Pro tip: if the first of the month is a Sunday, then that month will have a Friday the 13th.
Pause and think back to a female hero you grew up admiring. If it takes you more than a few seconds, then stop reading this post and Google “Angela Davis,” “Grace Hopper,” or “Minerva McGonogall.” If you do have a name in mind, I’d like you to rank them on a “femininity scale,” one being GI Joe and 10 being Barbie. Chances are, your female hero doesn’t rank very highly on the girliness scale. There are a few heroes that rank highly: the Powerpuff Girls, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Elle Woods. Even if a female hero is hot, she’s probably not that girly when it comes down to it: Black Widow, Korra, Lara Croft. In all my dystopian YA reading, the female main character heroines are seldom very feminine. Feminine traits are dismissed as frivolous or even indicative of a weak mind/body/spirit. Many heroic/smart/tough female characters often have a girly foil: take Velma and Daphne, for example, or Amy and Penny from The Big Bang Theory.
Why is it that, even when women write these characters, female characters are seen only as strong because of their most masculine aspects? As an adult, I recognize that strength comes in different forms. It’s not just physical: it manifests as restraint, as emotional fortitude, as the support we give others. As kids, it’s difficult to recognize the strength of a mother as on par with that of a bodybuilder. But, as all of us tree huggers have been warned: you should never, ever get in between a mother and her baby.
how many waves of feminism does it take to topple the patriarchy?
It is because of this trend in media that I learned to associate femininity with weakness at a very young age. Somehow, wearing a skirt or dress meant that all you cared about was stupid frou frou stuff and less about the stuff that mattered: saving the sea turtles, playing Pokemon, and Harry Potter. This was, of course, ridiculous. It might make it more difficult to climb trees or do somersaults, but that’s what skorts are for (it was the age where it was still acceptable to wear skorts). Looking back on it, I feel robbed. Because of anti-feminist propaganda (read: most media), I was divorced from expressing my gender identity in the formative years of my development. For a very long time, I thought you could either be girly or be strong; you could be girly or you could be taken seriously; you could be girly or you could care about what was important.
Conversely, boys had all the freedom in the world. Their wardrobe never inhibited them from wreaking havoc on the playground or sports fields. They were able to go wherever they wanted, walk alone around at night. For some reason, sports and working out are seen as less frivolous than fashion and makeup: and when (straight) men are interested in things that women are expected to do: cooking, clothes, interior design—they get a gold star, heaps of praise, or in some cases, they can make it into a career. And when millions of men all over the world are working out to primarily look better rather than become healthier, how is that any more “respectable” than spending time learning how to develop an eye for fashion or runway-level makeup skills? Someone please explain.
For years, I thought leaning into my more masculine attributes would get me closer to the freedom that men have. I was wrong- it just prevented me from seeing the strength that femininity has, and how people of all genders are taught to undervalue it. You can still be strong, smart, and tough while wearing polka dots and crafting with glitter (source).
implications
While I no longer hold the same prejudices against femininity, I’ve since run into a different problem: It’s hard for me now to express my more feminine side without feeling like an impostor. We’ve all worn something, looked at ourselves in the mirror, and thought “This just isn’t me.” I have that problem with girlier clothing and a made-up face. It’s not that I don’t want to look that way: I just feel ridiculous, like someone put a chimp in a tuxedo. Even though I know I can theoretically dress any way I want, it’s why I turned out this way that bothers me.
You—yes you— can help change the narrative. It’s not enough to champion things like “Women in STEM” without questioning how intelligent women are often portrayed. We ought to question how our conceptions of girllinelss affect our ideas about strength, intelligence, competence, and nobleness. Someone can be tough as nails and still be pressed when one gets broken.
I’ve challenged myself to write a very stereotypically feminine character as the hero of my next short story. Writing a girly hero has been somewhat challenging: most feminine characters I’ve seen are either mothers, love interests, or NPCs that need saving. There’s very few fictional characters that are written to be strong in this way. It’s a good thing, then, that I have a lot of real-life women to draw from.
This Week’s Top 3
- Snowtap ❄️ – purveyor of greeting cards, print, and all your cute graphic animal needs.
- Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (rewatch) 🗡 : The score includes RZA and The 5.6.7.8’s. Uma Thurman v. Lucy Liu (I always thought stills from this would make an amazing woodblock print.)
- Metro Boomin instrumentals 🎶 – perfect for the workday. Some of his songs are better without the raps. Bonus points if you can freestyle your own bars.