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Thinking about “feminism” in monthly comics & how for so long that mainly consisted of a kind of hard-drinking, one night stand having, two-fisted female protagonist written for reasons varying from genuine attempts at allyship (Rucka) to getting into pretty girls’ pants (Ellis)
While these takes were only about 66% effective in giving us real, relatable, nuanced female characters, it was like that Eddie Murphy skit: when you’re walking through a desert even a Saltine tastes like a three-course meal.
Frequently the villain for this strong female protagonist is the Seductress, which makes sinister traditional female strengths, vs the heroine’s embrace of male “strengths”. This can still result in a fun story, but it tells you a little about the quality of the author’s thought.
And yes, gender roles are entirely a social construct, but when you push female heroines forwards by suppressing or demonizing the feminine, you reveal yourself as being more under the heel of the patriarchy than you might like to realize.
It is what it is. But I also wonder about its effect on female writers who came up seeing only that, in terms of how we were socialized to think of a female protagonist in monthly comics. I know this happened to me, to some extent.
(This is why having diverse writers matters more and creates better stories than having diverse characters written by star white male writers, yet I digress)
I had a moment early in my career at Phoenix Comicon that I’ll never forget. It was at a Women in Comics panel because I wasn’t tired enough to say no to those yet. And there was this nice gal with long hair and a sensible skirt who stood up to ask us a question.
She asked the panel about female protagonists and traditional female roles, such as homemaking, whether they were compatible.
It was one of those moments where you’re like “oh” and suddenly you realize you’ve been looking at things in way too narrow a manner.
It was one of those moments where you’re like “oh” and suddenly you realize you’ve been looking at things in way too narrow a manner.
That question directly led to me writing a lot more varied and ultimately more satisfying and interesting female protagonists in my books: Rose from MAYDAY, who never fires a gun or throws a punch; the four women of BAD GIRLS...
... Cheryl the “in any other book she’d be the dead wife actualizing Ethan’s vengeance” ex-wife in BAD KARMA.
This is all to say, the purpose of fiction writing — if indeed it can be said to have a purpose at all — is to take a cathartic truth and wrap it in an entertaining lie.
Female heroism has many truths, many faces, and I urge you, male writers, to consider more of them.
Female heroism has many truths, many faces, and I urge you, male writers, to consider more of them.
