Basic Trope: A female character added to increase diversity, after The Smurfette Principle.
- Straight: The 80% male Five-Man Band gets a Sixth Ranger, who is female.
- Exaggerated: An entire Amazon Brigade joins the main group, outnumbering the males.
- Downplayed:
- Akela is a recurring ally of the group, not a full member.
- There are already two females in the group, and a third one joins.
- Justified:
- Bob saw Akela as a potentially useful ally.
- The group is finding that their missions often take them into situations where being male is a social obstacle, like having to enter a Lady Land or just being in the girls' locker room. Having some females on the team smooths over those issues a lot more quickly so that they can deal with the problem much faster, while also making sure no one has to go in alone and the girls can cover each other's backs.
- Inverted: The Team kicks Marian out, leaving only males.
- Gender-Inverted: Another guy joins an Amazon Brigade which already has a token male.
- Subverted:
- Akela joins the group, but does a Face–Heel Turn before long.
- Akela joins the group but is soon revealed to be Alecks disguised as a girl.
- Marian dies shortly after Akela joins.
- The villains kidnap Akela, and in the process of rescuing her, Marian is turned into a boy by a curse.
- Double Subverted:
- However, it turns out that the villains were controlling her actions, and Akela returns to the group permanently.
- After staying with the group for several episodes, Alecks is revealed to in fact be Akela - she's experienced sexism before and had to masquerade in this fashion to gain the trust of other teams of heroes.
- Alecks is a male-to-female transgender woman. After some thought, the group accepts her as Akela, and for the rest of the show, she is treated as Marian's equal.
- The group gets another female character: Alice.
- Akela comes Back from the Dead.
- The curse wears off in time for the next episode.
- Parodied: Bob is a He-Man Woman Hater at first, and for this reason rejects several potentially useful female companions, from Betsy (a tomboy) to Emily (a Girly Girl). Then for some unexplained reason, Bob instantly lets go of his sexism and welcomes Akela when she shows up.
- Zig Zagged: Both male and female characters join the cast, one by one. At first, The Team is mostly male. Later on, it is mostly female. However, by the end of the show's run, it is a very large Gender-Equal Ensemble.
- Averted:
- The group gains only male characters.
- The group remains constant throughout the show.
- Enforced: "Okay, we have to increase the viewership among the female demographics. Let's try adding a new girl character!"
- Lampshaded:
- "I'm so glad you joined the group, Akela! I was sick of being the only girl!"
- "There are times I wonder if Akela's just on the team so we can have another girl."
- Invoked:
- As soon as the Five-Man Band has been formed, the group realizes they only have one girl and quickly seeks out another to balance things out.
- When the group notices they should get more people, Marian suggests they try to find a girl.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: The Team decides one girl is enough, and don't recruit any more girls.
- Discussed: "This team really needs one more member. Do you think it'll be another girl?"
- Conversed: "I knew this day would come. Teams of fictional characters with only one girl always get another chick somehow, don't they?"
- Deconstructed: Akela is a competent fighter, but is never truly accepted by the group because they simply wanted because having a second girl on the team was helpful for some reason. Akela resents this and it leads to friction between teammates.
- Reconstructed: The team learns to get along through fighting (whatever sort of fighting it is) over time.
- Played For Laughs: The heroes panic about only having one girl, and look hard for another one.
Back to Affirmative Action Girl
