TIL about the “Smurfette Principle”. Coined by Katha Pollitt in 1991, she explained it’s when: “A group of male buddies will be accented by a lone female, stereotypically defined. The message is clear. Boys are the norm, girls the variation; boys are central, girls peripheral.”

The irony is that if we’re gonna be pedantic, we’re all girls before any of us turn into boys. In the womb, “male” characteristics are developed from the same characteristics that the female develops. A gene literally activates and causes the male changes to begin from that point on (and there’s some variation outside the male/female sex binary we are taught, as intersex people exist too). So it’s ironic we end up treating man like the default and woman like the variation, when really it’s kinda opposite.

The Smurfette Principle is also an extremely common trope in shonen, as the main characters are often in boy-boy-girl trios (Naruto is the most egregious example because there are multiple major character trios with the same gendered lineup).

I’ve always called it the Ocean’s 11 pattern.

This post was me staring down the barrel of my friend group realizing I’m the smurfette