flying_whimsy said:
Well, first of all, there's a difference between power fantasy and what a woman actually wants to do with their life. I mean, you can probably find plenty of guys that dig Uncharted and God of War, but they're not going to go "Yeah, man, I totally want to a be disgraced deity and murder the Greek pantheon! Gonna get my Bachelor's next year!" A female power fantasy, necessarily, wouldn't be about, say, running a board room of becoming a doctor. It's highly unlikely to, actually. Power fantasies are all about escapism, usually into another realm. Why would anyone want to escape here?
In my experience (Which is to say, my experience of reading novels upon novels of female-authored fanfiction on Bioware games) I'd say there is a very clear "female power fantasy" that pops up a lot in works where women are the authors and are given creative freedom. I can't get too detailed, mostly because I'm not a scholar and I haven't gone looking, it's just traits I often see appear with female protagonists, but they often follow a "tough on the outside, soft on the in" sort of style - Said woman will calmly accept her duty and go on her journey and seem perfectly fine with it, but will show a softer side, either in private by herself, or to her prospective love interest. There's definitely still a theme of stoicism, but not quite the same way it shows up in the male power fantasy. The stoicism is less to fool the reader and more to fool the other characters in the narrative. There's usually a heavy focus on friends, and the rom com stereotype of "Sassy best friend" is very much present in a lot of fanfic. While there often is violence, it's nowhere near to the extent or as much of a focus as it is in, say, video games. There's almost always romance, even if the focus of the story is something else entirely. And these things usually follow a clear path, too - female protagonist will run into hot guy and spend much time describing his hotness (Expect words like striking, brilliant, shining, and other words bizarrely related to illumination) Here, the romance usually takes one of two paths - guy and girl hit it off right away and quickly become best friends, then lovers. Ooor guy does or says something to upset girl and much of the story is based around him being a bumbling idiot and having to make that up to her - and it's always the guy who's the bumbling idiot. The protagonist almost never screws up her romance, or is to blame with an obstacle to it, unless it's an emotional obstacle like overcoming grief from a previous lover. But while the guy will often unintentionally screws up, he will almost never purposely screw up (Or be otherwise selfish in the relationship) In the instances where he does, him overcoming this and making it up to the protagonist will also become a big focus.
As for the violence side... well, there usually just isn't much time spent on it. Typically it advances the plot, or otherwise it's just there to ensure to the reader that, yes, they fought. The protagonist probably will be awesome with whatever fighting style she has, but this is rarely actually important. A lot of the female power fantasy seems to revolve around social power - wooing the love interest, making friends, turning enemies to one's side. That sort of thing. When a character is shown explicitly hating the protagonist, they're often evil, or eventually brought around to liking them.
Now me, personally, I find many female protagonists, even those written by women, to be bland and whiny, so perhaps I'm not the best to describe it here. All I know is that there's very much a bigger emphasis on relationships, and female protagonists are rarely displayed as being in the wrong when it comes to such matters, especially romance.
