Interviewer: So why do you write these strong female characters?
Whedon: Because you’re still asking me that question.-(Via mckelvie, who you should give all your money to because he makes purty drawrins)
Man, isn’t this just the truth? Especially in the wake of Laura Hudson’s brilliant article about the disrespect of women that’s inherent in so many superhero comics, which got a lot of wonderful, positive responses and also a bunch of ignorant “Women just imagine these things” responses. It is extremely depressing that as far as our society has come in many ways, there are still people who are genuinely surprised when a woman doesn’t like being told that being “sexually liberated” means being a dead-eyed sexual amnesiac who sees men as large swatches of skin tone to let put their smaller swatches into her vagina.
It’s even more depressing that writing strong female characters is something that is considered anything other than part of the norm. And I’m guilty of that! Over at C!TB on Monday, Brandon and I are going to be running a piece spotlighting comics that don’t treat women like blow-up dolls, and the fact that this is a real distinction to be made makes me want to cry.
I am a feminist. I was raised by two strong parents, who never once suggested to me that it was anything other than normal that my mother had a university degree, worked full-time and frequently made more than my father. They taught me to read, to think, to garden and to cook. Being a feminist is not a matter of terminology - though I once quibbled with the term until I made the decision that the goals of equality were more important than whatever I called it - it is simply who I was raised to be.
It’s unthinkable to me that someone could see the wealth of fantastic, incredible people in the world and not notice that half of them are women. Inconceivable. I am surrounded every day by amazing women, too many to believe they are any kind of rarity. They are half of us.
And sure, some women are assholes. Some men are assholes, too! That’s off the table as an argument. Nobody glowingly asks a writer about why they made their female characters anything less than spectacular. It is always the inverse. It’s positively shameful that someone like Joss Whedon or Kelly Sue DeConnick or anyone is asked about why they write women so well simply because this is a culture where we are only now starting to, as a whole, consider this to be the kind of writing that should be done. Whedon and DeConnick are brilliant writers because they capture all of what we are, all the wonder and imagination, with no deference to gender.
I long for the day when writing strong female characters isn’t considered anything other than the norm, when nobody would even think to ask about it, when my friends won’t be hurt and feel like they’re being pushed away from art that they want to love. I honestly don’t know if this will ever happen. Probably not within my lifetime. That’s a downer, I know. But it will get better. We have to fight for that, though. Sometimes it will be heartwarming, other times it will come within a hair’s breadth of breaking us. At the end of the day, I just want to be able to look at myself in the mirror with only my regular, healthy level of self loathing and console myself with the knowledge that, whatever else may happen, I am surrounded by beautiful, genius, infinitely wonderful men and women who make my life so much better.
So yeah, I’m a feminist.
(Source: server16.kproxy.com)
