UPDATE: For Something Old Something New Post on writing, please go here. I posted here by accident.
There is a lot of talk about role models, and in fact, it is the justification for a lot of otherwise unjustifiable preference given in hiring or in book buying or whatever. “Women must have executive role models” “Women must know they can—”.
I was never absolutely sure what difference “role models” made particularly in books. I understand we need more females in (physically) heroic roles, so that women know they can slay the dragon and rescue the prince (and what kind of a ninny is waiting for you to rescue him, I ask you, and what use would you have for the poor sap?) Is that true?
I don’t know. In these things I can only judge by me and mine – I am one of those odd (and fairly strong) women who never really thought it was much fun to sit around in the pretty dresses and wait for the prince in shiny armor to come and rescue me. Of course, I also didn’t want to rescue him, unless you know, he was injured or disabled. I wanted… I wanted to saddle up and have grand adventures, and when the notion of romance came into it I wanted a man who would be right there next to me, every inch of the way.
Now when and where I was growing up, there wasn’t much of that for girls in books. Some. Enid Blyton girls weren’t sissies. (But were still girls, even the tomboys.) And there was this book now and then that had a lead female I liked (most of them Heinlein women.) But most of the books were written for, by and about men.
Did I feel inferior and neglected?
To be honest, I never gave it a thought. The characters I liked were the characters I liked. The difference of a quarter pound between their legs didn’t seem to matter much to me. I might not have wanted to be Captain Morgan, but I wanted to serve in his crew. (I figured there were already some undercover girls there. Well, it was good enough to dream upon.)
And at any rate, what kind of person can only read about people they can “identify” with? I wanted to read about people more exciting and accomplished than my geekish, fumbling self.
Did I ever feel offended there weren’t more “inclusive” parts for girls? Oh, please. I think women feel offended (even now when there are tons more) because they’ve been taught offense is empowering.
No?
Then why aren’t my sons traumatized? Oh, sure, when Marsh was three he told me he wanted to be a girl, because girls had all the adventures. But then he observed the world, saw it wasn’t true and that passed.
And heck, both of them loved Buffy even though there wasn’t a role model for them. And I’m fairly sure one of them is an Honor Harrington fanatic (that one doesn’t share his reading habits with me so I could be wrong, but I see the books that move.)
Clearly they can move past the fact that a character or two doesn’t have the same anatomical configuration or inherent inclinations they have.
So why shouldn’t girls be able to? Why should girls need PARTICULAR role models. If you tell me it’s to overcome centuries of historical oppression, we can’t be friends anymore. The girls alive today weren’t alive then. Heck, their grandmothers weren’t alive then. They’ve never been oppressed a day in their lives. They’ve been pushed, cajoled and mollycoddled into exceeding in non-tradtional fields.
“But” you say “Women will still prefer to marry and have children.” Or “Women will still underperform in STEM” or…
Ah, but see, then what you are at war with isn’t oppression. It’s biology. Statistically speaking, more women will want to stay home with babies than guys. Statistically, more men will want to do math and play with big, dirty machines. This is the result of millennia of evolution and it’s called optimization.
Now, statistics don’t tell you that any particular girl can’t exceed at STEM or that a girl can’t be a hellion (guilty) ready to take to the field in defense of the weaker ones, and in search of adventure. No, what they tell you is that there will always be a statistical bias pro one of the other of the genders.
You can’t stop it no matter how much modeling and indoctrinating you do.
It’s not the way humans work. You can break humanity, but not bend it that far.
And as for characters who model this or that to change society (eleventy!) that is the silliest pipe dream of all.
In the last several decades we’ve been assailed by a Monstrous Regiment that exists only in books: foul mouthed young women, who sleep around, cuss like sailors, can out-fight any man and are, generally speaking… uninteresting. The best of them are interesting, but we know they’re not real.
Has this changed society? Well, I imagine some young women feel guilty they can’t beat the living daycrud out of guys with their bare knuckles and that at the end of the day they rather LIKE guys.
I sympathize with them. I always felt vaguely guilty I wasn’t like the pious little girls of the Countess of Segur’s Victorian tales. Didn’t make me more like them, it just made me feel I’d somehow failed them.
In the end kids will find their models where they find them. Your little girl might very well identify with the big burly starship captain, and this is not a bad thing, since even women can use the masculine virtues of honor and duty and care for those dependent on them. And your little boy – who probably will never confess it – might see his model in a devoted nurse looking after people through a plague at the risk of her life. That’s all right. He’ll grow up to be a compassionate man, who understands there are many sorts of valor and some involve silent sacrifice.
Role models? Pah.
What I got out of reading was something more than role models. I didn’t need a character to be a female to identify with it. I got the sense of all that could be said and done, and dreamed.
And even though the character of this book was not female, I identified fully with him.
I wanted a Roc’s egg. I wanted a harem loaded with lovely odalisques less than the dust beneath my chariot wheels, the rust that never stained my sword,. I wanted raw red gold in nuggets the size of your fist and feed that lousy claim jumper to the huskies! I wanted to get u feeling brisk and go out and break some lances, then pick a like wench for my droit du seigneur–I wanted to stand up to the Baron and dare him to touch my wench! I wanted to hear the purple water chuckling against the skin of the Nancy Lee in the cool of the morning watch and not another sound, nor any movement save the slow tilting of the wings of the albatross that had been pacing us the last thousand miles.
I wanted the hurtling moons of Barsoom. I wanted Storisende and Poictesme, and Holmes shaking me awake to tell me, “The game’s afoot!” I wanted to float down the Mississippi on a raft and elude a mob in company with the Duke of Bilgewater and the Lost Dauphin.
I wanted Prestor John, and Excalibur held by a moon-white arm out of a silent lake. I wanted to sail with Ulysses and with Tros of Samothrace and eat the lotus in a land that seemed always afternoon. – Robert A. Heinlein
I still do. And I don’t need to know other women have dreamed these dreams to make them valid for me.
Any young woman — or young man, for that matter — who needs to know someone of the same anatomical configuration has done this, so she/he can dream of it, is a poor creature, longing only for second hand dreams and the crumbs that fall from others’ imaginations.
Fortunately I think they’re as mythical as the Roc’s egg. I think they’re the imaginary creation of bean counters who either never dreamed or have forgotten how to.
I think real young human beings of either gender are limitless in their dreams. And will continue to be. They can pretend to appease their elders, but their true nature is not so easily changed. And that’s a good thing.
According To Hoyt 
I fail to see why a strong woman can’t be feminine. I am married to one (she was a tomboy when she was younger). Most of her female cousins are strong as well. When see the “Strong” women in some fiction I do not find them believable. The Darkship series has credible strong women. Pixie Noir does as well
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I think the ‘accepted wisdom’ has become that being feminine is weak. Hence the urging to have men show their ‘feminine side’ as though it were a vulnerability. In reality, being feminine is part of a woman’s strength. It’s something only she can do, like giving birth to that baby, no matter how much support the man in her life gives.
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Yep.
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You know the saying that Heinlein quoted about the pioneer women — the weak died along the way and the cowards never left the East. Somehow seems to fit that most of the bad lot reside on the east coast. Adn they’re afraid of icky things like guns and eating what you kill.
M
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I still want the Roc’s egg. Dammit.
Regarding current female “oppression” etc. Tim Worstall has repeatedly shown that if you control for marriage (and particularly marriage with kids) there is no gender pay gap except for mothers with children. And in that case the pay gap appears to be similar (though there is a smaller sample) to single men bringing up children.
I.e. the child-rearer gets paid less, usually because (s)he works part time.
I couldn’t find his actual posts on the subject, but in the process I found this which probably also applies:
http://www.timworstall.com/2013/08/09/it-really-is-the-periods-that-explain-the-gender-pay-gap/
And that brings me to an idle thought. Why don’t we have books where the heroine has horribly menstrual cramps or similar that she has to overcome? I mean surely that’s something women can identify with…
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This one also amused – http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/04/brain_study_shocker/
A team of University of Pennsylvania boffins appears to have confirmed the commonly held notions that while women are absolutely useless at parking cars, they thrash blokes when it comes to multitasking and empathy.
…
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Because, *shudders* I’d rather have the roc’s egg than a reality I have to deal with monthly. Medication does help, thank goodness. Oh, and hormonal mood swings to the point of mental illness… Yeah, there are female problems that I would never want to write because they suck. LOL
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I was going to say that they don’t want to read quite that level of realism…
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Well, there is Fawn in Lois Bujold’s Sharing Knife series.
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Oh yes. I forgot Fawn. Thanks for reminding me, I must reread series
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FWIW, in the Black Jewels series by Anne Bishop, the more magic power a woman controls, the worse her cramps, pregnancies, and deliveries are, to the point that she can’t use that magic. It’s not a major plot point except in one short story, though. IIRC in MZB’s Darkover books women with strong magic/laran also have problems. I tended to skip those bits.
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Men tell me they metaphorically cross their legs when hearing of someone being kicked in the balls. I know they do it when reading about childbirth.
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I only do that when I actually watch it happen (live or on video makes no difference), but I’ve gotten resistant to it happening in my reading (basically by skimming over it – my visualization is good enough that i get dizzy just imagining riding a roller coaster).
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I skip them too– although I do have a soft spot for the Black Jewels series.
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There was a Mary Renault book which had the MC’s period play a pivotal role. Was there one about Alexander’s sister or girl cousin?
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I wouldn’t read it– I had enough problems with my own to want to read about someone else’s–
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I’d rather have a phoenix egg.
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I wanted a dragon egg, but then I’d imprinted on Ann McCaffrey. Then I saw the price of Purina Dragon Chow. Even the Precious Dragon brand is awful high out here, and I’ve heard bad things about the co-op’s generic brand.
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I thought Dragons like the taste of melamine?
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It’s not the melamine (yet). It’s the digestive effects. Sort of like what happens with some dogs and cheap dog food. Or so I’m told.
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That explains the scorch marks in the alley behind Pete’s Kitchen then.
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Just as well. If two people wanted a phoenix egg, there would be trouble since there is only one.
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Did you ever read The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon? I think that might be a good role model for women.
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I wanted to be a librarian as a kid and got grief for it. It was too stereotypically feminine a field. I loved reading books with adventures.
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I never wanted to be a soldier. I wanted to be a clerk or a trader. I submerged myself in the book I was reading. The more exotic the better.
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Any book that has 25% of medieval type combat forces as female has not enough sense for good role models. I was able to pretend they weren’t being that stupid but really!
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That’s why I gave up on Once Upon a Time, I couldn’t get past the fantasy aspect. Oh, not the magic and faries and other realms bit, that I can get my head around. It’s the idea that a 5’6″, 120# woman can get into a sword fight with a 6’8″, 200# mercenary and win. Without killing the guy. Caused my suspenders of disbelief to gouge holes in the ceiling when they snapped.
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On top of that, she’s pregnant.
Medieval women averaged ten pregnancies, leading to eight live births, leading to two children who lived to adulthood.
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Blame Joss Whedon, Jeff. (and yes, I loved (and bought all the DVD seasons as well as a few issues of Season 8) “Buffy”).
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I still watch but it’s definitely a guilty pleasure.
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I took karate and I fought with men. (I was too strong for women). I found that even though I was pretty strong and fast, I was always slower and weaker than the guy I was fighting. So I learned sneaky– The point even the strongest women are not in the same weight class of a man the same size.
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Sneaky can work. Once. The problem is that sneak attacks rarely end the fight, and usually just piss the other guy off.
Just ask the Japanese.
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That is why you do it once– nuclear (ask the Japanese) and the guy leaves you alone forever. I save it for something dire–
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Doesn’t Elizabeth Moon put that magic “no conception” herb into the Paks books? That usually breaks my suspension of disbelief. Didn’t we whine … err … discuss that here a few months back?
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I think Paks is a freakin’ brilliant character without regard to her sex.
M
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I like Paks and I like Moon’s newer sequels. But I ignore that whole women are about as strong as men bit and just pretend that she’s describing a species that is similar to humans on this world but not quite the same.
It’s actually kind of annoying because she does get a lot of other things right such as speed of travel, horses that need forage, human armies that need food (and the disadvantages of pillaging etc.). I figure that and the “herbal” pill were put in there as part feminist wish fulfillment and partly because otherwise the rest of the tale wouldn’t hang together
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“I wanted to saddle up and have grand adventures, and when the notion of romance came into it I wanted a man who would be right there next to me, every inch of the way…”
So did I … all through grade school and junior high, I preferred the adventure books thought suitable for boys, because they had all the interesting adventures! Climbing mountains! Working on a tramp cargo ship! Escaping from a POW camp!
The books for girls had pallid little accounts about … getting the handsome boy to notice you and beating out the mean girls at something. Lots of this kind of book by one Betty Cavanna. I despised Betty Cavanna.
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I found the Boys Life WWII story anthologies in my HS library. YES! Much more entertaining (and potentially useful) than whatever I was supposed to be reading (Sweet Valley High, I think).
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It never mattered to me if my heroes were male or female, but I’d be lying if I said the female ones didn’t have a lasting impact. My daughter is named Lindsay because Lindsay Wagner (the Bionic Woman) was my idol when I was a little girl. But I liked the name Lindsay better than Jaime (the name of the character she played) so that’s the name I picked. I do know a couple of Jaimes who owe their name to that show too…
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This patttern of empowering women by making them men has always struck me askew. The theory that we’re “breaking down barriers” is dependent on the assumption that those barriers actually are a result of some scheme called the Patriarchy. Bleh.
And merrily we go along ignoring the fact that we’re creating new expectations that ignore the dreams and desires of some significant percentage and pressure them into roles they wouldn’t choose. But this time it’s on purpose, and sanctified. Now we can declare the misfits traitors to their gender (or race) and shout them down.
Yeah, that sounds like an engaging story. :-I
I think it’s spot on, the gender of those we admire needn’t be an issue. Human character transcends the dangly and the glittery.
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“Human nature transcends the dangly and the glittery.”
Love it!
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Actually, the word they’re using now is “heteropatriarchy”.
(We really need an eyeroll smilie)
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Somebody’s head is going to explode if I hear heteropatriarchy in RL. Might be mine…but I’m kinda fond of it.
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It isn’t really about empowering girls. It is about disempowering men, eliminating positive models of adult male behaviour.
Once you disallow males in the leading roles your default is female, no matter how much of a contortionist it makes of your story.
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That fits. Sadly.
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I have read with my own eyes a woman writing that the division of children’s playing into girls and boys occurs universally, with girls pulling away from the rougher play around 2 and boys then pulling away from the girls’ play entirely. And so she immediately started to ponder how to undermine this.
Not, mind you, to question whether it is wise to undermine a literally universal trait, and whether it might have importance to childhood development.
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Someone needs to smack that woman upside the head with a 20lb cluehammer. Repeat until the clue sinks in.
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I read some time back of a couple in Sweden (?) who were raising the child without any gender cues. Dressed the child in boys and girls clothes alternating, neutral name, wouldn’t tell anyone the sex, everything they could come up with to undermine gender identification. Specifically not telling the child anything about sex or gender. They want the child to be allowed to choose its own gender identity. Because sex may be fixed but gender is a choice, and society is wrong to assign gender.
The disaster coming for that child is a bit heartbreaking.
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What is wrong with those parents? Are they trying to make the kid crazy?
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That poor child.
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I’m not sure I can even imagine the experience. I do strongly suspect the parents (loosely used) are likely to, consciously or not, act to supress natural behaviors that conform to their ideas of gender expression. Just so, you know, the child can make an honest choice without somebody’s bias imprinting false gender upon the child (I hate to say “it”). It pains me to even type that out.
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I think this is some rarified form of child abuse. Consciously implanting gender anxiety in a child is really wrong. It’s not as bad as physical abuse but it is some form of psychological abuse.
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I remember seeing a picture of that family. It was clear that baby was a boy. I wonder whether they would have done this to a girl baby …
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Tsk. How judgmental of her. She should not seek to impose her morality or cultural values on other cultures. IMPERIALIST Sow!
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I find the theory that it is “necessary” to identify with a character as a “role model” to be laughable. Seriously. Think about it. Of all of the characters in all of the books I’ve read, which one do I most want to be like? No, no, no. Other than E from the Daring Finds. I can’t realistically expect to be a pint sized terrorist at my age. I meant Honor Harrington who is, last I heard, female and as ass-kicker. Just ask Pavel Young.
Now, let’s think about this for a minute. I’m not rich. I don’t command fleets or even single soldiers. I didn’t wait until I was sixty to have my first kid. I don’t have armsmen. I was going to school to teach at the college level, but not at a military academy. Well, probably. If West Point had hired me to teach history I’d’ve taken the job so fast it would’ve made your head spin, but I digress. Oh, and I also don’t live in a futuristic society where interstellar travel is possible or belong to the governing body of my society.
*SIGH*
I guess I’ll never live up to it. Then again, why would I worry about it?
I’ve had role models in my life since before I could walk. I call them Mom and Dad. Neither was rich. Neither lead armies, or were members of the House of Lords. All they did was work every damn day of their lives and do their best to bring their kids up as well as they knew how. They weren’t perfect and they never claimed to be. But that’s what I grew up knowing.
In the here and now, 2013 or thereabouts, right here on Planet Earth, it’s possible for girls to see all the right and all of the right things around them. Many have strong mothers. As much as I hate my ex-wife (and OMG could I tell stories) she’s successful. She works one job to my two and still makes three times what I do. I can’t say my girls don’t have someone to look up to. If they can just learn how their mother succeeded and how to treat the man in their life (IE not like manure) they’ll be two great women. There is a role model for them.
I can’t help but think that a lot of this whole “role model” thing goes back to lazy parenting. The parents don’t want to take the time to teach their kids anything so they decide it’s the job of authors, actors, athletes, Hollywood, etc to do it for them. It quite frankly disgusts me. The job of entertainers is to entertain. The job of raising children belongs to parents. Yes, I do whereof I speak. I have three.
I have no problem with authors writing whatever kind of character they want to write. If what comes to you is a strong female then so be it. But dammit, don’t tell me that _MY_ character has to be female. That’s all I’m asking. Don’t ask me to provide role models for your daughters. Be one yourself.
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I can’t help but think that a lot of this whole “role model” thing goes back to lazy parenting. The parents don’t want to take the time to teach their kids anything so they decide it’s the job of authors, actors, athletes, Hollywood, etc to do it for them. It quite frankly disgusts me. The job of entertainers is to entertain. The job of raising children belongs to parents. Yes, I do whereof I speak. I have three.
Aaaaaaaaaand herein lies the crux of most of today’s societal issues. Kids don’t need to be medicated or placed in after-school programs or held back a year any more today than they did when I was growing up :mumblemumble: years ago. They need parents that parent, not expect someone else to raise their kids for them. If parents actually did that, we’d have much less gang violence, “Knock Out Game” victims, Occupy_____ movements, and other general nonsense. And yes. I have a daughter, and while I will never claim to be a perfect parent, I do try to involve myself in her life (not much going on right now, she’s 4, but we do enjoy shooting her BB gun together).
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Nice to know that someone else has heard of Prester John…and a girl at that…………..
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My mother is a roll model to me. She makes the most scrumptious rolls.
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They’re just as tasty when they’re round, you don’t have to spend the time making them look like her.
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LOL! I just spewed coffee all over my desk and now my boss is asking if I’m alright. :)
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Do I owe you a keyboard?
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Nah, keyboard’s good. I just had to clean the monitor.
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:D
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I liked the warrior women trend when it first appeared, but then I’m very fond of all kinds of surprise stories in general. And when we first started to get those stories where the pretty little lady turned out to be somebody who had been training in martial arts since a toddler and was one of those exceptional women who really can beat up the big burly guy (maybe she was just that skilled) they were something unusual. Buffy was fun because she looked like the cliche first victim (I saw the movie first, and while it was bad the way the character started as the blond cheerleader who always dies first… well, pretty much the only good point in that movie, but it was a really fun idea).
Unfortunately not anymore. Now they are the rule rather than the exception.
Nothing against them when it’s a vampire or a slayer or a cyborg or something else like that, those I still like well enough, but if she is supposed to be a normal woman how about at least making things more difficult for her, however good she was she would still get challenged in her fights more often than a healthy man with similar skills would.
So I’m hoping for more unusual heroes now. With the retirement age action heroes we are getting now we are also starting to get at least the occasional grandmother age action heroines too, and I’m fond of Victoria from the two ‘RED’ movies. But Victoria is still in the… what would you call it… ‘babe’ category? So perhaps it would be fun to see some harmless looking old and somewhat overweight miss Marple type who can handle a gun and knows a thing or two about nerve points now. Or the usual bumbling dad turns out to be a pretty badass guy when pushed. Or anything. As said, I just like (some…) surprises. Like when one of those character types who usually just plays a supporting role or appears just in comedic roles gets the hero role in something (but please let him succeed because he actually turns out to be competent, not because he just is very lucky). And that includes some of the older hero types too. Nowadays if the blond college quarterback is not only an all around boy scout nice guy but also turns to be the hero of the story, yep, in most stories that would be a rather big surprise.
But please, a bit fewer of those women cops who can outfight everyone in the city and have no problems running down young men while wearing high heels (of course her and not him, he is probably wearing sneakers. And she still runs faster). But I suppose the reason why there are so many of them now really is that she has become the default ‘strong’ woman, and so is the easy choice for a story (and the easiest way to get cheesecake nobody will complain about into a television series or a movie).
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There is a new TV show called “Almost Human” that I am starting to like. It is a typical crime cop type show but set in a sci-fi setting and one of the partners is an android.
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I’m enjoying that one, too!
Also, Revolution has improved tremendously since they made a bunch of changes, including, among other things, taking the main focus off the teenage girl and moving it to her uncle, who is a much more credible action hero.
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Oh– then I might go see it then. I was turned off on the first minutes of the first episode. *sigh
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I still have trouble with the whole “Revolution” concept, where 20 years has gone by and nobody has bad teeth and everyone has perfectly sculpted hair and non-frayed clothes, not to mention they can find a helicopter that’s been sitting around for 20 years, throw in a spiffy power source (wifi electricity? Tesla would be sooo proud!) and crank it up without having to wonder about lubricating oils or rotted hoses or rust and mildew….turn the power out and entropy goes with it (along with every single engineer who knew the basics behind the concept of “hydroelectricity” or “windmill”). Yeah. After two episodes, my wife made me quit watching it with her. And I won’t even go into the problems with some random guy being a sharpshooter and taking out multiple moving targets from a perch atop a single-story building while using a .50-cal sniper rifle with a thousand-yard scope (at a range of less than a hundred yards, no less) despite the fact that ammo is severely limited due to no factory production yet the guy is young enough to have barely been walking when the lights went out….my suspension-of-disbelief only goes so far. I can believe the “Fallout” line of games easier than this show.
/rant
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Dang – not good
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But that’s just me. :) Don’t let me ruin it for ya!
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I didn’t need your help. You just added to the list. :-)
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Yep. Either they’ve figured it out and moved on and life doesn’t suck this much, or they haven’t and life sucks more than this. Can’t watch the show, makes me want to throw things, for all those reasons you mentioned and more.
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Yeah, I didn’t even go into the whole anti-gun/anti-militia aspect. My blood pressure can’t handle that right now.
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Probably a good reason I don’t watch it then *sigh
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The militias and the Patriots and… you’re right, not good for anybody’s health.
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This is what happens when you put liberals in charge of entertainment. Since liberals are dumb, you get stupid entertainment, like a complete understanding of what happens to complex machinery when you just let it sit, how difficult it is to achieve proficiency at precision tasks, or my favorite, the evil corporation suppressing technology.
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I think reading “Earth Abides” should be a requirement for anyone doing post-apocalyptic stories, because the way in which the collapse of machinery and ecology is captured is a master class in compelling storytelling.
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“I still have trouble with the whole “Revolution” concept, where 20 years has gone by and nobody has bad teeth and everyone has perfectly sculpted hair and non-frayed clothes….”
Meh. Two, three years into the zombie apocalypse, and the laws in “The Walking Dead” are still being mowed.
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There are far, far fewer little inconsistencies in “Walking Dead” than there are in “Revolution”. Or most any other TV show these days, for that matter….it was a happy day in my household when we got rid of cable. I can watch Dr.Who and Warehouse13 on Netflix (wish they’d update faster) whenever I need to escape reality.
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Yea – I have an extreme fondness for Netflix ;-)
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You can also buy current shows on Amazon. You usually get them the next day or at worst withing a few days.
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I don’t know any strong old lady movies, but your “bumbling dad turns out to be a bad@$$” is pretty much the story of _Target_ with Gene Hackman (1985). Been a while since I’ve seen it, so I don’t recall how good it was.
There’s also _Harry Brown_ with Michael Caine (2009). He wasn’t a bumbler, just old, and not to be trifled with.
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I actually remember that movie. I liked the concept, but as far as I remember it was rather mediocre otherwise. I’ve been hoping somebody would remake it, or steal the idea. Maybe especially now when the bumbling dads are becoming the default option for dads in general (or that how it sometimes feels at least – if there is a dad either he is rather clueless, or he is a really, really badass spy or cop or something, or ex something, if it’s an action movie where the story needs a reason why the hero goes and kills either half of the city or half a country somewhere).
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So perhaps it would be fun to see some harmless looking old and somewhat overweight miss Marple type who can handle a gun and knows a thing or two about nerve points now.
This sounds like a good idea. Show some people who realistically work around the fact that they aren’t faster and stronger than everyone else.
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The original Ironside with Raymond Burr would be a good example.
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Pick up Dorothy Gilman’s The Clairvoyant Countes
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I loved Dorothy Gilman’s Mrs. Polifax. Do they hold up I wonder, I read them a long time ago.
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Or the usual bumbling dad turns out to be a pretty badass guy when pushed.
Ah, Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass of TV tropes fame.
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Yep. I like that trope. Or almost any version where we get the ‘hidden badass’. One of the surprises I do like. On the other hand I hate the reverse, where somebody who seems like an ideal hero – badass who likes dogs and is nice to kids and old ladies – turns out to be either the villain or a creep or incompetent.
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It’s overdone, and cheep way of making those who don’t measure up feel better, too.
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Watch Target with Gene Hackman.
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“and what kind of a ninny is waiting for you to rescue him, I ask you, and what use would you have for the poor sap?”
Eh, depends on how you set it up. Victimology is complex when you’re working with sympathy. (Went on and on about it here)
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My mother is an anti-role model to me. ;-)
Anyway, I was an adventurer from the time I kicked the door open and was born. It wasn’t as obvious as my sisters. They were runaway toddlers. No, I was a planner. I had my life planned out by the time I was six years old. Did it go that way? Well, not in the time period I thought, but everything I decided to do at six I managed to finish except to go into space.
I get the itchy feet if I am in one place too long. I have been getting itchy feet the last two years here. I like to see and experience new things. I like to drag the hubby to the mountains and just drive through them. Movement more than anything else sometimes.
I think I was born to be an adventurer. If I can’t do it, then I read. Thanks to everyone who has written exciting books– about men or women. I think in some ways I am not the typical female. I learned from watching my parent’s regrets that if I wanted to do things, I would have to do them. No regrets. None.
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It sounds to me like the same term is being used for two different things. I would not describe fictional characters as “role models” because they are, by definition, fictional–and as others have pointed out, writing Twiggy waving around a hand-and-a-half broadsword as a lecture pointer doesn’t make it *true*. On the other hand, in real life people use mental maps of “this is how to do it” and children pick it up by observation. What they pick up can be “people say they love you and then leave/hit you/lie”. It’s not a nice pattern but it does exist, and how do they learn that it’s not the only one? By observing a different pattern, in real life. In that sense yes, I cheer when I see a woman truck driver, or airplane pilot, or whatever. They don’t have to yell or scream, just BE there and they tell any observant girl (or boy) yes, women do this job too. That’s all.
I’m old enough to remember people actually saying “women can’t do that”. My mother was denied a job she was trained, qualified for, and very much wanted only because she was female. People tried to steer me into “female” classes–which didn’t go well, because I’m beyond stubborn. I have no patience with the people who think they raise themselves up by tearing other people down, so I don’t male-bash to “help” women. I do help men (with no agenda! Honest!) just to “show the flag”. I don’t have to say anything if I am competent. They see this, and perhaps unconsciously, their horizons get broadened ;-) I volunteered with a group that encourages girls to take math and science, went to gradeschool classrooms with my bubble science demo, all to show them an example of a female scientist not futzed up by Hollywood. But I didn’t scold *anyone*. Didn’t work on me, why would I use it on someone else?
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You must be way older than I ever imagined. :)
This sounds like stuff my mom and aunts experienced… being “advised” to get a degree in a field that was acceptable instead of what you wanted… experiencing *actual* hiring discrimination… that stuff was real and needed to end. And it has. No one my age in the US has experienced that sort of systematic discouragement. You might meet an individual or hear about an incident… but it’s just not a *thing*.
What I think is starting to be a thing, though, is a separate source of the “you’re not invited” message. It’s sort of an anti-role model process where you’re told not to believe your lying eyes. And that’s, essentially, the insistence that society is sexist or racist, that there is widespread institutional racism or sexism… no matter what you actually see… and if something is mainstream that you’re not invited to it if you’re not a white male. It’s got nothing at all to do with how those white males will actually receive you if you show up… you’ve been *primed* with the knowledge that you’re not wanted there.
This is in the front of my head because of something Insty linked to yesterday about a professor who insists on critical race theory and all the comments insisting that institutional racism and white privilege is real.
It might not be an adviser telling you to take an Ed. degree instead of sports medicine as my aunt was told… it’s your mandatory “diversity” class explaining that what you *thought* was welcoming to everyone or something you could join, really *was* a white boy’s club after all, so why bother?
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HEY! I ain’t even 50 yet, and I remember hearing such things!
Oh, wait. I live in the outskirts of Cincinnati, and Mark Twain said that’s always 20 years behind. :-)
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Yep – I am 52 and I heard it too. Plus I couldn’t get a job in my hometown because they only hired people who were supporting families. My family could support me. Navy was the escape for me.
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Likewise. I have never really experienced it myself, but the women who were adults when I was a child and teen had, and did, to some extent, back then. And what career advice we were given back then did lean towards the traditional choices.
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Yep – I was given choices of librarian, elementary school teacher, etc. I know women who would have considered it heaven. In my case I would have been smothered.
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I have been trained as a secretary (shorthand and how to take dictation, fast typing, how to pour wine… :D) but I have never done that work. Got into university right after I got out of that school, and by the time I realized I would not be able to get a degree from there enough time had gone by that I could no longer get any kind of jobs with my old papers, there was a lot of competition from people who either had fresher degrees or were experienced, or both. I did try, for a while. And soon after that we ended in the middle of a depression here since Soviet Union collapsed and with that most of Finnish export business, and jobs became even harder to find for everybody.
Well, considering the SAD, combined with the fact that secretaries – I suppose they are called assistants now – would kind of need to be good with people, I would probably not have been able to keep a job as one even if I had managed to get one back then.
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Oh yea secretaries– I just don’t have the temperament or the abilities. I have handled phones. I am not good there either.
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I can interact with people well enough – I’m not great even then, but I can do it – on a good day, and as long as the people I’m dealing with act sensible, but I’m no good with difficult people even on my best days since hitting them is not a good solution. And then there are the bad days. :D
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lol
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Diversity – the only Orthodox Jew at my undergrad institution was told that she should avoid the minority student group because she wouldn’t understand what it’s like to be a minority!
My relatives don’t drive Fords because back in the day a salesman told my mom that no woman should be allowed to make more than her husband earned. My folks ripped up the contract and walked out of the dealership. (Dad was still in the Reserves at the time and Mom had a very good civilian job.)
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I moisturize ;-)
And in one case it was the teacher who was rich in years and antiquated notions ( I mean, come on. Until the boys hit their growth spurt in high school I was ALWAYS the largest and strongest kid in my class. If you needed mass moved, I was the logical choice.)
You are quite right about the implied message that nobody actually sent. Speaking of the sciences, in grad school I had the distinct impression the professors considered all grad students to be genderless ;-) It was only when we were arranging hotel rooms for conferences that my advisor got this puzzled look when he realized we couldn’t ALL jam in one room to save money, because I was…one of THEM. He honestly didn’t even notice the rest of the time…
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Geology ?
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Close. Physics. I have no idea how we manage to breed, but we do ;-)
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Brownian motion.
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I think it has something to do with irradiating the fissile material with neutrons, and liquid metal might be involved at some stage. The trouble is finding sufficient Uranium or Thorium…and some sort of licensing I suppose.
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Oh, as the father of two physics boys I love this. And people moan about how sexist the sciences are – Most of the hard science people I knew didn’t care if you were gender neutral (at the moment), green and had sixteen tentacles – as long as you loved their subject and, like them, lived and breathed it.
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I’ve never worried about whether the person in the job was male or female so long as they had 2 qualifications.1 competence, male or female that is paramount. 2 they didn’t try to change the workplace to what they wanted. Women suck at that. I remember some of us having to take down bikini clad swimsuit pin ups because it created a “hostile workplace environment” However her pics of Billy Ray Cyrus taking off his shirt were fine. I won’t mind women doing any job, I hate them screwing men because they get “offended”
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I have been in charge– I am not interested in being the boss anymore. It wasn’t fun then and not fun now. lol Also if I have a choice I would rather work for a man (there are some men that are worse than women btw).
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Some years ago, in a different job, one of our salesmen was forced to take down all his bikini-clad swimsuit pin ups because another employee had complained. (Turned out it was one of the Bible-thumping guys, rather than one of the women. But I digress…)
Because he complained about this for several months, a bunch of engineers (including me) started checking out the relevant law, including the actual judgements in court cases. At the time (mid-90s) the Supreme Court had recently ruled on the issue. One thing very clearly stated in the majority opinion was that “art” fell outside the rules for workplace harassment. After a quick scramble to find a workable definition of “art” we provided our salesman with a bunch of new calendars:
“Great nudes from the National Gallery”… “Titian”… “Great Nudes from the Metropolitan Museum of Art”… and so on.
The original complainer entered another complaint. HR, bless their black little souls, responded to the effect of: “Supreme Court says it’s Art. Go away.” A truly marvelous example of “be careful what you ask for, you might get it.” :)
I wonder whether this approach would still fly in today’s legal climate. Hmmm….
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Lol – I worked as a secretary on constructions sites for years, and the first question I was asked was “Did I care if the guys had Playboy pin ups on the walls.” My answer always was, “Nope, cause then I get to hang up my Playgirl pin ups.” It was amazing how fast those pin ups came down. And honestly I didn’t care, just found it amusing that what was good for them, wasn’t good for me. ~grins~
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*giggle* Same here. I told the guys at the first assignment, I didn’t care about the pin-ups, as long as the other single female troop and I could hang up our pin-up from Playgirl.
Which we did – although with a tasteful construction-paper fig-leaf over the relevant bits. The NCOIC looked at it and said, aggressively, “I don’t see that he’s got anything that I haven’t got!”
And I said, ” Well, about fifty pounds less and a bit more hair!”
No, I didn’t ever get much stick from the guys, after that. In any case, all the pin-ups came down when we had a general come to visit.
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And I said, ” Well, about fifty pounds less and a bit more hair!”
Real men have curves!
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Strange. I wouldn’t care about keeping a level playing field. But I’m also one who thinks full nude pinups in the workplace is going a bit far. It’s pretty arbitrary, really, but my opinion is that it’s too distracting.
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Yeah, but I wish Dan could put his Valejo calendar up at work.
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Objecting to Vallejo ought be heresy!
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Then his company is heretical
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Purge? Can we?
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Oh, yeah, Vallejo is great. Most of his characters wear SOME clothes, though, don’t they?
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Yup, strategiclly placed and gravity defying in some cases, but 90% of his humanoid figures are at least 10% clad.
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I absolutely agree. I make my role models where I find them. Character isn’t as simple as gender, but it’s more important to me.
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It’s because people on the Left are deeply, severely, and profoundly bigoted. That’s why we have things like professional groups where elegibility for membership is determined by melanin levels or dangly bits. Or the idea that a black Sailor can only be competently led by a black DivO. And don’t get me started on the stinking, festering boil of institutional racism that is the minority-majority Congressional district.
Because minorities needs all this help in order to come close to competing, while white men can overcome all of the challenges the PC brigands put in their way, because White Power.
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Almost all the adventure books I read as a child had male heroes, and it never bothered me in the slightest, or kept me from identifying with them. If I dream about that sort of adventure, I dream myself male. I fail to see the problem. It’s just one more parameter of variability between people.
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“I think they’re the imaginary creation of bean counters who either never dreamed or have forgotten how to.”
But Sarah, those bean counters need jobs, too. If they’re not employed to check hero demographics (‘Lessee … 60% male, 40% female? That won’t do! And I notice a distinct lack of transsexual Nazi Eskimos, so that demographic is woefully underserved! And _one_ Muslim superhero is good, but what about other religious folk, like Zoroastrians? Oh, you say the Muslims wiped them out? Well, that opens a slot for another Muslim!”), how on Earth will they make their living?
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What I have always identified with, in books, was the hero. Honest, honorable, trustworthy, responsible, smart blah, blah, blah . . . I don’t think I ever considered gender. There’s a whole lot of more important things to identify with and aspire to.
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“Ah, but see, then what you are at war with isn’t oppression. It’s biology. ”
But it’s so much more ROMANTIC to fight oppression, so they won’t call it what it is.
The unfortunate part is the way they try to distort reality for the rest of us in the pursuit of their fantasies.
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Stolen from da Internetz:
“Creed of the Soldier’s Daughter
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Evil better fear me, because I have enough skills, firearms and cutlery to skin an army of ninjas, and I just hit that time of the month…”
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Reminds me of a joke from the first Iraq war:
Why do they want women to fight in the Middle East? They retain water for 3 days and like to fight!
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I helped provide music at a memorial service today for a local lady. She was married to the same man for 50+ years, raised several kids plus spares that followed hers home, worked as a military and medical secretary, helped revive a regional music program, and pushed for the Texas non-driver state ID. She was also one of the sweetest, kindest, womanly types you’d ever meet. She was a true lady, much like the oft-derided southern ladies of the Olde School. She’d be a magnificent role model for anyone, but can you imagine trying to cram that kind of life into a novel? The critics would fume, too.
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Hey – I’m trying to write about that kind of lady in my books! They are magnificent specimens of feminity and wonderful examples to the rest of us! They do the work that keeps the whole system from flying apart.
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I note that many churches (and indeed other organizations) seem to rely on the little old lady volunteers to do all the mundane things that make it all work from flowers to tea to reminding the priest that something needs to happen/be done
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so true – ;-) They have more energy than anyone else too– lol
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I’m male, and I’ve liked strong female characters since I started reading novels when I was a preteen. I liked Heinlein’s Friday. A commenter above mentioned Elizabeth Moon’s Paksenarrion. She’s definitely a strong character, though I prefer Heris Serrano. A different commenter mentioned Honor Harrington, another excellent choice. However, my favorite female character of all time is Hermione Granger, Harry Potter’s friend. Hermione is brilliant and brave; she’s controlled during crises; she plans ahead like Eisenhower before D-Day, and she follows her excellent morals. As a bonus, Rowling’s gave her some great lines.
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A couple people mentioned Buffy’s powers as being unbelievable … thing is, they were a supernatural thing … I almost typed “gift”, but they were also her burden/curse. It wasn’t just that Buffy herself was strong and fast and kicked vamp ass … it was a supernatural thing.
Who do I identify with? Sam Gamgee. Never give up; never surrender.
Who do I wish I were? Hard to answer that one. Heroes have hard lives … I’d like a more orderly life, with less drama, more warm family something. Who’s that hero? Darcy, maybe? I would think the fortune would assuage a lot of the hassles … ;)
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Adventure has been called “Somebody else in deep trouble somewhere else”. [Wink]
It can be more interesting to *read* about than experienced first hand. [Grin]
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People who ask me what fictional country I would like to live in always get the answer, “Can I control where I land? Am I myself, going through a portal, or would I be transformed into a local? If the latter, do I choose what sort of local?”
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There’s also the question of when are you going to live there? During a major invasion, no way. [Wink]
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That’s “where I land.”
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I’ll take looking like I derp to have a fortune, be brilliant and have a great relationship with my family and most everyone I meet!
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Sanae Furukawa from Clannad. Strong female character who committed the unpardonable sin of retiring to take care of her daughter.
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Such criticism is a perfect example of Progressive self-contradiction: defining “success” and “strength” according to such male terms as prominence and income generation.
If “success” and “strength” have any universal meaning, shouldn’t that meaning be the ability to walk your own path, not the “male” path or the “female” path but the one that is right for you?
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I’m of the opinion that everyone needs role models for both sides of it. You need to have an idea what you should aspire for in your other half just as much as you need an idea of what you should aspire to be yourself.
But they need to be true role models, as in, they need to emulate real roles that real people can fill.
For example in The Lord of the Isles series, to me, all four of the main females are incredible role models, even though none of them are combat monsters (aside from the one book where Sharina is a bit axe crazy, but she’s powered by a magic blood eating axe for that).
There is one scene that sticks in my head, where one of the vilians has tossed Liane into a pocket dimension to be eaten by the Beast, a creature so powerful the Yellow King could only seal it away. She’s not a warrior, or a great mage, or anything that has even a hope of facing such a thing, trapped in a dimension she has no chance of escaping, where likely noone even knows where she is. She is going to die horribly, and the only thing she can do about it is refuse to give that thing the satisfaction of showing it her fear. So she does, unflinchingly.
It is easy to act brave when you’ve got a sword in your hand and a way to save the day. It is far harder when you have no chance at all.
It is something I aspire to, but I know it’s a standard I surely do not meet, and might never be able to achieve.
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I like strong female characters. (strongly written) And I think that you can find characters you wish to emulate in books; or at least _characteristics_ to emulate. (I’m avoiding ‘role model’ because I think the idea is limiting and flawed. It usually defines people by what they DO, rather than what they ARE. Vis. Michael Vick as someone to look up to until his real character was exposed. They are modeling a _role_ not a way of _being_.)
I think the best benefit from the stories is the unconscious exposure to the entire worldview where it is not impossible or improbable that females have those characteristics. That, to me, is the most important part. The stories counteract the deliberate narrative of victimhood, helplessness and oppression that is so common in real life.
As to them being improbably strong or skilled, well, so are the MEN in adventure stories. Jack Bauer spends 24 hours straight in intense physical and mental activity and never needs rest or healing. Any Chuck Norris film has EXTREMELY unreal fighting (kicks to the head with boots on don’t even leave a scratch!) (I know, different media, but my brain is a little slow this morning, the only books that jump to mind for outrageousness are the Alistair MacLean books like Guns Of Navarone.) However, that’s what makes those books and characters engaging. There’s not a huge market for books about fat middle aged internal auditors who get breathless walking to the watercooler while sharing their internal dialog about the hot pocket they are looking forward to eating for lunch. (Although it might be fun to _start_ a book that way, and then have the real hero burst onto the scene just before the reader despaired and put the book down. Timing would be tricky.)
So yeah, I don’t want “role models.” I want people with characteristics that inspire and entertain. I want worlds where the unconscious environment reinforces the idea that it is NORMAL and desirable for characters to act in inspiring ways. (<- that's kind of awkward, but hopefully the idea comes across.) If those people are female, and it fits the story, great! If they are male, also great!
zuk
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Zuk, your middle ages auditor idea… Have you by any chance ever read Monster Hunter International? If not, I highly commend it to you! ;-)
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Well, Larry is one of my current favorites, and I did think of that opening scene moments after I wrote the comment— but ************ (here I cut out the spoiler I had written) suffice to say that I think Owen Pitt is a better fit to the extraordinary man hidden inside the frump meme.
(although, yeah, that opening is pretty much what I described, although not nearly as long or boring as I was thinking when I made my comment.)
z
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I am with Cedar on this– you need to read MHI–
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Anyone interested in a variety of strong female character should check out Rusty & co.
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I can’t remember their names, but there were some great women and girl characters in Cherryh’s “Forty Thousand in Gehenna”.
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Of course, I also didn’t want to rescue him, unless you know, he was injured or disabled. I wanted… I wanted to saddle up and have grand adventures, and when the notion of romance came into it I wanted a man who would be right there next to me, every inch of the way.
I read them, and imagined myself right there helping the character. I wasn’t as smart, skilled, strong or even clever– but I can cook, I can sew, I can do basic first aid and I could help.
A lot of the female characters, I could even be friends with!
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Damn if you didn’t say everything I’ve always thought about “Strong female characters.”
Heh.
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