Strong Female Characters aren't bad for Women-- Lack of Women is bad for Women

Dear Feminists on the internet.  Please stop suggesting, or insinuating, that we are no longer in need of ‘strong female characters’.  That’s not helping.

Look, one of the main tenants in feminism is that women are equal to men.  We go this route because, like men, women are diverse and all of us have different wants and needs.  Therefore the best we can do is try and create a world where we all have access to do whatever we want to do and be whoever we want to be.  What we have to remember, when we interpret this through media, is that one female character isn’t going to speak to all of us on the same level.  Superman isn’t going to speak every man in the world—not as a role model or a good character or as wish fulfillment.  That’s why guys have Superman and Batman and James Bond and Frodo Baggins and Forest Gump and Homer Simpson and Hawkeye Pierce… the list goes on and on for the white dude.  Not so for, you know, anyone else.

I think what we have to remember, and what a lot of people, especially Hollywood, is that ‘strong female character’ is a pretty genre specific term.  It’s in specific reference to the action/sci-fi/fantasy/thriller genres where you have a lot of fighting and a lot of things blowing up.  Strength, in this context, means going on the adventure, contributing to the battle and doing more than sitting on the sidelines, screaming, getting kidnapped or being left behind.  I see no reason why, in a show or movie or book, why a female character shouldn’t be just as awesome, just as capable and just as badass as Jack Sparrow or Indiana Jones or Danny Ocean.  A wo-man if you will.  And you won’t, because really.  What a stupid term.  So what if a female character is just like the men folk in every way?  There are real, live women who are a lot more masculine on the gender spectrum who may think it’s awesome to see a female character they can look up to or get wish fulfillment out of.  Just because a female character doesn’t work for you doesn’t mean she doesn’t work for everyone or that she is a bad female character earning our derision.  That’s not helpful.  When you do that, you shame women who actually found something relatable in the character. 

I do agree, however, that the call right now doesn’t need to be for the ‘strong female character’ anymore.  This archetype was in reaction to the damsel in distress.  The pendulum swung completely the other direction.  Before, the damsel in distress was representing all women in the action/adventure movies.  Now, the strong female character is representing all women.  We have already agreed here that women are diverse and that one character isn’t going to speak to all of us.  So now the call doesn’t need to be ‘more strong female characters’.  It just needs to be ‘more female characters’.

Here, take this comparison between TNT’s the Closer and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson is probably everything we could ever want in a female character.  She’s a badass cop—driven, focused and brilliant at her job and specialization in interrogations.  She has no problem burning bridges with people she doesn’t like or get along with.  She’s also very feminine.  She wears sun dresses and carries around a giant purse.  She likes makeup.  She worries about how she looks (not constantly, but as she works in LA around actors, every once in a while it niggles at her).  She has a sweet tooth and dives into a brownie as a form of comfort at the end of a hard day.  She is a well-rounded, complex character (and, in my opinion, the best character on TV right now). 

Problem—Brenda is pretty much the only female character on her show (there was Detective Irene Daniels for the first four seasons, but she didn’t really do much beyond having an on/off relationship with Sergeant Detective David Gabriel which ultimately caused her to leave although we were often told she was brilliant at forensic accounting and now there is Captain Sharon Raydor who, while awesome and about to receive a spin-off, is really a recurring character in the show).  If you, as a woman, can’t relate to Brenda or don’t like her as a character, there’s no other female character to connect with on the show.  If you don’t like Brenda, you’re probably not going to enjoy The Closer. 

Contrast this with Buffy.  A lot of fans of the show dislike the character.  If you, as a woman, can’t relate to Buffy as a character, well then what about Willow or Anya (I like Buffy, but Anya is by far my favorite) or Dawn or Tara or Joyce or Jenny or Cordelia or or or…  If Buffy doesn’t speak to you as a role model or wish fulfillment or just as a great character, there are a whole slew of other female characters to choose from.  I think this adds to Buffy’s (the character) strength.  She does not have to carry the torch alone—she not the representation of all women ever nor does she need to be.  Because she has a whole slew of female characters backing her up. 

The thing is, writers want to write a diverse cast of characters.  They want each character to be memorable.  The problem with female characters is that, if you only have one or two in the story, it’s easy to fall back on bad tropes because the writer is either lazy or trying too hard to make the character a representation of all women ever that she loses her personality and becomes this avatar of perfection.  But when a writer is willing (or forced—I’d be totally cool with forced) to make 50% of the cast female, well, suddenly you have a better chance of having a female character in this or that storyline that you can relate to.  And if there’s one amongst a bunch of women all who are individual characters and complex and dealing with their own issues whether she is a damsel in distress or a wo-man (I hate that term so much)—well, that’s okay because these tropes aren't presented as representing all women.  (Not to say that this is perfect, because there's shit storytelling and there’s always going to be shit storytelling but it’ll be okay just to let that slide by because there are shit stories about male characters too and now it’s okay to have shit stories about female characters because it won’t be the end of any possible stories about females in the future). 

 It’s important that we (feminists) stop treating female characters like they’re representatives of all women everywhere.  We hate it when others do it in the real world and I’m pretty sure we hate when it’s done in entertainment, so I don’t understand why it’s okay when we do it.  There is nothing wrong with the ‘wo-man’.  Some women are like that.  Some women relate to that kind of character or see it as wish fulfillment.  There’s nothing wrong with the damsel in distress or a character who cries all the time or any other portrayal of women so long as it isn’t the only portrayal.  So cease and desist with the ‘no more strong female characters’ or ‘strong female characters are bad for women’ memes and just shift to ‘we need more women, period.’  That will help.  This, not helping. 

Addendum: I will agree that we need to stop seeing women through the male gaze—ie the lack of clothing or the shots/pictures that focus on bust and butt.  But I was speaking merely to characterization here and I feel this other thing is sorta outside it.  Like, it’s rare that the choice of clothing in a character is shown as a defining part of the character (Brenda would be one exception with her sundresses and Willow is the other as her outfits show her growing confidence).  But, like, is there any evidence that Wonder Woman is completely attached to her star spangled underwear and that she would be devastated if she was forced to wear pants (I know fans waver on this because her outfit is so iconic to fans at this point, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the character).  And certainly the way a camera focuses on a character doesn’t have anything to do with the character and everything to do with who is controlling the camera.  So, yeah, a conversation that needs to be had, but overall I feel like it’s a separate one from characterization.  Jessica Rabbit isn’t bad—she’s just drawn that way sort of thing.  

Thoughts on Adoption and the Social Importance of the Biological Family

So I found this post today on Feministe and just had to talk about it.  It’s an open post discussion on adoption—something that always causes my hackles to rise.  I’ve tried in the past to find adoption blogs to follow.  Unfortunately (for me—I don’t speak for anyone else in this), most of the blogs seem to focus on the bad aspects of adoption.  Which I totally understand, of course.  In general I think people are more inclined to write about the injustices in the world—especially the injustices they themselves have suffered—than all the happy, wonderful things going on.  That goes for me too.  Most of the posts on this blog are how much the republicans suck and I certainly don’t have much in the way of happy posts beyond how much I love Darkwing Duck.  The same goes for Camelot’s Library, where I have an easier time laying out why I had a problem with a book than explaining why I loved it. 

It was good to see in the Feministe post that the main commenters on this subject were adoptees and birth-mothers—as it should be.  In my opinion, when it comes to discussions on adoption, the three speakers should be adoptees, the birth-mothers and adoptive parents in that order.  I feel like a lot of the time the voice of the adoptee gets pushed aside so the voices of the other two corners of the triangle can fight out who had a more difficult time of it.  I’m inclined to say both had it bad—especially both mothers.  Yes, there is a lot of pressure on ‘dirty, filthy sluts’ to be punished for their promiscuous sex life and there is a lot of pressure for those women to give up a child of an unwanted pregnancy and yes, a lot of those women come to regret their decision.  On the flip side, there is a lot of pressure on married woman to start popping out kids as soon as the honeymoon is over.  Adoptive moms go through the ringer to try and conceive children of their own.  They’re told they should just adopt, but the social stigma is that an adoptive family means less than a biological one and should only be used as a last resort.  And parents who do adopt are very rarely offered support from friends and family the way those with biological children are.  If we’re going with the assumption that we can’t every really know if a biological mother made the choice to give her child because it was actually best for her and not because of the social pressure on to give up the child, we also have to consider if the adoptive family wouldn’t have taken that route if it wasn’t if it wasn’t for the social pressure on them to have a child at all costs. 

But really, I think the worst place to be on the triangle is the adoptee—and I say this as a happy adoptee.  The social stigma of the biological family being more—meaning more—means that you are constantly being bombarded by the message that you are actually not a part of the family that raised you and that your place in said family is somehow less—even if you are a part of a loving family.  Every time I tell someone I am adopted, the first question asked is always about my birth family—where are they, why did they give me up, do I ever intend to go looking for them.  If I talk about my parents with acquaintances who know I’m adopted, the assumption is that I’m talking about my birth parents.  Media shows us that the best way to traumatize a younger sibling is to tell him or her that they are adopted.  Media very rarely shows adoption in a positive light. 

The hardships of adult (or young adult) corners of the triangle—the regret a birth mother may feel or the isolation of the adoptive parents—do not really compare to the hardships that the corner with the child faces.  As an adopted child, you are told that you should be with your biological family but that they don’t want you.  You are told also told that you should be grateful for your place in your adoptive family—that you were chosen by wonderful, loving people and you should be grateful for tis chance all while making it clear that they don’t believe that your place in your adoptive home can never come close to being like the biological family you should be with—it’s always less. 

It is impossible—even if you are living with a loving family (nuclear and extended) that does consider you a full member of the family—to not come out of this without some form of identity crisis.  The social stigma, no matter how enlightened your family is, is that your family identity is less.  And as much as I love my adoptive family and as proud as I am to be an adoptee and the despite the fact that I probably wouldn’t change the course of my life if the position was offered—being an adoptee simply isn’t fun because of the social stigma against adoption.  At least the adult corners knew, to an extent what they were getting into—social pressure or not.  As an adoptee and a child, you don’t know.  You just sorta find yourself there. 

So, with all this in mind, I am very much upset that many of the posters keep circling back to this idea that the biological family is better.  This idea that children have a right to their biological families keeps getting brought up—like being raised by your biological family is some magical catch-all that keeps you from being screwed up in any way, shape or form.  It might help slightly, because society does privilege the biological, nuclear family over the adopted family.  This idea is a social construct—a dangerous and damaging one that I am depressed to see lobbied around so cavalierly on a feminist site without anyone really challenging it.

It’s this idea that the biological family is more valuable is, I think, the reason a lot of adoptions go wrong.  If you are raised by a family that doesn’t believe that biological connects trump all (and more importantly, an extended family that doesn’t believe blood is thicker than water), you’re insolated to a degree from that social construct.  Society can tell you all it wants that you’re broken or out of place, but you know better because that’s not your life.  But if the adoptive family does believe that blood is thicker than water, if they continue to mourn the fact that they weren’t able to biologically conceive, if they never come to view the adopted child as theirs or threaten to ‘return’ the child if he or she acts out—then the adoptee has no protection against the social construct and that construct becomes truth. 

But it’s not truth, not any more than the sexist idea that women are all more nurturing or the racist idea that black men are all more violent or the homophobic idea that gay marriage somehow threatens the institute of marriage.  Blood actually isn’t thicker than water—society just tells us it is and we react accordingly. 

Since I was fourteen, I have been a participant in the University of Minnesota’s Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study (SIBS).  This is an offshoot of the famous Twins study that so instrumental in our understanding of nature vs. nurture and the influence of genetics.  The SIBS study looks at interactions between siblings in two sibling homes with biological/biological, adoptive/adoptive (as infants) and biological/adoptive siblings.  Preliminary findings indicate virtually no difference between the relationship between adoptive families and biological families.  This, to me, seems like common sense. 

That’s not to say all adoptions are good—just that having a baby is as much of a crap shoot as adopting one.  Of the adoptees I’ve met (and it’s a small number), all of them have good relationships with their adoptive parents (not saying that this proves that all adoptees have good relationships with their adoptive parents—just using it as a comparison point).  Of my friends who were raised by their biological parents, it’s about a 50/50 chance if they have a good relationship with their parents or if that relationship is severely strained in some way.  A lot of people cut ties with their biological family—because despite sharing blood, that family is toxic for them.  A lot of adoptees cut ties with their adoptive parents.  Some then go on to cut ties with their biological parents too.  Sometimes, whether it be held together by blood or by a legal document, families just don’t work out.  But to say that it is more likely to stay together if there is a blood tie—no.  That is a social construct.  And to keep insisting that biology is so important is really quite damaging to those who were raised in families held together by a legal document. 

At the end of the day—when we’re all legal adults—we choose our family.  Sometimes we choose to stay with the people who raised us or sometimes we choose those we have a blood relation with.  Sometimes we deny both of them and create a family out of close friends and mentors we’ve met along the way.  The biological, nuclear family has a leg up because social constructs has privileged that one the most and perhaps has an easier time holding together—because society says we should value the ties within that family more.  But it’s just as likely to fail as the single parent family, the divorced family, the remarried family, the same-sex parent family, or the adoptive family.  That these others fail more often doesn’t mean they’re inherently worth less, it’s that we’re taught that they are.  And that is a lesson we should be fighting against, not blindly accepting.   

Twilight has officially ruined EVERYTHING!

This post contains spoilers for Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness Quartet series.  Beware.  Also, I am having the worst time getting this to format correctly.  So I apologize if the spacing is off.  I've spent far too much time trying to fix this.

The Youth Vote

So, the New Hampshire State Legislature has put forth bills that would, in effect, cripple the ability of Youth to vote in the towns where they are attending college (Hiya, guys, have you ever tried to vote absentee in a small college town where no one is from the state you are?  It's a bitch, I tell ya).  Speaker William O'Brien believes this is justifiable because the youth are young.  And young people lack life experience.  And lacking life experience makes us foolish.  And our foolish ways make us vote liberal because that's what all the other young people are doing.

Democrats, voting rights groups and young people (even the rare young republican) were not amused.

O'Brien has since clarified.  His problem with the New Hampshire voting law is not that young people are foolish, it is that they are part of a mass liberal conspiracy of election fraud.  Allowing them to vote in their college towns potentially allows them two votes!  One in town and one absentee!  And O'Brien is willing to fight the good fight to ensure one man (one assumes he left the 'white, landholding' out by mistake), one vote principle is upheld.  No matter what the cost!

Speaker O'Brien, I am confused.  Am I a foolish youth who stupidly votes liberal because all the other kids are doing it and I lack the life experience to know any better?  Or am I a brilliant fiend who is managing to commit mass voter fraud with enough life experience not to get caught despite all your attempt to sniff me out and am voting liberal simply for the joy of seeing the republican party destroyed?  I don't think I can be both.

Of course you know, this means war #WIUnion

Or would, if our opponent wasn't lying on the ground, bleeding to death from a self inflicted wound. 

You know, if you had asked me in November what the direct future held, I would have said that the Democrats were on the verge of committing mass suicide, the party would die and a new Progressive party would take its place-- but only after the Republican party pretty much destroyed the planet.  Imagine my surprise to see that the GOP has recently signed their death certificate.

Actually, not so surprised.  In the back of my mind, the part of me that is most in tune with Ordarnis kept asking me what the rules of the universe are.  And I would reply "Good is dumb and evil only loses because of its overconfidence." 

Looking at this whole thing now, it's like something right out of a sci-fi or fantasy story.  Benevolent king-- well meaning but overall a wet noodle (sorry Obama)-- is verbally assaulted to the point of ineffectiveness by the greedy and ruthless advisors.  And they're in the perfect position to take over the kingdom completely.  Citizens United was big for the GOP.  So big that the GOP dominated in the 2012 election.  The democrats were all but dead.  The king was on his knees, capitulating to their every demand.  Victory was certain.  All the GOP had to do was wait.

But they didn't wait.  Instead they burned down the farm and murdered the aunt and uncle of a young farm boy put forth a bill stripping unions of their rights.  They didn't wake a sleeping giant, they shattered the ideal world of a naive farm boy.  And now he's angry.  Now his eyes have been opened to the injustice in the world.  Now he knows that it's his destiny to join the good fight and do battle against the GOP Evil Overlord GOP. 

If the world has taught us anything, it's that the farm boy always wins. 

That's why I'm so full of hope after the GOP in Wisconsin held their dark of night vote to strip union rights last night.  When they presented the bill, they burned the farm and murdered the farm boy's aunt and uncle.  That got us mad.  That started us on the path of the Hero's Journey.  Last night, they axed the mentor.  Everyone knows that the hero gains a huge, decisive victory right after the mentor is killed.

This is it, folks.  I know a lot of us have been fighting for a long time-- against the war on women's health, against the tax breaks for the uber rich, against hatred and the racism the GOP has spewing.  And it's been a long hard fight and we're tired and not even sure if we can win anymore.  But we can.  Because Unions are our farm boy.  And we need to throw all our support.  Because they are the chosen one(s)!  They will bring us victory.

Also, as someone who has spent a lot of time studying the antics of villainy (If you're going to write a story about an Evil Overlord who wins, you have to know why all the others lost), I have to pose this question to the GOP: Do you even want to win?  I mean really.  The way you were going about it before-- I didn't like it, but at least I could be impressed.  You were sneaky bastards and the way you managed to make the entire country believe everything was the Democrat's fault even when it was all your fault- brilliant.  But this-- bills to strip unions of their rights, bills to strip away the entire democratic process (see Michigan), bills to strip away women's rights and your blatant support (almost worship) of the wealthiest of the wealthy?  You can't be any more obvious about your evil ways.  And no, you're long past the need for t-shirts, evil cackling or armies of Fox News Broadcasters mutant monsters.  Compared to what's going on right now, that stuff is subtle.  And the first rule of being a successful Evil Overlord is be subtle.  If you're loud and obnoxious it, farm boys will come and kill you (see above).

Personally I am waiting for the GOP to scream "YOU CANNOT DEFEAT ME!  I AM INVINCIBLE" so I can watch #24 work its magic.

Lets... Get...Dangerous!

Hey look-- a blog post where I'm not angry at the republicans. Or anybody. How strange is that, folks?

Actually, I'm super happy. Like, floating on a cloud happy. Today was the first time I was caught up at work since November, it's supposed to be 40 tomorrow and my book was waiting for me when I got home and having finished it in an hour, I can honestly say it was everything I was hoping it would be.

I had been eyeing this book for months and finally decided on Tuesday that I had to have it and ordered it from Barnes and Noble. It's titled 'The Duck Knight Returns'. That's right-- I bought the comic book continuation of Disney's Darkwing Duck.

I love Disney. Yes, they have a lot of problems but I've always loved what I've felt is their overall message in their movies and cartoons (in the early 90s, not now)-- never stop dreaming and teamwork can accomplish anything. Darkwing Duck doesn't have much to do with the first (because DW's ego is the size of a small planet and his dreams of fame and fortune getting crushed are good for him), but the second one is huge. Darkwing always does better when he's working hand in hand with his sidekick Launchpad McQuack and adopted daughter Gosalyn (and with various members of the Justice Ducks- Stegmutt, Morgana, Neptunia, Gizomoduck...).

While I loved all of the Disney cartoons from the 90s (Ducktales, Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers, Talespin, Bonkers, Aladdin the Series and the Little Mermaid Series), Darkwing Duck has always held a special place in my heart. I dressed up as Darkwing for Halloween one year. I own Darkwing action figures and a felt poster. I own the books, videos and comics from the early 90s. As soon as the first two DVD sets were released, I snatched them up (Please, please Disney! Release the third one for Pete's sake!).

As I've gotten older, I've started to really think about why I love Darkwing Duck. Why has this character and this show stayed with me for so long? Why is Darkwing Duck elevated above all of my other fictional heroes? Why do I feel so happy when I reconnect with this show? Once I started thinking about it, I came to the answer pretty quick.

Gosalyn.

At the end of the two part series premiere, Darkwing Duck adopts Gosalyn. And to my five year old self, adopting Gosalyn was the most heroic thing Darkwing could ever do-- because I'm adopted.

As an adopted child, you don't get very many positive role models to look up to. Instead you get the TV shows and movies of adopted children who were demons or sociopaths or were throwing out the 'you're not my real--'. Or even better, shows where the worst insult you could through at your sibling was 'you're adopted'.

That is not something a five year old adopted child wants to hear or be picking up. It's not healthy to be receiving messages that you're going to turn into a monster or that your relationship with you family isn't real or insulting to other families. This was why Darkwing Duck was so huge for me (even though I probably didn't realize it at the time). Gosalyn was awesome-- nothing monstrous about her. But more importantly, from the moment Darkwing adopted her, he was dad. She never, ever used the 'you're not my real dad'. Her relationship with Darkwing was never looked down upon as less by any character in the series. She was his daughter, in every sense of the word. Like my parents and my brother are my family.

Darkwing Duck gets heralded for a lot of things. For being a super clever Batman parody. For being a modern mirror into the silver comic book age. For being one of Disney's best cartoon shows. Nobody ever talks about its hugely positive portrayal of adoption. More people should talk about that. Because even now, reading my comic book, seeing Darkwing and Gosalyn have a father/daughter moment ("I'm sorry dad, but I've been waiting a year and a half to say this-- ARE YOU CRAZY?") makes me ridiculous happy. I love this show and I love that it's being continued in comics.

So, I'm going to enjoy my book and my weekend because come Monday, I'm going to be way behind again at work. And I’m sure the republicans will do something to make me angry again. Bleh.

"I am the terror that flaps in the night! I am the classic rock act that never retires. I am DARKWING DUCK!"

Min-Ne-So-Ta Hats off to Thee!

Today on 'Why are the Republicans Wasting my Time?' we turn to my home state of Minnesota. Like every other state in this country, MN has joined several other states in jumping on the Abortion Bandwagon initially started by the controversial HR 3 (No Taxpayer Funded Abortion) and HR358 (Protect Life Act). So far into the session, the GOP has introduced 3 anti-abortion bills-- specifically targeting state funding for abortion. Normally this wouldn't be that big of a time waster, as the MN legislature had held a democratic majority for the previous 20 years. But that all changed in the election that killed puppies and the GOP gain a 55% majority in both houses. The good news is that we have our first democratic governor in 20 years, so... (look, this is the state that sent both Al Franken and Michelle Bachmann to DC and had Jesse Venture as a governor-- we do this).

So, a bit more of a time waster because in all likelihood the GOP will go through all this trouble to get the law passed only to have Dayton veto it. And, unfortunately, in all likelihood the GOP will go through the trouble to try and overturn the veto. They have about a 55% majority in both houses. They could potentially do it.

And then the Minnesota Supreme Court would overturn the law so fast it would make their heads spin.

Because guess what? In 1995 the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that state healthcare programs must cover reproductive procedures, including abortions (Doe vs. Gomez). No limits, no timeline, no bans except for the three exceptions, no bans including the three exceptions, no nothing. In Minnesota, if you are covered by state healthcare, you have the constitutional right to an abortion. And while yes, the MN Supreme Court is more conservative now than it was in 95, precedent in the legal system goes a lot farther than a judge's bias. I don't think Doe vs. Gomez has any chance of being struck down.

Which makes this a huge waste of time for the MN legislature when they promised that no social converative issues would be tackled until the jobs thing was taken care of. Uh-huh.

So maybe the GOP should be looking into changing the MN constitution. Of course, then they would have to admit that they're actually not doing anything about jobs and I can't imagine that going over too well.

So, I suppose I Owe Thanks...

Erm, thank you Conservatives... I guess. I mean, you did what I asked and came right out and admitted that your pro-life stance has nothing to do with life and everything to do with restricting women. That's what this is, right? I mean, a bill that allows hospitals and healthcare providers to deny abortions and/or transfers to a hospital that does to women who are going to die without one... how much more obvious can you get, guys? There's absolutely nothing pro-life* about this bill. It's completely anti-women. What's next? T-Shirts that say 'Let the bitches die'?

So, thank you, Conservatives. For calling your little culture war what it is. Maybe now we can actually have a conversation about why all of you are out of your fucking minds.

~Storyteller Knight.

* Unless-- wait... Conservatives? You are aware that if the mother dies, the fetus is dead too, right? I mean, the above assumes that you're completely aware of this. But if you're not, um, yeah. The fetus needs mom’s body doing all the work to break down nutrients and feed it. It’s not going to be able to cannibalize mom’s body and keep growing/survive if mom dies. They’re both dead and your ‘Protect Life Act’ has just killed two. Or one, depending on how you look at it.