Another vote for Ree from Winter’s Bone. That girl does not fucking give up.
How about Lisbeth Salander from the Millennium Trilogy (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, etc.)?
She’s brilliant, tough, loyal, and resourceful. She goes through some horrific experiences, but she doesn’t break. She just keeps fighting back–using her body and her brains.
Joan Hess wrote a couple of mystery series, one starring Arly Hanks (and featuring her mother, Ruby Bee Hanks) set in Maggody, Arkansas, and one starring Claire Malloy (and featuring her daughter, Karon Malloy). Both series are quite funny.
Every one of Rand’s books has a strong female.
True. I’ll see your Dagny Taggart and raise you one Dominique Francon.
Also, lesser well know, Detective Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels from J.A. Konrath’s series of hard-boiled crime novels (Whiskey Sour, Bloody Mary, etc). Tough, no-nonsense police detective who uses both her brains and her fists to solve grizzly murders.
Seconded. Just saw the Daniel Craig movie remake, and it’s pretty good. Haven’t seen the Swedish original yet.
Veronica Mars.
She has sex with her boots on.
I’d like to see a novel of Scarlett in her old age. She was sixteen when the Civil War started, which means she was born in 1845 or so. If she lived to be one hundred she’d see the end of WWII. Harder to live to old age then, but hey, I had a gread-grandmother who died, at ninety-four, in 1962
I am ashamed of all of us – but particularly Evil Captor, who may or may not have posted in the thread yet, I dunno, I don’t know how to work the scroll wheel on my mouse – for not mentioning Robert B. Parker’s Rita Fiore. Smart, tough, and unapologetic about being free with her sexuality. I love Susan Silverman & everything, but I though tas much as fifteen books back that Spenser should really be with her.
Except Rita probably can’t be tied down. I’m with Spenser in thinking that Rita and Hawk have done it on several occasions and simply not told him about it. They’re both ethical sluts.
Amy Dorritt in Dicken’s “Little Dorritt”. Everything about her life should make her a beaten-down mouse - born in debtor’s prison, mother dead early, father helpless and dependent, worthless older siblings. But Amy is the one who holds the family together, works but has to lie about it so as not to “shame” the family, is emotionally mother to other characters, and when the family fortunes are restored, is the only one who can keep it real and in perspective. She is my altogether favorite Dickens character. Other Dickens female characters may be brave and noble, but are rarely as tough and resourceful as Amy consistently remains.
Not a bad idea. Confederate Gen. James Longstreet’s young wife helped build bombers during WWII.
Jenny Fields in The World According to Garp. They don’t come much stronger–she decided she wanted a child, but didn’t want the baggage of a man. She had her child, and went on to found a home for troubled women, while writing a book about how she was regarded with distrust because she didn’t want to be a typical wife. Her actions might not seem so odd today, but Garp begins just after WWII, when they were decidedly out of place.
Shakespeare had a few. Beatrice (Much Ado about Nothing), who gave better than she got with Benedick, comes to mind, as does Viola (The Merchant of Venice), who saved her lover’s friend from Shylock’s knife.
Portia, not Viola 
Although Viola qualifies too. She’s shipwrecked in a foreign country by the storm that (she thinks) has killed her beloved twin brother - she’s totally on her own, no friends, no backup, nothing. Also, it’s a country where basically nobody has a firm grasp on reality or any kind of self-awareness; everyone’s operating in a great big swirl of illusion about themselves and the world*. And Viola not only instantly finds a way to get herself a job; even though that job involves disguise and subterfuge, she manages to keep a hold on reality and on her real identity. If you look at her language, she never lies. Everyone else is talking bollix of various forms*, but Viola - who can’t afford to reveal the truth - says things that, while they’re deceptive, are literally true. (‘My father had a daughter loved a man, as it might be, perhaps, were I a woman, I should your lordship…’) And she even keeps her sense of humour, while everyone else is taking themselves enormously seriously.
I love Viola. She’s my favourite character in all of Shakespeare.
*Except Feste, who’s a whole other question
Zan Hagen, from R. R. Knudsen’s children’s books about a high school girl who competes against boys in sports. Zanballer (football), *Zanbanger *(basketball), *Zanboomer *(baseball and cross-country), and Zan Hagen’s Marathon.
Also, Fox Running and Sudden Hart from Knudsen’s novel Fox Running, about two young women who run Olympic track.
Yeah, but Dagny Taggart wore heals and a cape . . . and did it in the filthy bowels of the railroad terminal.
In Karen Cushman’s novel The Midwife’s Apprentice, both Alyce (the apprentice) and Jane Sharpe (the midwife) are very strong female characters.
Milady de Winter, from Dumas’ the Three Musketeers. Again, not a good person, but strong?
Any woman who can routinely put Athos in his cups, seduce her overly moralistic jailer, and keep Rochefort (and possibly Richelieu) dangling, is a distinct personality to say the least.