I’m sure you’re aware that today is International Women’s Day; a day created to encourage conversations surrounding the empowerment and growth of women in society. I have been a feminist since aged two when my mother walked into the living room one day to find me watching Mary Poppins and marching around shouting “Well done, Sister Suffragette! Votes for women!” (a very famous story in the Rees household, fyi) and so it really was inevitable that I’d be very vocal about women’s rights later in life. I also now feel that it was inevitable that I would be drawn to writing about women; I used to feel guilty about only female protagonists appearing in my mind but now I fully embrace it.
I honestly believe that prose is one of the only mediums that has allowed female characters the space to explore their glorious multifaceted personalities. In no way am I pitting novels against film and television because I adore them all but I guarantee if you were asked to reel off a list of fictious women who don’t fit a female stereotype (of which there are many and that issue requires a whole other blog post) the majority of the list would be from novels. I feel like they’re allowed the time to be messy, hilarious, disgusting and everything in between rather than racing through the story beats. One of the tropes I have always struggled wit is that of a ‘strong female character’ because in theory it seems like an ideal I would want my characters to strive towards. They can hold their own against the men folk, they don’t measure their self-worth against their looks and, generally speaking, engage in the things that are seen as more masculine. I find this complicated and confusing because we all know that women can both embrace traditional femininity or completely reject it and still be ‘strong.’ What the hell does ‘strong’ mean anyway? Does she have to be able to bench press 200 kilos? Remain calm when tragedy is surrounding her? Not yell at the prick who just catcalled her? Can she not just be? I think that perhaps the term was coined to please both men who may be scared off by a female protagonist and to also attract women who are, rightly so, fed up of decades of one dimensional portrayals. When creating my protagonist for The Arben Bridge I was very aware of this trope being attributed to her and it was something I felt a little uneasy about. I wanted to create a character who was a fighter but not because she was surrounded by gender politics but because it’s a requirement for her job (and she’s just mad keen on fighting in all honesty.) She’s physically strong and mentally strong because that is simply the way she is and if she wasn’t she would probably be sacked. Of course, this in itself is a contrived decision on my behalf. I’m not self-righteous enough to believe that I can change the world but I am confident enough in my own beliefs that I would find it impossible to write about a character that I don’t want women to invest in, understand and maybe even relate to. In that vein, I would like to introduce you all to Tarley Anwen Hillis. She’s been living in my head for six years and I am completely in love with her. She has her flaws like all people but is a determined and dangerously curious character. There’s no such thing as International Women’s Day in her world because it’s not needed and I hope that if you gift me with taking the time to read her story you will see why.
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