Bechdel test

The Bechdel test (/ˈbɛkdəl/ BEK-dəl),^[1] also known as the Bechdel-Wallace test, is a measure of the representation of women in film and other fiction. The test asks whether a work features at least two female characters who have a conversation about something other than a man. Some versions of the test also require that those two female characters have names.^[2]

A work of fiction passing or failing the test does not necessarily indicate the overall representation of women in the work. Instead, the test is used as an indicator for the active presence (or lack thereof) of women in fiction, and to call attention to gender inequality in fiction.

The test is named after the American cartoonist Alison Bechdel, in whose 1985 comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For the test first appeared. Bechdel credited the idea to her friend Liz Wallace and the writings of Virginia Woolf. Originally meant as "a little lesbian joke in an alternative feminist newspaper", according to Bechdel,^[3] the test became more widely discussed in the 2000s, as a number of variants and tests inspired by it emerged.