Different sides of a coin: how to define a powerful woman

I re-read all seven Harry Potter books this year for the first time in almost ten years. It had been so long that it was almost like reading them for the first time again. I'd forgotten bits and pieces so when certain characters died I would gasp and go "Oh, yeah, I forgot..." it was a fun ride and made me think fondly back to my childhood when I would be another kid standing in line for the latest Potter book. One of my favorite characters in the series has always been Mrs Weasley. I think it might be because she reminds me a bit of my Mum. She has a lot of children, she loves them fiercely, and her house is always a bit of a mess.

Mrs Weasley would always make me laugh as a kid. I loved the scenes she had with the twins when she would find out about their latest scheme and I loved how she cared for Harry as if he were one of her own. I loved how she gave Harry Christmas presents so he would not feel left out and always looked after him at her house. The Burrow felt a lot like my house: a little cramped, messy, and very, very loud. We weren't as poor as the Weasleys though and we didn't have gnomes in our backgarden.

One of the things I like about Molly is how her biggest strength comes from being a house wife and a mother. I know a lot of people might look down on Molly and think she's not a good role model that we should encourage our daughters to do more than just learn how to cook and clean and raise children and I agree. We should encourage our daughters to do whatever makes them happy. If my little girl says to me when she is older she wants to grow up to be a stay-at-home mother I would tell her "that's wonderful" and if she told me the opposite I would tell her the same thing. I want my daughter to grow up surrounded by lots of different female role models. I want her to know that she can be a CEO or a doctor or an astronaut or just a Mum and a wife if that's what she wants. It will be her choice.

My favourite scene out of all of the seven Harry Potter books is when Mrs Weasley kills Bellatrix after the death of her son Fred. I love how she hunts her down and fights with the same skill and fury as everyone else; her love for her children and her passion for her family is like a fire running through her veins, it is her strength. When she screamed "NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!" it was such a shocking moment I gasped and shed tears the first time I read it. It was so honest and true. And I loved that it was kept the same in the film. Mrs Weasley looks like everyone else's Mum; harmless, a little frazzled, and overweight. What I love about her is how in the seventh book she shatters the "little housewife" cliche: she shows that despite the humble position she has chosen in this life she has incredible power and is NOT a victim. She will defend her family and cut down anyone who dares to hurt her children.

Writers should not have politically correct guns held to their heads

I think it would be great if more strong-willed female characters became common in fiction. I love Captain Plasma. Captain Plasma stands out from other characters like her because she is cool enough to be stocked in the "boy" isle of the toy store. This is big. Because through gender stereotypes we've brainwashed little boys into thinking if you play with "girl" toys than you are "a wussy" ... except for Plasma. She's cool enough to be one of the boys. And that's great.

It would be nice if in addition to more characters like Plasma that it became more common for people of colour, transgendered, and gay and lesbian characters to become more common as well. But I don't think writers should be forced into adding them. There is this growing movement of wanting to hold a politically correct gun to writer's heads and force them to add more diverse characters and that pisses me off so much.

What a writer does and the choices he/she makes is theirs alone to make. We are not going to make these changes happen through whinging, nagging, and bitching about it online. It irritates me when people criticise Disney for not having a disabled Disney Princess or for Girls for not having any black characters or for the Walking Dead killing off black characters because it just shouts me! me! me!

Writers do not owe people anything and writers are not public property that can be controlled with a vote. If you do not like the Disney princesses or the characters in Girls or in the Walking Dead...then write your own. It's not hard. Well, no it is hard. But it's not impossible. Just sit down at a computer and stare at it until you get an idea. We shouldn't shackle writers to political correctness and force them to write what we think is acceptable not if its not the story they want to tell. And what annoys me in particular about the complaints directed toward the Walking Dead is that it is so...misplaced and stupid. There are a lot of black characters on that show and people of other races who have been alive for a long time. In fact I would go as far to say the Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead are two of the most racially diverse shows on television. But it's not good enough for these people. They always find something to complain about. They've convinced themselves that the shows are racist. But it's not racist to kill off a black character. And it's not like white characters are never killed off on the show. I get such an angry twitch when I hear these people complain because they hate no right to tell Robert Kirkman how to write his books. He can kill off whoever he wants.

There's a lot of comics out there that have female characters in it that I hate. The anti-Plasma's if you will. These are the old cliche female "super heroes" with giant breasts, tight round bums, and outfits so tight you can see their camel toes. When I see figurines of them in the shops I'm torn between annoyance and rolling my eyes and laughing a little because they are really, really stupid looking. But the people who write those comics and the people who enjoy them can like that stuff if they want. I'm not going to hold a politically correct gun to their heads and force them to change. Instead it's better to step back and wait for the change to happen slowly, naturally, on its own. Because writers should be able to express themselves however they want. They shouldn't be censored or forced into a tight narrow little politically correct cage. Do we really want writers to be chained to some sort of politically correct rule book? to have some sort of quota for diversity in their cast? Do we really want writers to have to justify why the black character died? or why Becky hasn't got any black friends?

Politics should stay out of creativity.

Captain Plasma is the female remodel we need!

I was in the shops the other day when I saw a large Captain Plasma doll standing next to some plain white Storm Trooper dolls. And it suddenly dawned on me... this was a FEMALE character... and you couldn't tell. Her armor is so gender-neutral you might think she was a man. But she's not. She's a woman. And she's awesome. I love how her outfit looks the same as the other storm troopers except it's a little bit more fancy and she has a cape. Her sexuality isn't over the top. Attention isn't drawn to her breasts or her butt or her vagina or her legs. She isn't super thin and hasn't got over sized breasts. She isn't supposed to be a sex symbol. We're not supposed to look at her and comment on her body. Her body is not important. When we look at Plasma what we are supposed to see is strength. This woman is important. And she's serious about her job.

Someone commented on the Star Wars facebook page recently "Her armor isn't female looking enough" and the person in charge of the Star Wars page had an awesome response: "It's armor. On a woman. What more do you want?" DAMN RIGHT SON.

When we have female super heroes who run around in heels or in tight clothes with their zipper pulled down to show off a generous amount of boob it is such a tired, old cliche. Let's have some realistic female heroes please. No more heels because who the hell can chase down bad fellas in platforms I ask you? and who would want to do it in a skin-tight outfit that would be impossible to move around in yet alone run:

I love that Plasma looks the same as the other Storm Troopers because it tells me that she is their equal and is not meant to be goggled at. She is more than just a pair of boobs and a vagina. She is to be taken seriously. She is just as smart and just as much as a threat as any other trooper in the Empire. And you can buy a doll of her! She isn't going to suffer the same fate as Black Widow. She is being celebrated. She exists in the toy isles right next to the male Star Wars characters. And that people is HUGE. Because try and find something with Black Widow on it. Because you probably won't be able too. Because she wasn't included in much merchandise at all because of the old fashioned idea that little boys wouldn't want her included because they wouldn't want to be "the girl" when playing make believe.

So you can understand then why I was happy to see a big Plasma doll in the shops. We need more female role models like her that are so cool, so awesome, that their gender should not matter. Anyone, boy or girl, should want to be her. Because she is awesome.

Why I think Sailor Moon is an awesome female role model

I had to do a questionnaire for a university assignment recently and I did it about characters and plot. One of the questions I asked was about female role models in fiction and if people wanted to see less damsel in distresses. One of the answers said that they did want to see more and less female characters who had to have a "male balancing act" and I immediately thought of Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon has a lot on her shoulders for a fourteen year old but also has a lot of people surrounding her who want to help. Her friends are her body guards and would not hesitate to lay down her lives for her and then there's Tuxedo Mask never hesitates to pull her out of a tricky spot.

Sailor Moon depends on others for support. And she's criticized a lot for that. But I don't think she should be. She draws a lot of strength from her friends and partner. And that's ok. It's ok to depend on others for support and help. To ask for help. But what makes her a great role model is that the person she depends on the most and draws the most strength from is herself. If you were to take away all of the people precious to Sailor Moon you would not crush her. You would not stop her. And I love that about her. Her friends are killed more than once in the manga and the show and she just keeps on fighting. She doesn't stop until the job is done. She has a "male balancing" act and I don't think that's a bad thing. It makes her a stronger person. And let's be honest. We all have someone in our life we would fight for.

Writers shouldn't be shamed or bullied into being politically correct

I posted a questionnaire about writing and publishing online recently as part of a university assignment and got a whopping 128 responses! I'm slowly reading through them all and it's been very interesting thus far. One question got a lot of interesting and slightly fired responses and that was one where I asked is the "damsel in distress" trope overused, overdone, and would you like to see it reinvented? Most said yes, but some said that writers should not be pushed into doing it, and should write the stories they want to write. And I agree.

I don't think writers should be shamed for not being politically correct and forced into changing their stories to meet the demands of the social justice crowd. Like the people who want Link from Zelda to be a girl in the next game. He's never going to be a girl. He's a boy. And that's that. I've been playing Zelda since A Link to the Past came out and I've never had a problem with Link being a boy. And then there are the people arguing that the Assassin Creed games should change their main character to be a female...but why? If the writers want it to be male then that's their decision to make, and there's nothing wrong with their decision. I think more games should go the the Splatoon route and give players the option of being either a boy or a girl and what their skin colour can be. But if a game doesn't do that I'm not going to attack them on social media for it.

Writers should not be censored. They should be able to write whatever they want. The "damsel" trope IS tired and old and I would like to see more writers moving away from it but it has to be their decision. And I think it's happening. We're seeing more and more shows and books with female protagonists coming out like Orphan Black. I'm excited about the character of Captain Plasma in the new Star Wars film. A FEMALE STORMTROOPER! and one in pretty, shiny, awesome armor! How amazingly awesome is that!?! It's pretty mind blowing that TWO of the main characters in the new film are going to be female! That's pretty big considering in the original trilogy there was like...two female characters in the whole three films I think and that was Leia and Mon Mothma.

If you are a writer you can also edit

When I was a kid back in the dark ages before twitter and facebook I joined a message board for writers and entered a brutal and honest world. I learned a lot from those writers but man oh man were they hard on me. It was so difficult to take their raw, uncensored views. I fought them so hard but eventually I learned how to handle their criticism I grew older, wiser, and became a better writer because of it. I learned so much from those older, wiser writers. They helped me understand English better. They pushed me to learn (in my own spare time!!) grammar, sentence structure, and plot structure. Through them I became a better student. I became smarter. And I got balls of steel.

Now, as a 31 year old, I find myself getting increasingly irritated with the "writers of today" who seem like an entirely different breed. The writers back in MY day (and I know that makes me sound old) told me "learn to edit yourself!" and I took that advice and ran with it. But I'm noticing a trend of people pushing professional editing services these days and it just makes me want to start smacking heads together. The writers I'm speaking to honestly think that they can't edit. They think it's a completely different skill that's beyond them or above them. It's not. It's really, really not. And I say that as someone learning it at the moment in university. Can you teach yourself highschool level grammar? because that's what it's about. But what bugs me about the classes I'm taking is how so much focus is put on grammar and spelling.

Grammar and spelling are important. But a good editor in my opinion would not be focused on just that. I want an editor to look at the structure of my story and tell me if it works. Do my characters work? what about the setting? and the sentences? Grammar rules can be broken for artistic effect. I mean, hell, I just tried to read "The Farm" and had to put it down in anger because the author had written it in first person but was "telling" instead of showing. It was quite literary his Mum sitting at a table just...talking. That was it. That was the whole book. I put it down and remarked to my husband "HOW IN THE HELL DID THIS GET PUBLISHED!?!"

If I was that man's editor I would have told him "Start again" the premise was great but his construction was so poor it read like it had been written by a Highschool student who was failing English and had no idea what past and present tense was. But obviously no one told him this. People have patted him on the back and told him his book is great and all of the positive reviews have left me bewildered. In my editing classes I was told not to change an author's words...like their words were holy, or something. Oh no, just correct the structural stuff. Um, fuck that. This is what I mean when I say that a good editor has to be a good writer. A writer with balls would not be mad if an editor told them to start again because they would go "Oh, okay. Thank you for the honest critique!" because they now have a chance to go back to the beginning and correct their errors and make their story BETTER!

If you can teach yourself to write you can teach yourself to edit and do not ever dismiss the opinions of other writers as being less than the opinion of a "trained" professional editor. You do not want someone who is going to tell you that you are great when you are not. You want someone who is going to scratch out entire segments in red pen and tell you to start again. And you need to be able to take that cricitism with dignity and maturity and not react like you have been unfairly wronged.

Learning how to edit yourself will make you a better writer and will improve your understanding of English. It is a very important skill to develop. Get an editor if you want but it won't help you get published and frankly it's a lazy route you're paying someone else to do work that you yourself should be doing. Join a writer's group. Read, listen, learn. Get other writers to read your work. Read books on grammar. And then edit yourself. And then let go of your story's hand and let them wander out into traffic.

Link is a male but that doesn't mean women cannot be heroes

Nintendo is bringing out a game later this year called the legend of Zelda triforce heroes that gives the player the chance to play as 3 Link clones who work together as a team. A blog asked Nintendo if you could play as a female and they said no because you are Link clones and Link is a male which is fair enough. I like Link and don't mind that he is male. I don't think they should make him female just to please those who would like to play as a female Link. That wouldn't be Zelda would it? But what Nintendo said next had me rolling my eyes. They implied that only male characters can be heroes. Now this might've been something that was lost a bit in translation or maybe it's just another example of how sexist Japan can be but I just face palmed. It's such an old fashioned cliche thought. Of course women can be heroes. I don't mind that the backbone of Zelda is a bit cliche because it's part of what makes the game what it is. You rescue Zelda as Link. And Zelda is not always a damsel. In some games she is Link's equal and fights alongside him. In other games she eludes capture for a long time, or even helps defeat Ganon at the end. I would love a game from her perspective but I doubt it'd ever happen. And even if it did I wonder if Nintendo would put the same effort into it as they would with a traditional Zelda game. And I think it probably wouldn't get the same reaction. People like Link. And that's ok. If you change the formula of Zelda too much people get upset. And again that's cool. Zelda works well how it is. But it bugs me that Nintendo thinks that women cannot be heroes. Women can be more than damsels in distress or the ball that gets the plot rolling. I would like at the very least to see characters like Zelda or Tetra or any of the other awesome female characters from Zelda feature in other games. Zelda in Mario Kart would be awesome. That'd be a good place to start. Women can be heroes Nintendo. Yes it doesn't bother us to play as male characters. But it bothers some of us when you say that only men can save the day. It's just not true.