this is sooo feminism 101 but i'm cranky now

Do you know what I hate and am completely tired of? Two things, actually, that I want to talk about: the way a lot of otherwise kickass female characters I like tend to equate stereotypically feminine culture with weakness, shallowness, etc. and furthermore, the troubling way that TV culture in particular seems to put certain characters in this box, where they have to be tough and feisty or whatever in order to get their feminist icon status. Like, Buffy Summers? A feminist icon. Claire Dunphy? Not so much.

I have been seeing/reading a lot of stuff lately about really awesome lady characters and then suddenly they're all "I denounced all that girly stuff, so now I'm badass" and I'm all "HEY WAIT A SECOND." Sometimes it's outright, like in Kristin Cashore's Graceling, where the main character actually says something along the lines of "At least I'm busy doing something useful like swordfighting and not brushing my hair"--that was the only part that truly bugged me about the book; well, that and the slow start--or sometimes it's kind of subtle. Sometimes the creator manages to balance it out like Tamora Pierce in the Alanna series (where Alanna doesn't dislike dresses and stuff, she just, you know, has to be a boy and stuff), but then sometimes the creator just avoids the question by not including many ladies at all (see: Mulan--my favorite Disney movie ever! but still). And then I was thinking about how in Ugly Betty, Betty meets up with her ex-boyfriend who is all "fashion isn't your dream, and now you've turned into a robot like all those other people who like fashion" and that made me think of The Devil Wears Prada where Andi essentially loses her friends because they think that her deciding to dress more trendily is some kind of betrayal and it's part of the reason she loses them (well, that and because she became horrible and flaky but the clothes thing was definitely part of it). Same in The Princess Diaries ("You look ridiculous. You should sue.").

Look, guys--as much as I want to kick down the patriarchy and show everyone how awesome and tough I can be, I'm just not that tough. I don't want to stake vampires or save China or pretend to be a man so I can be knighted. I like pretty clothes and I'm really vain about my hair and my favorite books are A Little Princess and Anne of Green Gables and even though I see how they are problematic and kind of creepy sometimes, I really enjoy Disney princess movies. I read mommy blogs and look at wedding magazines! All "girly" things, brought to you by the letter F and our special guest, socialized gender roles, which have gotten us to a point where you can be anything you want to be, except you can't be too girly or you're shallow or too masculine because you're a hairy lesbian. You can wield a sword but not if you don't want to ruin your mani/pedi.

Look, Buffy, you are a pretty cool kid, but there are reasons Meg Murry and Anne Shirley were my idols when I was younger.

One of my best friends likes to talk about her narrative priorities a lot, and one of mine is becoming "stories about girls who are strong in other ways than being tough" (Katara, I am looking at you) or "stories about girls who do things like paint their nails before going off and saving the world from crime." And there are stories out there like this, it's just that those tendencies towards femininity (the stereotypical kind, I mean) are so often portrayed as faults or as frivolous or whatever. Look, so maybe my bookmarks folder called "shoes I neeeeeed" is a little frivolous but I'm also crazy smart and if I realized that I could regenerate/fly/mind-read I'd get out there and get shit done. You know what I mean? And then I'd come home and watch another episode of Say Yes to the Dress.