{"id":27250,"date":"2013-05-30T18:10:08","date_gmt":"2013-05-30T18:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2013\/05\/30\/madlori-rebloggable-by-request-well-first\/"},"modified":"2015-02-21T05:16:15","modified_gmt":"2015-02-21T05:16:15","slug":"madlori-rebloggable-by-request-well-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2013\/05\/30\/madlori-rebloggable-by-request-well-first\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-27250 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2013\/05\/30\/madlori-rebloggable-by-request-well-first\/attachment\/27251\/'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/files\/2013\/05\/tumblr_mnm6hvv4hU1qjkimlo1_500-150x150.png\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p><a class=\"tumblr_blog\" href=\"http:\/\/madlori.tumblr.com\/post\/51723411550\/rebloggable-by-request-well-first-of-all\">madlori<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>[rebloggable by request]<\/p>\n<p>Well, first of all, WELCOME TO ONE OF MY PET PEEVES.<\/p>\n<p>A female character does not have to be \u201cstrong\u201d (whatever your definition of that is) to be a good character.<\/p>\n<p>Women can be strong, or wussy, or emotional, or stoic, or needy, or independent, and still be legitimate people and interesting characters.<\/p>\n<p>In our totally understandable desire to see portrayals of strong women (in reaction to decades of damsels in distress and women as appendages), we\u2019ve somehow backed ourselves into this corner where the only acceptable portrayal of a woman in the media is a strong, kick-ass woman. \u00a0That is not doing women any favors. \u00a0It just leads to the attitude that you have to be ONE WAY ONLY to be legit as a woman. \u00a0You shouldn\u2019t have to be Natasha Romanoff or Xena to be considered a good character. \u00a0Don\u2019t get me wrong, I love a good Buffy as much as the next person, but that should not be the only acceptable portrayal. \u00a0It should be okay for a female character NOT to be strong, too. \u00a0Let\u2019s take Molly Hooper as an example. \u00a0She is not the stereotypical \u201cstrong\u201d woman. \u00a0But hell, she went through medical school, didn\u2019t she? \u00a0She\u2019s smart, and she\u2019s funny, and she serves a story function &#8211; she is not a major character, but she doesn\u2019t have to be. \u00a0But her character gets criticized because she pines after Sherlock. \u00a0What, you never pined after somebody? \u00a0Did it make you invalid as a person? \u00a0You never got a bit silly over a crush? \u00a0I know I did. \u00a0And I still consider myself a strong woman. \u00a0It should be okay for Molly to have a crush on Sherlock without getting the \u201coh, she\u2019s so pathetic, what a terrible example, what a horrible female character\u201d thing she so often gets. \u00a0Yes, because it\u2019s so terrible that a female character should reflect an experience that like 99% of us have had. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Screw writing \u201cstrong\u201d women. \u00a0Write\u00a0<em>interesting<\/em>\u00a0women. \u00a0Write well-rounded women. \u00a0Write complicated women. \u00a0Write a woman who kicks ass, write a woman who cowers in a corner. \u00a0Write a woman who\u2019s desperate for a husband. \u00a0Write a woman who doesn\u2019t need a man. \u00a0Write women who cry, women who rant, women who are shy, women who don\u2019t take no shit, women who need validation and women who don\u2019t care what anybody thinks. \u00a0THEY ARE ALL OKAY, and all those things could exist in THE SAME WOMAN. \u00a0Women shouldn\u2019t be valued because we are strong, or kick-ass, but because we are people. \u00a0So don\u2019t focus on writing characters who are strong. \u00a0Write characters who are\u00a0<em>people.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The only bad female character, if you ask me (and you did), is one who\u2019s flat. \u00a0One who isn\u2019t realistic. \u00a0One who has no agency of her own, who only exists to define other characters (usually men). \u00a0Write each woman you write as if she has her own life story, her own motivations, her own fears and strengths, and even if she\u2019s only in the story for one page, she will be a real person, and THAT is what we need. \u00a0Not a phalanx of women who can karate-chop your head off, but REAL women, who are people, with all the complexity and strong and not-strong that goes with it.<\/p>\n<p>This is why I disagree with the \u201cdamsel in distress\u201d criticism of Irene in the last scene of Scandal. \u00a0Here\u2019s the thing about being a damsel in distress\u2026<em>it\u2019s only bad if that\u2019s all she is<\/em>. \u00a0If the character\u2019s defining characteristic is being a damsel in distress, that\u2019s bad. \u00a0But if an otherwise complex character with lots of other agency and actions happens to be in distress, then\u2026that\u2019s all it is. \u00a0She is in distress. \u00a0That happens. \u00a0Characters are often in distress, or there would be no plots. \u00a0Should a female character never be allowed to be in distress, at ALL, to be valid? \u00a0No.<\/p>\n<p>A strong female character is one who is defined by her own characteristics, history and personality, and not solely by the actions or needs of other characters. \u00a0She is a\u00a0<em>person<\/em>\u00a0in the story, not a prop. \u00a0That is the best definition I can come up with. \u00a0Note that my definition did not involve martial arts.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That was probably longer than you were anticipating! \u00a0I\u2019ve had that percolating for a long time.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>madlori: [rebloggable by request] Well, first of all, WELCOME TO ONE OF MY PET PEEVES. A female character does not have to be \u201cstrong\u201d (whatever your definition of that is) to be a good character. Women can be strong, or wussy, or emotional, or stoic, or needy, or independent, and still be legitimate people and &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2013\/05\/30\/madlori-rebloggable-by-request-well-first\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\"><\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27250"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27252,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27250\/revisions\/27252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}