creative writing - Is it bad to have no gender variety?

The majority of stories, movies, shows, comics, and other media I've read or seen have a pretty even split between men and women, and that's fine, I don't have a problem with it.

But if I want to write a story that's centered around two girls fighting against two female "villains" (with only one male character that's involved only minorly in the plot), that isn't targeted specifically toward girls or focused around the fact that they're all girls, will it negatively affect my story? Will it come off as somehow sexist?

Answer

The absence of representation in a single story is not harmful. The absence of representation across all media is harmful.

On of the trickiest things to understand about discrimination is that a story that is not in itself discriminatory is capable of fueling a larger trend which is discriminatory.

No book or movie can tell every story. It's simply not possible. Every book will feature many more stories untold than told, and that's fine. The problem is when every book or movie or TV show is leaving the same stories untold.

Stories are the primary way people learn about viewpoints that aren't their own, particularly if their opportunities to interact with new people in real life are limited. When all the media they consume is telling only a subset of the stories that exist, those are the only stories they come to understand, and they start to believe that other stories don't exist. They fail to make allowances for difficulties that aren't in those stories.

And the people whose stories aren't being told start to feel like their own experiences are flawed in some way. The ugly duckling was ostracized despite being a perfectly normal swan, because all the evidence they had ever seen told them they were an abnormal duck.

So, in order to consider the harm that your story is doing, it is important to consider the overall state of the media.

You must answer the question: Is there an overarching lack of stories about men in the media? I'll give you a moment to go and look.

(I'll give you a hint: The answer is no.)

Caveats

While it is okay to leave stories untold, there are some times where absence of a story can be harmful, even if it exists elsewhere in media. That is when your primary story is creating a strawman. When two stories come into conflict, then it is important to make sure that you are considering both sides with the respect they deserve. (There are some stories that do not deserve much respect. It's still important to measure that respect so that you dole out the right amount).

In your case - if men are absent from the story, you don't have anything to be concerned about. If they are the antagonists of the story, without any juxtaposition at all, then you should take another opportunity to examine your writing.

There are over course enough nuances to this issue to fill many books several times over. Categories are made up of individuals, and every individual is part of many categories, but in ways that make them unique. This is only a short introduction to the issues of representation, but hopefully it answers your question.