héroe vs heroína

Question

English has both hero and heroine, but hero is often used for females as well and is usually the only one used in regular speech. Heroine tends to be more formal and more often used in writing. Is the same true in Spanish? My gut tells me that it would not be common because there are so many more gendered titles, but I'm not really. Is it also common in Spanish to call a female "un héroe"?

Answer 1

Typically, un héroe may be used in poetry and ancient literature for both man and woman because in these contexts "héroe" is a person´s character. However, la heroína is used for woman in modern literature.

In common speech, el héroe refers to man and la heroína refers to woman.