If you’ve spent any time in the darker corners of the internet, you’ve seen the memes. They usually involve a male author describing a woman’s anatomy in a way that suggests he’s never actually seen a human female in person. Or, if he has, he thinks they spend all their time thinking about how their shirts fit. Stephen King has been the target of some of those jokes.
But here’s the thing. Stephen King writing women is actually one of the most fascinating case studies in modern literature because he’s both surprisingly empathetic and occasionally, well, "cringe."
He’s been at this since 1974. That’s over fifty years of trying to get inside the heads of mothers, daughters, survivors, and monsters. You can’t write for that long without evolving, and King’s trajectory from Carrie to Holly shows a man who has been listening. He’s not always getting it right. Sometimes he’s leaning on tropes that felt dated in the eighties, let alone now. But compared to many of his contemporaries in the "Big Male Author" category—think Dean Koontz or James Patterson—King actually tries to give his female characters an interior life that doesn't just revolve around the male protagonist.
The Tabitha King Factor
You can’t talk about how Stephen King writes women without talking about Tabitha King. It’s not just a cute anecdote; it’s the literal foundation of his career.
When King was working on a short story about a girl with telekinetic powers, he got frustrated. He didn’t understand the social dynamics of high school girls. He didn't know how they talked in the locker room. He threw the first few pages of Carrie in the trash. Tabitha fished them out. She told him he had something there and, more importantly, she offered to help him with the female perspective.
That’s the secret sauce.
King has always been willing to be corrected. This doesn't mean he's a perfect feminist icon—far from it—but it means his female characters often feel like people because he bases them on the sharp, formidable women in his own life. From his mother, Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King, who raised two boys on her own in near-poverty, to his wife, he’s surrounded by women who don't have time for nonsense. This shows up in his work. His women are usually pragmatists. They are the ones who realize the monster is real while the men are still arguing about the physics of the situation.
The Early Days: Blood and Puberty
In the beginning, Stephen King writing women was synonymous with "biological horror."
Carrie is the obvious example. It’s a book about menstruation, religious trauma, and the terrifying power of repressed female rage. It’s visceral. It’s messy. It’s honest in a way that was pretty shocking for the mid-seventies.
Then you have The Shining. Wendy Torrance in the book is a far cry from the "screaming, hysterical" version Shelley Duvall played in the Kubrick film. King actually disliked the movie version because he felt Kubrick stripped Wendy of her agency. In the novel, Wendy is a survivor. she's a woman who is consciously deciding how to protect her son from a man she still loves but knows is disappearing into madness. She’s calculating. She’s tough.
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But then, you get the "Man’s Man" era of King. In books like IT or The Stand, the women can sometimes feel like the "token girl" in the group. Beverly Marsh is a great character, but she also has to navigate that infamous, controversial scene in the sewers that King himself has admitted he wouldn't write today. It was a clumsy attempt to symbolize the end of childhood through a male-centric lens, and it remains a massive blot on an otherwise incredible book.
The Mid-Career Pivot: Dolores Claiborne and Jessie Burlingame
The nineties were arguably King’s peak for female-centric narratives. This is the era of Gerald’s Game and Dolores Claiborne.
Gerald’s Game is a masterclass in psychological realism. Most of the book takes place inside the head of a woman handcuffed to a bed. It’s a terrifying exploration of how childhood sexual abuse shapes adult identity. King doesn't flinch. He writes about Jessie's internal "voices"—different versions of herself—with a level of psychological depth that most "literary" writers would envy.
And then there's Dolores.
Dolores Claiborne is written as a single, unbroken monologue. No chapters. No breaks. Just an old woman in Maine explaining why she killed her husband. It is, quite frankly, one of the best "female voices" ever written by a man. King captures the cadence of a woman who has been hardened by manual labor and a bad marriage. He gets the specific brand of exhaustion that comes with being a "domestic" in a wealthy household.
"Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold onto."
That line from the movie (which is also in the spirit of the book) became a rallying cry. It showed that King understood that for women in certain socioeconomic positions, "niceness" is a luxury they can't afford.
Why Some Readers Still Struggle with King’s Women
Let’s be real. There are some tropes King just won't let go of.
He has a tendency to describe women’s bodies in a way that feels a bit "Horny Grandpa." He’ll be in the middle of a tense scene and suddenly spend two sentences talking about the shape of a character's chest under her sweatshirt. It’s jarring. It pulls you out of the story.
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There’s also the "Magical Mother" trope. In many King stories, women exist primarily as a source of moral grounding for the male protagonist. They are the "light" that keeps the man from falling into the dark. While that’s better than being a victim, it’s still a limited way of looking at women. They don’t always get to be the messy, complicated heroes of their own stories; they’re often the prize or the lighthouse.
And we have to talk about the "Frigid Wife" or the "Shrew." In his earlier work, if a woman wasn't the protagonist, she was often a nagging obstacle. Think of the wives in Cujo or Pet Sematary (though Rachel Creed gets a lot more sympathy in the book than the movie).
The Evolution of Holly Gibney
If you want to see the modern state of Stephen King writing women, look no further than Holly Gibney.
She first appeared as a side character in Mr. Mercedes. She was supposed to be a one-off. But King fell in love with her. She’s neurodivergent, she’s obsessive, she’s socially awkward, and she’s incredibly brave. She has now appeared in six books, culminating in her own self-titled novel, Holly.
Holly is a landmark for King. She isn't defined by her relationship to a man. She isn't a "sexy" lead. She’s a middle-aged woman dealing with OCD and the grief of losing a complicated mother, all while hunting down serial killers.
King treats her with immense tenderness. He doesn't make her the butt of the joke. He lets her be brilliant and flawed. Through Holly, King has found a way to write a woman who feels entirely contemporary. He’s moved past the archetypes of the "Mother" or the "Whore" and landed on something much more interesting: a Person.
Realism vs. Genre: The "Maine Woman"
What King gets right more than almost any other male writer is the "Maine Woman." These are women who wear Carhartt jackets, smell like woodsmoke, and know how to fix a leaking pipe. They are the backbone of his fictional towns.
Take The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. Trisha McFarland is a nine-year-old girl lost in the woods. King captures the logic of a child perfectly—the way fear cycles into bravery and back again. He doesn't make her a "damsel." He makes her a survivor who uses her brain to stay alive.
It’s this groundedness that saves King from his worst impulses. When he stops trying to be "edgy" and just writes about the people he grew up with, his female characters shine. They are gritty. They are resilient. They have bad hair days and financial problems.
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Misconceptions About King's Feminism
People often ask: Is Stephen King a feminist writer?
The answer is: It’s complicated.
He certainly holds feminist values. He’s been a vocal supporter of women's rights and reproductive freedom for decades. But his writing is also a product of his generation. He was born in 1947. He’s going to have blind spots.
The mistake critics make is assuming that because King writes about violence against women, he is "anti-woman." In reality, King uses horror to explore the very real systemic violence women face. Rose Madder is a supernatural thriller, but at its heart, it’s a terrifyingly accurate depiction of domestic abuse and the difficulty of escaping a powerful, violent husband.
He doesn't shy away from the ugliness. He knows that for many women, the "monster" isn't a clown in a sewer; it’s the man sitting across from them at the dinner table.
Actionable Insights for Readers and Writers
If you’re a writer looking to learn from King, or a reader trying to navigate his massive bibliography, here’s how to approach his work:
- Read the "Internal" Novels First: If you want to see King at his best with female perspectives, skip the monster romps and go for Dolores Claiborne, Gerald's Game, or Lisey's Story. These are the books where he really digs into the feminine psyche.
- Watch for the "Gaze": Acknowledge that King’s descriptions of women are often filtered through a very specific "Boomer male" lens. You can appreciate the character development while still rolling your eyes at the weirdly specific descriptions of denim jeans.
- Notice the Power Dynamics: King is excellent at showing how women use "soft power" to navigate dangerous situations. Look at how characters like Mother Abagail in The Stand or Susan Delgado in Wizard and Glass use their perceived weaknesses as weapons.
- Follow the Evolution: Don't judge his ability to write women based on a book from 1978. Look at the arc from Carrie to Holly. It’s a masterclass in how an artist can grow and learn over half a century.
Stephen King isn't perfect. He’d be the first to tell you that. But he’s one of the few male mega-bestsellers who has consistently tried to put women at the center of the frame, not as victims or trophies, but as the ones holding the flashlight when the lights go out.
To truly understand his impact, you have to look past the gore. You have to look at the resilience. You have to look at the women who, despite everything the universe throws at them, refuse to stay down. That is where King’s real strength lies.
Next Steps for Exploration:
- Compare Mediums: Watch the film adaptation of Gerald's Game on Netflix. It’s one of the few King movies that captures the intense internal monologue of the book perfectly.
- The "Holly" Chronology: If you want to see his most modern female character, read the Bill Hodges trilogy (Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, End of Watch) followed by The Outsider, If It Bleeds, and finally Holly.
- Check the Non-Fiction: Read King’s memoir On Writing. He talks extensively about Tabitha’s influence and how she essentially co-created the world of Carrie, giving you a "behind the curtain" look at his process.