On Writers, Women, and the Sexy Lamp Test

Back when Joss Whedon was writing Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly and Dollhouse, he was repeatedly asked questions about why he wrote such strong female characters.  His answer, finally, was given in a speech he presented on equality, when he simply stated "Because you're still asking me this question."*

George R.R. Martin, author of the Game of Thrones books, was asked where his inspiration for complex, well-written female characters came from, and he responded that he "always considered women to be people."**

Most feminists and female readers know about the concept of the Bechdel test, developed by Allison Bechdel to determine whether a work gives a fair or even remotely non-sexist depiction of women.  The test has three parts: (1) Does this work include at least two female characters?; (2) Do these characters talk to one another?; (3) Is the conversation about something other than men?  If you can successfully answer "yes" to all three of those questions, congratulations, there is a chance you have written a remotely non-sexist piece.

However, Kelly Sue Deconnick, a writer and artist for Marvel comics, stated that the Bechdel Test may be expecting too much from us, and has proposed a test wherein "if you can take out a female character and replace her with a sexy lamp, you're a hack."***  My question, then, is when a large number of female characters fail both Bechdel's test and are replacable by a sexy lamp, why are we asking those few writers who write women who actually resemble people why they write them that way?

What does it say about the status quo for female characters when the noteworthy and novel thing is that they're written in three dimensions instead of just as a plot device?

I've often advocated for the need for strong female role models, and those are often hard to find in the real world.  But it's worrisome that they are nearly as scarce in the world of fantasy and fiction, and that those writers who create them are often questioned or criticized.

Isn't it time that, instead, we start asking, "I've noticed you've written a hollow shell of a human being and slapped a pair of breasts on her.  Why did you do that?" instead?

Curiously Yours,
Rachel Leigh

*http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/josswhedonequalitynow.htm
**http://hbowatch.com/20-minute-interview-with-george-r-r-martin/
***http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/20/kelly-sue-deconnick-talks-captain-marvel-pretty-deadly-and-the-sexy-lamp-test

On Dumb Culture

Now, I'm generally not a fan of calling attention to people with rocks for brains, mostly because I think stupid people get too much attention anyway.  However, in the aftermath of a stunningly incoherent speech about women, education, men's inherent leadership role, and job creation from Miss Utah in the Miss Universe pageant and the incredibly disheartening news that Sarah Palin will be entering the network news circuit as a political commentator (admittedly on Fox News, but that's still more viewers than she should be getting), I need to speak up.

I am all for female role models.  We definitely need more of them.

But, for the love of all that is good in this world and for the sake of creating a better future for the next few generations of girls, can we please stop treating ignorant, uneducated women as something endearing or desirable?

We have a culture that says that women are bad at math and science, despite repeated studies that show that the gap in performance occurs over time, as girls LEARN they aren't supposed to be good at math and science.  We discourage women from entering leadership roles, and those who do are often met with sexism and criticism of their mental and emotional capabilities in their role.  And, despite the continued push for empowering female education, we still hear things like "My boyfriend thinks I'm too smart for him" (vlogbrothers video) or "'If smart guys like dumb girls and dumb guys like dumb girls, what do smart girls get?' 'Cats, mostly'" (Modern Family).

Glamourizing and promoting the idea that it's "cute" for a woman to be ditzy or ignorant makes intelligent girls feel like their intelligence is a hindrance -- something to be ashamed of and hidden if they ever want to be loved or taken seriously.  But what good does it do for society to teach half the population that, if they're good at something, they should try and hide it?

Ignorance isn't cute.  It isn't funny.  It's sad, it's an insult to our education system, and it's really bad for the way girls see themselves.

Angrily yours,
Rachel Leigh

On The Gospel According to Ann

Hello hello hello again, readers!

I'll admit it: this post is mostly a shout-out to my friend Jamie at http://www.theseventeenmagazineproject.com/. The idea is pretty simple: 30 days of fashion, beauty, and social commandments as issued by our Lord and Master, Ann Shoket, editor-in-chief of Seventeen Magazine.

I have a dirty secret: I'm a subscriber. Yes, I turn in my family's Coca-Cola Coke Points for 6 issues of garbage. I started getting it when CosmoGirl stopped printing and they moved my remaining subscription to Seventeen. Most of it serves as the basic material for my wall (including a really fantastic picture of Anthony Michael Hall smoking a joint in classy black Wayfarers from my favorite movie of all time, The Breakfast Club, from an article discouraging girls from hitting the THC), which is a 60-square-foot monstrosity of a collage done in a lot of shiny, semi-glossy magazine print.

Being my cynical self, though, I do have to question it. I keep most of my back-issues for collage material or just petty entertainment, but a lot of the girls and the lifestyles it promotes annoy me. For example, Whitney Port and Lauren Conrad have been cover girls for Seventeen multiple times in the last year. One issue I have, I blacked out both Whitney's eyes and mouth...which I kind of wish I could do to her in reality. These are two girls who gained fame for hook-ups, break-ups, and drama, and have used their not-so-earned fame to...what? Release a clothing line which they designed partially by themselves? Write two pieces of trashy teen literature about girls behaving exactly like they do? It's kind of shameful that these are the role models we as readers have been given.

What about Emma Watson's animal activism? She's beautiful, famous, AND has a cause that gives girls something to look up to. Or better yet, how about the young, female moguls and entrepreneurs they mention deep in the depths of the magazine in the 100-something pages, after the make-up tips and "Styles to Make You Happy"? Aren't THESE the girls we should be aspiring to be? Beautiful, independent, creative, strong?

So why Whitney and LC?

Waiting on the world to change,
Rachel Leigh