About Typical Female

Typical Female is a magazine about the stereotypes that attach to women — where they came from, what the data actually says, and how they show up in everyday life. We publish long-form essays and short first-person pieces (composite, illustrative stories written by our editors), plus a data-driven Stereotype Atlas that catalogues every claim we can find primary-source evidence for.

Our editorial mission

Most writing about gender sorts into two buckets: aggregate assertion that a stereotype is universally true, or aggregate assertion that it's universally false. We think that's not good enough. A stereotype that's 60% true doesn't become false because it's impolite, and a stereotype that's 40% true doesn't become true because it's culturally sticky. So we source.

Every Atlas entry cites a peer-reviewed study, a government dataset, or a primary document. Every guide walks through the empirical case for its recommendations. Every data page links to the original source so you can check our work. We would rather publish a mixed verdict than a clean one when the data supports the mixed verdict.

Our structure

• Stereotype Atlas — the research database, one page per stereotype, with sourced data and a verdict
• Data pages — demographic, pay, and workforce numbers by field and by state
• Guides — practical frameworks for naming and responding to specific bias patterns
• Tools — interactive calculators built on real BLS and Census data
• Lists — curated indexes of women who shaped specific fields
• Comparisons — side-by-side sourced data between women and men on specific domains
• State pages — pay equity, representation, and historical firsts for every US state
• Magazine archive — past issues with feature essays, voices, and the Raw

Are the stories real?

No — not as individual accounts. Stories in Typical Female are composite, illustrative pieces written by our editors, drawn from research and common experiences. Names and details are fictional. Each piece is written to reflect patterns documented in research and experiences many readers will recognize, but the people, names, ages, and places are invented. The statistics we cite come from named, published sources, and the Atlas is held to the sourcing standards on our Methodology page.

We would love to publish real stories. If you have one, submit your own real story → Real submissions will be clearly labeled as such.

Editorial balance

We aim to give women’s and men’s perspectives room in every issue. The premise is that a magazine about women is strongest when men read it too. The work is about stereotypes — which affect everyone — not about a single audience.

Sister publication

Typical Female is the sister publication of Typical Male, which examines stereotypes about men using the same editorial standards.

How we're built

See our Methodology page for how we source data, verify claims, and assign verdicts. See our Privacy Policy and Terms for the legal basics.