Unlikeable Female Characters: Flawed Female Characters and the Power They Hold

by Anna Bogutskaya

As she fully enters the corporate rat race, confident that she is going to be the successor, the punishment for her ambition takes on an egregious, nasty taste. At no point are we meant to like Shiv, but I can’t help but recognize the particular flavor of the microaggressions directed her way. Even her father’s (relative, very relative) patience with his fucked-up sons is significantly more than he has for her. On the surface, and on the surface only, she is getting all the things she wants. She is anointed the smartest child by her father. She gets a fancy-sounding job, president of domestic operations. She gets to ride the private jets and, on occasion, even has her father’s ear. Yet she is mocked for being overeager and chastised by Logan for being annoying (“Stop buzzing in my fucking ear!” he yells at her). Shiv’s abasement at the hands of her father, her brothers, and other Waystar executives cannot be separated from her femaleness.