- Born:
- September 10, 1960, Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, U.S. (age 66)
Alison Bechdel
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Who is Alison Bechdel?
Alison Bechdel, born September 10, 1960, is an American cartoonist and graphic novelist. She is most known for her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For (1983–2008), which introduced the Bechdel test, a metric evaluating gender inequality in movies. The test requires that a work of fiction feature at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. Her graphic memoir, Fun Home, was published in 2006. In 2012, she released Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama, and in 2021, she published The Secret to Superhuman Strength. In 2014, Bechdel was awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation "genius grant".
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What type of art and writing is Alison Bechdel known for?
Alison Bechdel is an American cartoonist and graphic novelist known for her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For (1983–2008), which introduced the Bechdel test, a metric evaluating gender inequality in movies. The test gained recognition in the 21st century as a shorthand method to illustrate gender disparity in Hollywood.
Bechdel is also known for her graphic memoir, Fun Home (2006), a coming-of-age story. In 2012, she released Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama, a graphic novel that explores the mother-child bond. In 2021, she published The Secret to Superhuman Strength, a graphic memoir.
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What is Alison Bechdel's most famous work?
Alison Bechdel is an American cartoonist and graphic novelist known for Dykes to Watch Out For, a comic strip that introduced the Bechdel test, which evaluates gender inequality in movies. Her most famous work is the graphic memoir Fun Home, published in 2006. This coming-of-age story explores her relationship with her father and her lesbian identity. Fun Home was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Eisner Award. In 2013, it was adapted into a stage musical, which won multiple Tony Awards.
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What is the Bechdel Test and how did it start?
The Bechdel test is a metric that assesses how women are represented in fictional media like films and television. The test, which originated in Alison Bechdel's 1985 comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, requires that a work features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man.
Named after American cartoonist Alison Bechdel, the test is also referred to as the Bechdel-Wallace test, acknowledging Liz Wallace, who inspired "The Rule". The test is used to highlight gender disparities in Hollywood and other media.
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How has Alison Bechdel influenced graphic novels and popular culture?
Alison Bechdel is an American cartoonist and graphic novelist known for her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For (1983–2008), which introduced the Bechdel test, a metric evaluating gender inequality in fictional media. The test, inspired by Virginia Woolf, requires that a movie have at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man.
Her graphic memoir, Fun Home (2006), a coming-of-age story detailing her relationship with her closeted gay father and her own lesbian identity, won the Eisner Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Fun Home was adapted into a Broadway musical in 2015, winning five Tony Awards, including best musical. In 2014, Bechdel received a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant".
2 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
Alison Bechdel (born September 10, 1960, Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, U.S.) is an American cartoonist and graphic novelist best known for the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For (1983–2008)—which introduced the so-called Bechdel test, a metric that evaluates movies on the basis of gender inequality—and the graphic memoir Fun Home (2006).
Early life
Bechdel’s parents—Bruce and Helen (Fontana) Bechdel—were teachers, and her father was a part-time funeral director (the funeral home was nicknamed the “fun home” by Bechdel and her siblings). When Bechdel was 19 years old, just months after she had revealed to her parents that she is a lesbian, her father was struck and killed by a truck, an event that Bechdel later theorized was actually an act of suicide. After she earned a B.A. (1981) from Oberlin College, she moved to New York City.
Dykes to Watch Out For and the Bechdel test
In 1983 Bechdel began writing and drawing Dykes to Watch Out For, a comic strip that soon became a mainstay in gay and alternative news weeklies across the United States. Dykes to Watch Out For ran for 25 years, with Bechdel self-syndicating the strip and eventually publishing it on the Internet. There the strip gained new life, and one particular cartoon would embed Bechdel’s name in the popular culture lexicon. In the 1985 strip “The Rule,” a character states that she will watch a movie only if it has at least two women who talk to each other about a topic other than men. In the 21st century those guidelines became known as the Bechdel test, a shorthand method to illustrate the dramatic gender disparity in Hollywood. (Bechdel herself preferred to call it the Bechdel-Wallace test to acknowledge Liz Wallace, the friend who inspired “The Rule”).
Bechdel published a number of Dykes to Watch Out For printed collections, and although the strip’s main character bears a passing resemblance to her, the comic is not overtly autobiographical. The series ended in 2008.
Fun Home
In 2006 Bechdel published the graphic memoir Fun Home, a coming-of-age story that details her relationship with her father, a closeted gay man with an obsessive eye for decorative detail, and her own emerging lesbian consciousness. The critically acclaimed work was named a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and it won the Eisner—the most-prestigious award in the comics industry—for best reality-based work.
In October 2013 Fun Home was brought to the stage by Lisa Kron (book) and Jeanine Tesori (score, with Kron). It captured a string of awards during its Off-Broadway run, and in 2014 it was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for drama. The musical made its Broadway debut in April 2015, and it went on to garner a dozen Tony Award nominations, winning for best musical, best actor, best direction, best book, and best score.
Other graphic novels and memoirs
In 2012 Bechdel released Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama, a graphic novel that explores the mother-child bond through Bechdel’s relationship with her own mother, as well as the writings of Virginia Woolf and psychoanalysts Alice Miller and Donald Winnicott. Two years later Bechdel was awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation “genius grant.” In 2021 she published her first book in nearly 10 years, The Secret to Superhuman Strength. In the graphic memoir, Bechdel explores her interest in fitness crazes while addressing such issues as body image, interdependence, and mortality.
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She published Spent in 2025, a gently satirical graphic novel about aging progressives living in Vermont. The novel features a protagonist named Alison (who became famous for writing a comic strip titled Lesbian PETA Members to Watch Out For) and characters from Bechdel’s earlier works. The New York Times said of Spent’s “lovable but almost transcendently annoying” characters, “their frustration feels like a reassurance to readers who share it, and perhaps a gentle reminder that it’s easy to confuse being socially conscious with being self-serious.”
Personal life
In 2015 Bechdel married artist Holly Rae Taylor, who did the coloring for The Secret to Superhuman Strength and Spent.