Dykes to Watch out For
Encyclopedia
Dykes to Watch Out For (sometimes DTWOF) was a comic strip
by Alison Bechdel
. The strip, which ran from 1983 to 2008, was one of the earliest ongoing representations of lesbians in popular culture and has been called "as important to new generations of lesbians as landmark novels like Rita Mae Brown
’s Rubyfruit Jungle
(1973) and Lisa Alther
’s Kinflicks
(1976) were to an earlier one."
DTWOF chronicled the lives, loves, and politics of a fairly diverse group of characters (most of them lesbian
s) living in a medium-sized city in the United States
, featuring both humorous soap opera
storylines and biting topical commentary. The strip was carried in Funny Times and a number of gay and lesbian newspapers, and also posted on the web.
According to Bechdel, her strip was "half op-ed
column and half endless, serialized Victorian novel". Characters reacted to contemporary events, including going to the Michigan Womyn's Festival, Gay Pride
parades and protest marches and having heated discussions about day-to-day events, political issues and the way lesbian culture was changing. The strip was one of the most successful and longest-running queer
comic strips.
On May 10, 2008, Bechdel announced that she was putting the strip on indefinite hiatus in order to complete her graphic novel
memoir Love Life, due in late 2009.
Only some of the characters' surnames were known, since such names appeared only when it was appropriate to the dialogue (when Ginger and Sydney, as college instructors, were addressed as "Professor Jordan" and "Dr. Krukowski," for instance) and were not established from the beginning.
The first of these collections contained miscellaneous, individual strips; the serialized story centered around Mo began halfway through the second collection, More Dykes to Watch Out For.
Beginning with the third book Bechdel began including graphic
"novella
s" at the end of each book. Some were flashbacks, such as the tale of how everyone met in Unnatural Dykes To Watch Out For, or Serial Monogamy, Bechdel's humorous "documentary" on lesbian relationships, but most have advanced the plot in new and interesting ways, such as Raffi's birth at the end of Spawn of Dykes to Watch Out For.
While not a compilation, The Indelible Alison Bechdel: Confessions, Comix, and Miscellaneous Dykes to Watch Out For (1998) included many of the strips Bechdel published in calendars, a timeline of the strip to date, and a fanciful "tour" of the "factory" where "Dykes To Watch Out For" is produced.
, DTWOF included many literary allusions. For example, the name chosen for Sydney Krukowski references Stanley Kowalski
, a character from A Streetcar Named Desire
. Sydney also drinks Loch Lomond
, a favorite drink of two characters from The Adventures of Tintin
.
This comic strip popularized an uncomplicated test for film
s to determine gender bias. The Bechdel test (also known as the Bechdel/Wallace test, the Bechdel rule, or Bechdel's law) is credited to Bechdel's friend Liz Wallace, and appears in a 1985 strip entitled "The Rule". One of the characters says that she only watches a movie if it satisfies the following requirements:
A variant of the test, in which the two women must additionally be named characters, is also called the Mo Movie Measure. The name is a misnomer as neither Mo nor the other regular characters had been introduced yet at the time of this strip's publication.
A blog was formed to review films on whether or not they pass this test. The Bechdel Test Movie List allows users to add their own movies.
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
by Alison Bechdel
Alison Bechdel
Alison Bechdel is an American cartoonist. Originally best known for the long-running comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For, in 2006 she became a best-selling and critically acclaimed author with her graphic memoir Fun Home.-Early life:...
. The strip, which ran from 1983 to 2008, was one of the earliest ongoing representations of lesbians in popular culture and has been called "as important to new generations of lesbians as landmark novels like Rita Mae Brown
Rita Mae Brown
Rita Mae Brown is an American writer. She is best known for her first novel Rubyfruit Jungle. Published in 1973, it dealt with lesbian themes in an explicit manner unusual for the time...
’s Rubyfruit Jungle
Rubyfruit Jungle
Rubyfruit Jungle is the first novel by Rita Mae Brown, remarkable, in its day, for its explicit lesbianism. The novel is a bildungsroman/autobiographical account of Brown's youth and emergence as a lesbian author...
(1973) and Lisa Alther
Lisa Alther
Lisa Alther is an American author and novelist. Her first name is pronounced as if it were spelled Liza.-Biography:...
’s Kinflicks
Kinflicks
Kinflicks is a novel by American writer Lisa Alther. It was Alther's first published work, and the "subject of considerable pre-publication hyperbole."-Plot summary:...
(1976) were to an earlier one."
DTWOF chronicled the lives, loves, and politics of a fairly diverse group of characters (most of them lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
s) living in a medium-sized city in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, featuring both humorous soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
storylines and biting topical commentary. The strip was carried in Funny Times and a number of gay and lesbian newspapers, and also posted on the web.
According to Bechdel, her strip was "half op-ed
Op-ed
An op-ed, abbreviated from opposite the editorial page , is a newspaper article that expresses the opinions of a named writer who is usually unaffiliated with the newspaper's editorial board...
column and half endless, serialized Victorian novel". Characters reacted to contemporary events, including going to the Michigan Womyn's Festival, Gay Pride
Gay pride
LGBT pride or gay pride is the concept that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity...
parades and protest marches and having heated discussions about day-to-day events, political issues and the way lesbian culture was changing. The strip was one of the most successful and longest-running queer
Queer
Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...
comic strips.
On May 10, 2008, Bechdel announced that she was putting the strip on indefinite hiatus in order to complete her graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
memoir Love Life, due in late 2009.
Main characters
The central characters included:- Mo Testa (given name Monica), the central character, a politically committed lesbian feministLesbian feminismLesbian feminism is a cultural movement and critical perspective, most popular in the 1970s and early 1980s , that questions the position of lesbians and women in society. It particularly refutes heteronormativity, the assumption that everyone is "straight" and society should be structured to serve...
with a tendency to kvetch. Previously a worker at Madwimmin Bookstore who then worked briefly at Bounders Books and Muzak (a parody of Borders Books and Music) while earning a library scienceLibrary scienceLibrary science is an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary field that applies the practices, perspectives, and tools of management, information technology, education, and other areas to libraries; the collection, organization, preservation, and dissemination of information resources; and the...
degree before getting a job as a reference librarian. - Lois McGiver, a sex-positiveSex-positiveThe sex-positive movement is an ideology which promotes and embraces open sexuality with few limits. Sex positivity is "an attitude towards human sexuality that regards all consensual sexual activities as fundamentally healthy and pleasurable, and encourages sexual pleasure and experimentation...
activist, drag kingDrag kingDrag kings are mostly female performance artists who dress in masculine drag and personify male gender stereotypes as part of their performance. A typical drag king routine may incorporate dancing and singing, live as in the Momma's Boyz of San Francisco's performances or lip-synching...
, a clerk at Bounders Books and Muzak (formerly at Madwimmin) and housemate to Ginger and Sparrow, dating single mother Jasmine, mother of transgenderTransgenderTransgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
teenager Janis (originally introduced as Jonas). - Ginger Jordan, a struggling academic and English professorProfessorA professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
at Buffalo Lake State University, whose star student Cynthia was interning at the CIA despite coming out to her parents. Longtime housemate of Lois and Sparrow, Ginger eventually bought a house with Samia, a SyrianDemographics of SyriaSyrians today are an overall indigenous Levantine people. While modern-day Syrians are commonly described as Arabs by virtue of their modern-day language and bonds to Arab culture and history...
MuslimMuslimA Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
chemist in a lavender marriageLavender marriageLavender marriage is a type of male-female marriage of convenience in which the couple are not both heterosexual and conceal the homosexual or bisexual orientation of one or both spouses...
to a man. - Sparrow Pidgeon (birth name Prudence), former women's shelterWomen's shelterA women's shelter is a place of temporary refuge and support for women escaping violent or abusive situations, such as rape, and domestic violence....
director and New AgeNew AgeThe New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
r-turned-atheist, who identified herself as a "bisexual lesbian" and was later involved with a straight Jewish male activist and stay-at-home dad, Stuart Goodman, with whom she had a child, Jiao Raizel (or J.R.). Lois and Stuart homeschooledHomeschoolingHomeschooling or homeschool is the education of children at home, typically by parents but sometimes by tutors, rather than in other formal settings of public or private school...
Janis and J.R.. Sparrow and Ginger purchased the house they had earlier shared with Lois (and later Stuart) after rooming together for years; Ginger later moved out, and the group was able to buy Ginger out of the house by Sparrow taking the Executive Director position at the state NARAL office. - Clarice Clifford, a workaholicWorkaholicA workaholic is a person who is addicted to work.The term generally implies that the person enjoys their work; it can also imply that they simply feel compelled to do it...
environmental lawEnvironmental lawEnvironmental law is a complex and interlocking body of treaties, conventions, statutes, regulations, and common law that operates to regulate the interaction of humanity and the natural environment, toward the purpose of reducing the impacts of human activity...
yer and college girlfriend of Mo's. - Toni Ortiz, a CPACertified Public AccountantCertified Public Accountant is the statutory title of qualified accountants in the United States who have passed the Uniform Certified Public Accountant Examination and have met additional state education and experience requirements for certification as a CPA...
and business managerBusiness managerIn a general context, a business manager is a person who manages the work of others in order to run a business efficiently and make a large profit...
, who had a child with Clarice; she was a stay-at-home-mom for several years while raising their son Rafael Clifford-Ortiz (or Raffi). Toni and Clarice had a commitment ceremony in the backyard, a civil unionCivil unionA civil union, also referred to as a civil partnership, is a legally recognized form of partnership similar to marriage. Beginning with Denmark in 1989, civil unions under one name or another have been established by law in many developed countries in order to provide same-sex couples rights,...
in VermontVermontVermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
, and a (not legally recognized by the state) marriage at City Hall. They later explored the phenomenon of divorcing without court involvement. Clarice then moved in with Sparrow, Stuart and Lois, taking the room recently vacated by Ginger. - Dr. Sydney Krukowski, an academically involved, materialistic, yuppieYuppieYuppie is a term that refers to a member of the upper middle class or upper class in their 20s or 30s. It first came into use in the early-1980s and largely faded from American popular culture in the late-1980s, due to the 1987 stock market crash and the early 1990s recession...
Women's StudiesWomen's studiesWomen's studies, also known as feminist studies, is an interdisciplinary academic field which explores politics, society and history from an intersectional, multicultural women's perspective...
professorProfessorA professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
with a compulsive spending habit, Mo's lover and a breast cancerBreast cancerBreast cancer is cancer originating from breast tissue, most commonly from the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply the ducts with milk. Cancers originating from ducts are known as ductal carcinomas; those originating from lobules are known as lobular carcinomas...
survivor. - Jezanna Ramsay (birth name Alberta), manager of the late lesbian bookstore Madwimmin Books, which also employed Mo, Lois, and Thea, a Jewish lesbian with multiple sclerosisMultiple sclerosisMultiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease in which the fatty myelin sheaths around the axons of the brain and spinal cord are damaged, leading to demyelination and scarring as well as a broad spectrum of signs and symptoms...
who was Sydney's lover in college. After the closure of Madwimmin due to financial woes, Thea and Jezanna appeared less frequently. Jezanna later taught English as a second language, and Thea began teaching art to kids.
Only some of the characters' surnames were known, since such names appeared only when it was appropriate to the dialogue (when Ginger and Sydney, as college instructors, were addressed as "Professor Jordan" and "Dr. Krukowski," for instance) and were not established from the beginning.
Strip collections
The strip had a number of strip collections, including:- Dykes to Watch Out For (1986)
- More Dykes to Watch Out For (1988)
- New, Improved! Dykes to Watch Out For (1990)
- Dykes to Watch Out For: The Sequel (1992)
- Spawn of Dykes to Watch Out For (1993)
- Unnatural Dykes to Watch Out For (1995)
- Hot, Throbbing Dykes to Watch Out For (1997)
- Split-Level Dykes to Watch Out For (1998)
- Post-Dykes to Watch Out For (2000)
- Dykes and Other Carbon-Based Life-Forms to Watch Out For (2003)
- Invasion of the Dykes To Watch Out For (2005)
- The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For (2008)
The first of these collections contained miscellaneous, individual strips; the serialized story centered around Mo began halfway through the second collection, More Dykes to Watch Out For.
Beginning with the third book Bechdel began including graphic
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
"novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
s" at the end of each book. Some were flashbacks, such as the tale of how everyone met in Unnatural Dykes To Watch Out For, or Serial Monogamy, Bechdel's humorous "documentary" on lesbian relationships, but most have advanced the plot in new and interesting ways, such as Raffi's birth at the end of Spawn of Dykes to Watch Out For.
While not a compilation, The Indelible Alison Bechdel: Confessions, Comix, and Miscellaneous Dykes to Watch Out For (1998) included many of the strips Bechdel published in calendars, a timeline of the strip to date, and a fanciful "tour" of the "factory" where "Dykes To Watch Out For" is produced.
Literary references
As with Bechdel's popular autobiographical novel, Fun HomeFun Home
Fun Home is a 2006 graphic memoir by American writer Alison Bechdel, author of the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For. It chronicles the author's childhood and youth in rural Pennsylvania, USA, focusing on her complex relationship with her father...
, DTWOF included many literary allusions. For example, the name chosen for Sydney Krukowski references Stanley Kowalski
Stanley Kowalski
Stanley Kowalski is a fictional character in Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire.-In the play:Stanley lives in the working class Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans with his wife, Stella , and is employed as a factory parts salesman. He was an Army engineer in WWII, having...
, a character from A Streetcar Named Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire (play)
A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1947 play written by American playwright Tennessee Williams for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948. The play opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947, and closed on December 17, 1949, in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The Broadway production was...
. Sydney also drinks Loch Lomond
Loch Lomond Single Malt
The Loch Lomond Single Malt is a Highland Single Malt Scotch whisky produced by the Loch Lomond Distillery in Alexandria, Scotland, near Loch Lomond.-Fictional depiction:...
, a favorite drink of two characters from The Adventures of Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin is a series of classic comic books created by Belgian artist , who wrote under the pen name of Hergé...
.
Bechdel test
This comic strip popularized an uncomplicated test for film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
s to determine gender bias. The Bechdel test (also known as the Bechdel/Wallace test, the Bechdel rule, or Bechdel's law) is credited to Bechdel's friend Liz Wallace, and appears in a 1985 strip entitled "The Rule". One of the characters says that she only watches a movie if it satisfies the following requirements:
- It has to have at least two women in it,
- Who talk to each other,
- About something other than a man.
A variant of the test, in which the two women must additionally be named characters, is also called the Mo Movie Measure. The name is a misnomer as neither Mo nor the other regular characters had been introduced yet at the time of this strip's publication.
A blog was formed to review films on whether or not they pass this test. The Bechdel Test Movie List allows users to add their own movies.