Me Too: Evil Woman & Female Hero

In the literary context, Merriam Webster defines heroine as “the principal female character in a literary or dramatic work” and they give “the heroine of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet” as an example.  There’s a problem with that.

According to opensourceshakespeare.org, Romeo speaks 163 times to Juliet‘s 118. Juliet is clearly the lead female and second character by size of role, but by appearing in both opening and closing scenes while Juliet does not, Romeo clearly has the primary lead. This is often the case in movies. If there’s a leading man in a movie, the leading female may play more of a supporting role than an actual lead. This has been a way to blur the lack of true female leads. This is also reflected by the way awards are given for movies. For example, Oscars are listed with leading and supporting men coming before any women are listed.

However, there is hope. The Me Too movement may be making a dent.

I just finished writing a screenplay for a company that produces a lot of movies for television. They provided a rough treatment for a starting point, along with the instructions that not only did they want the villain to be a woman, the primary protagonist was to be female as well. I’m calling her a female hero because she is definitely not playing second fiddle to any of the actors and she is the one who takes action to save the day. In reality, the leading actor is playing a supporting role to her lead.

Creating a female hero to triumph over the evil woman made this really fun to write. And since these guys have a good track record for selling their films to major outlets, I have to believe they’ve checked the market and found that the industry wants more women in leading roles. We’ll see.

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Female Role Models in Literature: Lillian Moller Gilbreth

There’s a long tradition in literature of having a tomboy juxtaposed with a feminine girl. In the late 1800’s there was a series for little girls about Ruby and Ruth, where Ruby was the one getting into trouble all the time and Ruth was the good girl doing her needlepoint. By then, Louisa May Alcott had written Little Women, with Jo the tomboy and Beth the good girl. Trixie Belden was a tomboy but her best friend was the girly-girl.

There are also books with a strong female protagonist without much of a feminine girl as a foil, but usually those strong females are surrounded by males or thrust into a formerly male role. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout is all tomboy and her father’s fine with that. Calpurnia tries to civilize her a bit, but with little luck. In The Hunger Games, Katniss has been thrust into her father’s role as provider and protector.

One of my favorite non-fiction books is Cheaper by the Dozen, published in 1949. It is based on the real Gilbreth family – written by two of the twelve. Per the Foreword: “Mother and Dad, Lillian Moller Gilbreth and Frank Bunker Gilbreth, were industrial engineers. They were among the first in the scientific management field and the very first in motion study. From 1910 to 1924, their firm of Gilbreth, Inc. was employed as ‘efficiency expert’ by many of the major industrial plants in the United States, Britain, and Germany. Dad died in 1924. After that, Mother carried the load by herself and became perhaps the foremost woman industrial engineer.”

Their efficiency methods carried over into their parenting by necessity – with twelve children to manage and two parents working. Surrounded by adults as a child, I was always enamored by the idea of being part of a large family, but the concept of conserving time and energy through efficient habits is what really stayed with me from the book… and subliminally, the understanding there were no restrictions on what I might become.

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#TheHungerGames #CheaperbytheDozen #motionstudy #literature #LouisaMayAlcott #womeninliterature #ToKillaMockingbird #RubyandRuth #LittleWomen #LillianMillerGilbreth #strongwomen #FemaleRoleModels #Katniss

Curves in the Road

At sixteen my plan was to spend my senior year of high school as an exchange student, then go to Northwestern for journalism and become an international reporter. I’d make the world a better place and have adventures at the same time. I was on that road. I was editor of my school paper and studying both French and Spanish. I joined AFS and met exchange students from all over the world. I brought home the application.

But my mother had been a stay-at-home mom for almost forty years and she wasn’t ready for an empty nest, so she insisted I could wait and go abroad while I was in college. That last year of high school, there were few academic courses left for me to take. Instead, my interest in art, music, and drama, which had been largely dormant for two years, came back full force. I never even applied to Northwestern.

The killings at Kent State, a month before my high school graduation, did nothing to change my mind. The paranoia of the day seeped into me. Publication of the Pentagon Papers could have inspired a renewal of my interest in journalism, but instead the content increased my detachment from world events. Then Watergate filled the television and my first choice for president was a crook or the man he’d made look like a buffoon. I did a write-in vote for “No Body” and wanted nothing to do with any of it.

I just wanted to live my life.

It’s a good way to live, focused on immediate surroundings, the things where you may make a real difference in lives, one at a time, or one small community at a time. And that is one way to change the world without taking on the big issues.

Looking back, there have been many other roads not taken, some of which might have brought me back closer to my original intent. It’s okay I didn’t take those roads. There have been rough spots, but overall, life has been full and interesting and right now it’s really good. I’m writing fiction full of strong women, providing good role models. . .but, every so often, I wonder if I’m playing hooky from another destiny.

A few weeks ago, I bought the January 15, 2018 Time because it was supposed to be a good news edition, edited by Bill Gates. This morning it got to the top of the reading pile. In it, there’s an article by Melinda Gates about how women’s movements around the world are bringing about significant changes not just for the betterment of women, but for society as a whole. She advocates for an increase in financial support for grassroots women’s organizations and women’s funds.

The article makes me feel as if there’s more I need to do.

It could be a diversion from projects already in place, to avoid completion. I need to guard against that temptation. But I suspect the road I’m on is curving and will eventually intersect with the one not taken long ago.

Update 12/13/2020 When I wrote this blog, I was working on a novel that used many of the locales of my life as the character went through many life changes. However, the character had taken over the story and her life was much more dramatic than mine. I definitely let that project be diverted many times, but it's finally published: Peg's Story: Detours

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#resilience #planofaction #howtowritebetter #lifegoals #transition #expectations #metoo #adventure #MeToo #goals #Writing #DefiningMoments