Thinking about the Bechdel test

The links that have popped up about the Bechdel test got me thinking about my own writing. Being a guy, I suspect I have a tendency to default to "write what you know" - but then again, my writing generally hasn't been tailored to finding a profitable audience or what have you, so if a plot I'm working on calls for two women to have a discussion on substantive issues, then I just do it without worrying about audience demographics.

Probably the same for a lot of fandom writers - beta readers are for making a work more polished and enjoyable, but in general, you're not trying to *sell* the work, I guess.

Anyway, I was thinking, and a conversation from an old work-in-progress I've been turning over for about twenty-five years came to mind. Two women, talking about a substantive, potentially life-threatening topic. A man is brought up in the conversation as an example, but he's not the subject of the conversation, not really.

( Would this pass the Bechdel test, I wonder? )

Very rough, just a snippet. Takes place on day three or four of seven, and my latest efforts have only gotten halfway through page one.

Oh, and that conversation was first written years before I'd ever heard of the Bechdel test.