The Mako Mori test is a test akin to the Bechdel Test, but one that gives somewhat stricter criteria for analyzing female representations in narratives. To pass the test, a story must:
- Have at least one female character;
- Who gets her own narrative arc;
- That is not about supporting a man’s story.
While this test is not intended to condemn any specific text as definitively sexist or non-sexist, if your story can pass neither the Bechdel test nor the Mako Mori test it might benefit from a rewrite; contrariwise, it is certainly possible for a work to pass both tests and still have a mysogenic attitude.
The Mako Mori test was proposed by Tumblr user chaila, and is named after a character in the 2013 movie Pacific Rim. The movie fails the Bechdel test despite having a well-developed and central female character, the eponymous Mako Mori.
Brevity Quest 2016