Phantom of the Opera/Christine
Les Miserables/Cosette
Sleeping Beauty/Aurora
Snow White/Guess who?
See anything in common here?
Disclaimer: I love these stories/musicals/movies. I am not bashing them. I'm just calling for something new. Seriously, "calling out something for an issue" is not the same thing as "I hate this thing and I'm trying to make you hate it too." Repeat that over and over as needed.
The "heroines" of these stories are actually Macguffins. Like the Philosopher's Stone. Like Triton's trident. Like the One Ring. Like the Silver Crystal (sue me, I just went to AWA and had a huge feels-wave of my love for Sailor Moon come crashing back). Like whatever media Macguffin you can think of.
Problem 1 - women as Macguffins.
It's annoying at best - dehumanizing at worst. I think it's a shit kind of message for little girls to be spoon-fed over and over that they are there to be found/saved/discovered/won. Even when the heroine makes noises about having her own personality (Jasmine, I'm looking at you) the chips come down in the end and the HERO is the requisite day-saver. I'm sure there are examples out there of this not being the case. Tell me if you think of any, cos I haven't had my caffeine yet. Oh, by the way... This is jumping the gun a bit, because I'll mention this in a couple paragraphs, but the solution to Problem 1 is NOT ---
Problem 2 - "ME STRONG WOMAN! ME SMASH! ME NO NEED MAN! ARE FEMINIST!"
Yeah, I'm getting really annoyed with the caricatures that mainstream media is telling us represent "strong women." One, no, not all women are strong. Two, "strong" women are not strong all the time. You know what's similar about those two sentences? You can substitute the word "people" where you see "woman" and the sentence carries the exact same meaning! When a male character shows weakness of any kind... I'm gonna pick on Spencer Reid here for a second, mostly because it's easy... He's a better character because of his addiction, his headaches, his possible burgeoning schizophrenia! People actually like him MORE! Let a female character have that same combination of shit? Yeah, I'm not even going to regurgitate all that garbage at you. Go on Tumblr and see it for yourself.
Terrific example of this actually getting fixed:
Black Widow as she appears in Avengers (Say! I've got an idea! Let's see JUST how much super-sexualized violence we can get away with against her - like threatening to rip her tongue out while she's wearing next to nothing! There's just nothing like threatening her bodily integrity and making a HUUUUUUGE rape analogy, is there?! And, oh, by the way, she's STILL going to pretend to be completely emotionless while TOTALLY mooning over a barely-stuck-in-there Hawkeye! Cos she's GOTTA be attached to a man or we really can't think of a reason for her to be here... Nevermind that she has the same exact powers as Batman!)
versus...
Black Widow as she appears in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Natasha: "Holy hell. I fucked up big time. There are goddamn Nazis all over SHIELD. This is a gigantic problem. I am going to own up to my mistakes and do my best to fix them. Am I as strong as Captain America? No, but I don't have to be because I have my own skill set that is just as valuable. And, yeah, Steve probably wouldn't be learning to function in the 21st century near as well without my helping him.")
Solution to Problem 1 - STOP IT!
Yes, we are in an age where most writers (I'm pretty sure) are women. If you want to know why that's awesome, just go read Nathaniel Hawthorne's thoughts on the subject of women writers. However, we as women writers seem only to get published if we stick to the hackneyed stereotypes of what women in the public eye as characters are expected to be. Or, we go so far the other direction that we steer straight into Problem 2.
Solution to Problem 2 - Stop that bullshit and call it out when you see it.
Please, for the love of god, don't write a female character on the "Let's see how unfeminine we can possibly make her" scale. We need to stop equating the feminine with the bad. It's called internalized misogyny and it needs to stop.
Consult this list for help:
By the way, this is all without even mentioning mainstream transphobia and homophobia in "mainstream" literature, and biphobia within LGBTQA+ literature. This is all without mentioning polyamorous relationships in media and the erasure thereof. If your character falls in one, two, or all of these categories, then please ask someone who knows better than I how best to handle this. I am aware of the problem, but I do not know how to correctly give information upon it. I would rather tell you "I don't know" than tell you something wrong and/or problematic.
Bottom lines:
George R. R. Martin was not the first human to discover that women are people, so let's all start writing women as people.
I am looking to start printing "I am not the Macguffin" on T-shirts. Let me know if you are interested.
Fight tooth and nail against the "Problem 2" model of writing women.
This is Marigold, on her way to get dressed for choral rehearsal, wishing you a happy Thursday!
Les Miserables/Cosette
Sleeping Beauty/Aurora
Snow White/Guess who?
See anything in common here?
Disclaimer: I love these stories/musicals/movies. I am not bashing them. I'm just calling for something new. Seriously, "calling out something for an issue" is not the same thing as "I hate this thing and I'm trying to make you hate it too." Repeat that over and over as needed.
The "heroines" of these stories are actually Macguffins. Like the Philosopher's Stone. Like Triton's trident. Like the One Ring. Like the Silver Crystal (sue me, I just went to AWA and had a huge feels-wave of my love for Sailor Moon come crashing back). Like whatever media Macguffin you can think of.
Problem 1 - women as Macguffins.
It's annoying at best - dehumanizing at worst. I think it's a shit kind of message for little girls to be spoon-fed over and over that they are there to be found/saved/discovered/won. Even when the heroine makes noises about having her own personality (Jasmine, I'm looking at you) the chips come down in the end and the HERO is the requisite day-saver. I'm sure there are examples out there of this not being the case. Tell me if you think of any, cos I haven't had my caffeine yet. Oh, by the way... This is jumping the gun a bit, because I'll mention this in a couple paragraphs, but the solution to Problem 1 is NOT ---
Problem 2 - "ME STRONG WOMAN! ME SMASH! ME NO NEED MAN! ARE FEMINIST!"
Yeah, I'm getting really annoyed with the caricatures that mainstream media is telling us represent "strong women." One, no, not all women are strong. Two, "strong" women are not strong all the time. You know what's similar about those two sentences? You can substitute the word "people" where you see "woman" and the sentence carries the exact same meaning! When a male character shows weakness of any kind... I'm gonna pick on Spencer Reid here for a second, mostly because it's easy... He's a better character because of his addiction, his headaches, his possible burgeoning schizophrenia! People actually like him MORE! Let a female character have that same combination of shit? Yeah, I'm not even going to regurgitate all that garbage at you. Go on Tumblr and see it for yourself.
Terrific example of this actually getting fixed:
Black Widow as she appears in Avengers (Say! I've got an idea! Let's see JUST how much super-sexualized violence we can get away with against her - like threatening to rip her tongue out while she's wearing next to nothing! There's just nothing like threatening her bodily integrity and making a HUUUUUUGE rape analogy, is there?! And, oh, by the way, she's STILL going to pretend to be completely emotionless while TOTALLY mooning over a barely-stuck-in-there Hawkeye! Cos she's GOTTA be attached to a man or we really can't think of a reason for her to be here... Nevermind that she has the same exact powers as Batman!)
versus...
Black Widow as she appears in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Natasha: "Holy hell. I fucked up big time. There are goddamn Nazis all over SHIELD. This is a gigantic problem. I am going to own up to my mistakes and do my best to fix them. Am I as strong as Captain America? No, but I don't have to be because I have my own skill set that is just as valuable. And, yeah, Steve probably wouldn't be learning to function in the 21st century near as well without my helping him.")
Solution to Problem 1 - STOP IT!
Yes, we are in an age where most writers (I'm pretty sure) are women. If you want to know why that's awesome, just go read Nathaniel Hawthorne's thoughts on the subject of women writers. However, we as women writers seem only to get published if we stick to the hackneyed stereotypes of what women in the public eye as characters are expected to be. Or, we go so far the other direction that we steer straight into Problem 2.
Solution to Problem 2 - Stop that bullshit and call it out when you see it.
Please, for the love of god, don't write a female character on the "Let's see how unfeminine we can possibly make her" scale. We need to stop equating the feminine with the bad. It's called internalized misogyny and it needs to stop.
Consult this list for help:
- A female character can have a romance and still be considered "strong"
- It is okay if a female character mishandles a romance - people do that
- Every mistake does not have to be an existential crisis
- A female character can be feminine and still be considered "strong"
- A RELATIONSHIP DOES NOT HAVE TO BE THE CENTRAL PORTION OF HER STORY.
By the way, this is all without even mentioning mainstream transphobia and homophobia in "mainstream" literature, and biphobia within LGBTQA+ literature. This is all without mentioning polyamorous relationships in media and the erasure thereof. If your character falls in one, two, or all of these categories, then please ask someone who knows better than I how best to handle this. I am aware of the problem, but I do not know how to correctly give information upon it. I would rather tell you "I don't know" than tell you something wrong and/or problematic.
Bottom lines:
George R. R. Martin was not the first human to discover that women are people, so let's all start writing women as people.
I am looking to start printing "I am not the Macguffin" on T-shirts. Let me know if you are interested.
Fight tooth and nail against the "Problem 2" model of writing women.
This is Marigold, on her way to get dressed for choral rehearsal, wishing you a happy Thursday!
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