us when we fall. To support us when we are weak. And to be helped by us in their own weakness.

“Two are better than one,” King Solomon tells us, “because if either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.”

As writers seeking to create strength int our characters, male or female, we would do well to listen to the wisest man who ever lived. And even better to listen to the One wiser than he–

“It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”