Ykhjuy

I'm a man. Working on my sci-fi novel. It's meant to be a light-hearted heist caper. My main character is a woman. She's a strong and sassy character based on the women in my life, and the story follows all the rules about writing strong female characters. There are no men to save her, and the antagonist in the story is another woman who is her exact opposite.

However because the character swears, makes pop culture references and sexually objectifies men, some critics have commented that this makes it seem that it's a female character being written by a man.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who has gotten this criticism. Any ideas on how to fix this?

There appears to be a difference in how men and women speak and write.

Linguists have found that writing by women is more "involved", while writing by men is more "informational". For example, women use more pronouns, men use more noun specifiers. Women use "the" differently than men. If you are interested in learning about male versus female linguistic styles, you can research this.

What is important is that you need to recognize that your protagonist doesn't sound like a man because of what she says alone, but also because of how she says it, and because of how you write the non-dialogue narrative of her thoughts, emotions, and perceptions. You write like a man, and therefore if you write a female charater's first person perspective, she sounds like a man.

As a solution I would recommend that you look at similar characters (the female marine/female engineer/tough girl) written by female authors and try to emulate their language.

Most authors are imprisoned in their own personal style, and experimenting with writing in the style of another author is a great exercise to make your own writing more flexible and to raise your awareness of the subliminal messages of your personal use of language. In this case, you unwittingly communicate "I'm a man". So learn to control that aspect of your writing by analysing and trying the styles of female authors.

This critique is always complicated because of how nuanced gender actually is.

This is actually a frequent problem with male authors. We tend to have experience and methods of thinking that are typically considered "masculine" and take them as the baseline.

This does not mean, whatsoever, that your MC should spend time sitting in her cabin painting her nails (or that she shouldn't, if that matches her character). It does mean that you might want to think more about what it actually means to be a woman in this setting.

How would she have been raised? How would gender impact her treatment by other characters? Would she be as likely to opt for violence to resolve disputes? And if so, what form does her violence take?

One of my characters is similar to the "badass" women tropes, but with a few key considerations.

Firstly, she can only occupy this position because she has the backing of powerful, local, political figures. Without the sanction this power structure, she would have long ago been murdered or married off. Her ability to approximate this trope is a function of privilege, and she spends a decent character arc understanding how even her oppression doesn't compare to that of other women in her setting, and figuring out what this means for herself and the world around her.

Secondly, she inhabits this role because she was born into a social class defined by the use of violence. She is adopting a masculine social function because the alternative is even worse to her, and she has no other options.

Thirdly, she has no magic in a magical world. She cannot rely on being as fast, strong and durable as her adversaries. Her utility involves leadership abilities such as tactical planning that makes her simultaneously invaluable and builds social capital for her. She makes herself socially invaluable and financially lucrative.

Fourth, she is functionally suicidal. Because of the above, every conflict is a potential death sentence. She relies on her squad to survive and throws herself into situations more daring than what most sane people would consider. This builds further social capital because she's not only the most talented leader, but her death-drive is mistaken for bravery, and results in shocking and unique maneuvers.

Fifth, she is %<#]@*= terrifying. When she engages in conflict she must be as brutal and horrifying as-is humanly possible. She depends on reputation to avoid conflict. She depends on her persona to maintain the social capital that keeps her free and safe(r). And every conflict is for all-the-stakes. There are no second chances. She is small, and relatively weak, without any fancy magical power to save her. She wins, every time, or she's dead. So when she comes, she brings everything to the table.

Sixth, she has a macabre, black, and biting sense of humor. People from oppressed demographics or upbringingings often do. Its a tool that (we) use to remain sane, and to fight in contexts when we don't have the power to directly engage people higher on the social totem pole. It's also born of a deeply fatalistic worldview, given her omnipresent threat of death.

Seventh, when she can't avoid conflict, and she can't bluster her way out of it, and she can't plan ahead or end it quickly, all of this influences how she approaches violence. Namely, at a distance. Using the great equalizer: technology. If you see her, or are within arms reach, its because she screwed up. She'd much rather punch holes in you at half a kilometer away.

So.
All of this is to say that I started from context and then built a character around the setting. This person could not exist as a man.
Her twin brother is completely different, and is (actually) the local political power that allows her to operate. Everything about how they engage with their world would change if their assigned gender changed. I didn't start with the idea for a wisecracking pistolero, who hides some serious trauma with a black sense of humor.
I started with a person in a specific context and thought: "How could a person with these demographic traits survive? What are the likely outcomes given these constraints?"

And then I got a character. If you're starting with a template, throw it out, and ask yourself why you made the person you made.
Let them grow and reveal themselves to you.

And, it's important to note that this is only one of multiple core female characters. My MC is totally different, and has a son that infinitely complicates her decisionmaking.
So it also matters what the different visions of femininity look like in your art. Without internal diversity, the piece will always feel like it lacks authenticity.