gaudior

I like this meme. I feel less defensive than some about my love for female characters, but I've been reading Joanna Russ, who talks a lot about how (at the time she's writing, mostly 70s and 80s, as well as historically) you don't find women who do things in fiction. She has this list in her essay "What Can A Heroine Do?: Or, Why Women Can't Write" in her book To Write Like A Woman, of stories you never see, including such plots as:

1. Two strong women battle for supremacy in the early West.
2. A young girl in Minnesota finds her womanhood by killing a bear.
...


and other things which, in 1971 when the essay was written, women just weren't allowed to do in fiction.

I like this meme as a celebration of how things have changed, as well as (FUCK YOU) how far we have to go.

So, yay.


From yhlee, originally by dsudis
So I was adding some new interests to my LJ profile and found myself feeling defensive every time I typed a female name, thinking, basically, FUCK YOU, SHE'S AWESOME, because I felt as if someone somewhere was going to be criticizing my love for them.

So, anyway, then I made a list of women who make me want to say FUCK YOU, SHE'S AWESOME. They are far from the only women who are awesome, or the only women people need to be told to step off of, but they are the top ten I feel that way about, right now, off the top of my head.

If you want to argue with me about the awesomeness of any of these women, I am afraid I will simply be referring you to the subject line. THAT IS ALL.

Because here's the thing, I totally accept that not everyone's going to like every character I love, but I'm really tired of feeling like I'm going on the defensive every time I admit to loving a female character.


Starbuck (BSG)
President Roslin (BSG)
Nanny Ogg (Pratchett)
Granny Weatherwax (Pratchett)
Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan (Bujold)
Honda Tohru (Fruits Basket)
Tenjou Utena (Shoujo Kakumei Utena)
Buttercup (PowerPuff Girls)
Willow Rosenberg (Buffy)
Setsuna Subaru (Also Lady Momoe, and, come to think of it, every single other female character in the anime Shingu, which is a far more awesome anime than most people realize)


I'm also thinking about something Lila and I were discussing recently (also related to Joanna Russ); the fact that, when we were kids, we could find very few kids' books with strong female friendships which weren't girls-books-for-girls (heavy focus on clothes, make-up, and boys, e.g., the Babysitters' Club). Which led me to dig out my first-ten-pages-of-a-terrible-novel (I have a lot of those, from high school and college) which was a kids' book about five girls in, I think, Victorian England, having an adventure. It was godsawful cliched, except that I was clearly trying very hard to write something where there was more than one way of being a girl, and just about succeeding.

Surely other people have done the same, and with better success. Can y'all recommend some kids' books which have strong friendships between girls who do things, not just girls who do girl-things?

--R

Reading: Joanna Russ, On Strike Against God: A Lesbian Love Story. Peter S. Beagle, We Never Talk About My Brother.