The Problem with Strong Female Characters (with an emphasis Moffat)

To preface: in the following argument, I am not attacking any of the characters mentioned for being a "bad character" or a "bad female character". I'm attacking the idea that only a very narrow range of characters fits into the category of "strong female characters"

In geek culture, at least, Joss Whedon and Steven Moffat are often used as great examples of guys who write strong female characters. Possibly because they spend a lot of time patting themselves on the back and bragging about how they write such strong female characters, but that's another bone to pick entirely, and can basically be summed up as, if you're a dude, don't run around claiming you're the savoir of women's representation in geek culture. But I digress...

Since I'm not super familiar with Whedon's work (I've watched a bit of Buffy, a lot of Dollhouse and Firefly, and the Avengers, but I don't think I have enough grasp on his writing to really comment), I'm going to focus here on Moffat, though I think it's safe to say Whedon falls into many of the same pitfalls. Steven Moffat's written a lot of badass ladies in recent years, as you can see in Doctor Who with River Song, Amy Pond, and the not-yet-fleshed-out Clara Oswin, and in the recent BBC Sherlock Holmes reboot of Irene Adler. I'm fond of all of these characters in one way or another--the actresses who play them are all talented and captivating people, and many of the storylines they feature in are engrossing and well written.

But the problem with all of Moffat's badass ladies is that, when you boil it all down, they're all incredibly similar. All are clever, sassy, sexy, flirtatious, and badass--they all embody the "strong female character." And that's fine--when done once or twice. However, once you get past the shock of "Wow! A cool, powerful woman!" you realize that Moffat is rehashing the same cool, powerful woman again and again. They banter with the men they're with. They use their sexuality to their advantage. With disturbing frequency, they claim some sort of bisexuality (or in the case of Moffat's Adler, homosexuality), but in the end, they always, always fall for the leading man, which is all kinds of problematic.

There are slight differences in their characters, but the overall framework is the same. Moffat doesn't have a range of strong female characters, but variations on the theme of the "strong female character". Because in its modern connotations, "strong female characters" aren't any well-rounded, believable portrayal of a woman in media, but a very specific character type, sexy and clever and fearless. And that's not okay. That's only a step up from having armies of docile Lucie Manettes.

Here's the solution: rather than holding up one character type as what a "strong female character" is, we need to strive for diversity by recognizing any well-written, well-rounded, realistic woman in fiction as a strong female character, whether she's smart or not, bold or shy, sexy or prudish or anywhere in between. We need to break away from hailing the "strong female character" as the savior of women in geek culture, and usher in an era of diverse female characters who are all strong, despite their differences in character.

Hopefully I am posting this in my actual blog this time and not in the main blog, but they have the same name, and I'm not far beyond making the same mistake twice.

Tense day in class today, right? I like the idea of ouch cards, but how exactly do we implement them? Maybe we should tie bells to them and throw them on the ground. Or instead we could get those little poppers that everyone uses on the fourth of July, and throw them around instead. Basically, I'm just hoping we can incorporate some arm work-out into the healing process whenever we're offended.

As tense as things were, I'm glad to see everyone's so invested in the discussions we're having. But I wish we had a little more procedure as to what happens when someone is offended. What happens after "Ouch"? Obviously, we should respect the injured party's right to be offended, and we should stay the hell away from any tone arguments, but we should also provide a space where we can talk out and work out the knots of the conversation, so we don't end up punching each other's teeth out over misunderstandings.

On the topic of what we discussed today in class: I'll be up front about it, talking about masculinity in a class on gender immediately puts me on edge. In the past, in any sort of gender discussion I've had, bringing up masculinity has unfailingly been tied with ideas of "reverse sexism", which, like the age old question "But why isn't there a white history month?", makes my tripes clench.

The initial cringe-worthy pun of "Tough Guise" put me even more on edge, but honestly, I was blown away by how rational and well-researched the arguments in the movie were (save the discussion on depression, which erased entirely the social stigma people of all genders deal with when confronting a mental illness). Ditto today's discussion in class. There were no cries for "masculinism", just a discussion of facts and men's experience with gender roles. I've been proven wrong. There is a place for masculinity in discussions for gender equality, and it can be done in a smart, coherent way.

EDIT: Oops. Clearly I need a refresher course in just how to use blogger. This was supposed to be over on my personal blog and not up here. Sorry folks! I'll move that over now

All this talk about the different waves and movements of feminism has pinpointed for me one of the few things I genuinely dislike, and that's the fact that so much feminist theorizing is done in a way that makes it completely inaccessible to those people it could most help.

I think the critique Tong presented on postmodern feminism was largely valid. I agree that some of what makes it confusing is that people aren't used to thinking outside the gender binary, but there's more confusing language here than just "cis" or "trans". A large part of the rhetoric of postmodern feminism along with other movements is a language that means little or nothing to the average person. New words are used, or old words are used in strange new ways. I'm not saying this is entirely a bad thing; sometimes it's downright necessary. To describe a new concept, a new ideology, obviously some new language is going to come into play, but it seems to me that at times, feminist writers are over-complicating their language simply to look smart.

And maybe that does make them look kinda smart, but to me, it also makes them look like assholes, and more than that, it makes them look like they don't really care about the people who feminism could most help.

I'm not saying there's no place at all for this kind of purely academical feminism, but I think feminism could do a lot more good if it made itself more accessible to the masses. The fact of the matter is, many people haven't had college-level gender studies courses, or any college education at all, and for them, feminist theories may be even more crucial than to those of us sitting around, arguing gender politics in a classroom. And to make feminism an open, accessible resource for people who want to change the system they live in, the language of feminism must be as close to the language that people speak day-in, day-out as possible.