She's a damsel, she's in distress, but she can handle it.
This needs to be said...
Recently I stumbled into a discussion about the weakness of women portrayed in writing. Now, as you all know, I am an advocate for strong female characters, and I never once thought there would be women who were not. But during this conversation it was brought to my attention that there are women out there who find the idea of a strong female character as oppressive since not every women can be strong and not every women can overcome their oppression.
I have been struggling with how to word this blog in the best way possible, because while I believe that every person should have equal representation in literature, I also believe that the fetishizing of certain representation in literature can make social matters worse.
Let me start off by saying that I am fully aware and understand that there are women out there who are in terrible situations that they cannot overcome themselves and they deserve to know they are seen.
However, I believe their stories should not be fetishized in romance because it paints false hopes and realities that can warp the modern social world and cause a ripple effect that will do more harm than good.
Hypothetical scenario 1: Let’s say there is a women who is stuck in a situation that she cannot personally get herself out of. She gets her hands on a romance novel that portrays her exact situation but the situation is resolved by her being saved by someone else and then she falls in love with that person and lives happily ever after.
Hypothetical scenario 2: Same women as in scenario 1, but instead she reads a novel that portrays her exact situation and instead of it being a romance novel that shows how she is saved by someone else, it is a romance novel about how she sought out help from the authorities, family, friends, or colleagues and falls in love with a person she meets after all this has happened and they love her despite all that she has been through and want to help her heal.
To me, scenario 1 gives the woman an unrealistic expectation of how to get out of the terrible situation and could potentially cause more harm than good because instead of trying to free herself from the situation she could assume someone else will come along and save her. Which isn’t always the case.
Now before you go and say that women aren’t as naive to believe in fairy tales…well that’s not totally true. I have met plenty of women who believe in love at first sight, who believe they don’t have to do anything other than just exist for a man to want to be with them, and that once they are in a relationship that it’s the man’s responsibility to take care of them.
Scenario 2 makes the woman realize that she needs to help herself out of the situation but that there are others out there who will support her and that it is possible to find someone who loves you and will help you heal after the fact.
And to me…that second story is about a strong female character. Because a strong female character isn’t someone who never faces weakness or problems, but a strong female character is a woman who can overcome her problems without depending on someone else to fix it all for her. Yes she can receive help from others and still be strong because in those stories the focus isn’t on her being saved, it’s on her healing and saving herself from the terror she once held in her heart.
So I’m sorry, but I don’t agree with the idea that we need to write any more stories about women being oppressed and in terrible situations that they are then only freed from because someone else came along and saved them.
I believe in writing stories about those women and how they fought to free themselves, how others lent a hand to help them, and how they found a partner who will help them heal from the traumas they faced.
I will never fetishize the idea that a woman needs to wait and do nothing because she will one day be saved by someone she will fall madly in love with.