I have always considered myself a feminist, since I first learned the term as a child. (Though, like many people, for years I naively insisted I was “an egalitarian” because of course I was pro equality, not pro-female. I grew out of that. Feminism IS belief in equality. It’s only the anti-equality people who try to make it seem like it isn’t.)
As I grow older I’m learning how I frequently fail to live up to my ideals, how deeply patriarchy is ingrained. My “inner Stepford Wife” rears her perfectly permed head now and to hiss in my ear, “It’s more important if the boys win, dear,” and other such nonsense.
Back fifteen years or so, I wrote a novel (Mot) with a Strong Female Protagonist. I was quite proud of it, and proud of the character who I thought was so Strong and Female. She was a leader of a rebellion! She led troops in battle and fought and stuff.
Except… I never showed her doing those things, just people talking about her doing them. “She’s a leader of the rebellion,” the Important Men would say, and then negotiate the rebellion’s plans in her absence. “Donna has done great things in the past,” someone might say, but never articulate what she’d done, exactly. Lead the rebellion, presumably. Mostly I had her on solo missions delivering messages to men from men. When she finally rides into battle in the book, she’s treated like something of a freelancer, sent out (by men) on the flank and set loose to do her own thing.
I barely had her make any decisions! What decisions she makes are in extreme moments of isolation and deal with her own personal safety.
Then I remembered a frequent critique I’d gotten with my early writing: my protagonists weren’t active, they were pulled along by events. They also were largely female. Despite my best intentions, an idea of women as passive snuck in, deep and silent and pervasive in my very bones.
OH! Also – she’s the only positive female character. The army, all the people she deals with are men, except for a few wives thrown in for snarky side commentary. I have a doting devoted wife, a shrewish wife, and a giggling dumb girl. GROSS, self.
There’s this sick myth that gets women to be their own enemy – the “not like the other girls” myth. Every woman, in her heart, knows she is Not Like The Other Girls – implying that other girls are, of course, awful. So why fight for THEIR rights? They should become Special like ME.
I digress. Point is – Uuuughhhh I thought I was smarter than that.
On the one hand, it’s refreshing to re-read this novel draft and see how far I’ve come. On the other, it underscores how careful we have to be of our unconscious biases.
This is why for years I randomly changed characters’ genders, to show myself the errors. I would turn a man into a woman and realize just how ridiculously “sexy” he was behaving. I’d turn a woman into a man and her passivity became obvious, as well as the places to fix it.
It’s my sincere hope that someday I’ll be able to write characters without dragging up my pre-conceptions of gender, to have characters who are just characters. But I know there’s still miles to go.
And I’m re-writing that novel. Lady Donna is no longer the main character – for other reasons – but when I bring her in, she will be active. And several male supporting characters will now be female.
Just because you’re a woman doesn’t mean you aren’t going to do anti-woman things. Be careful. Be aware.
