I do realize that this post, in isolation, might not make that view clear; it’s part of a series I’ve been doing for a while now, so my points are spread across a bunch of different posts. If you want to check those out, they’re all on the sixteenth of the month, and I do address some of your concerns elsewhere.

Because while you’re building up one kind of female strength you’re knocking down the fact that many women *are* physically strong, that many women *are* tough and that many women do physical work well, wear pants, have short hair and do the sorts of things where their hands are rough and their nails are short and they curse a lot. I see these women every single day–why shouldn’t they be in fiction as well?

I can’t see any sort of progress in dismissing these women as ‘well, not really women’ it seems like a huge step backward to me.

I have no problem with female characters exhibiting what’s considered masculine traits (whether out of deliberate choice, a need to survive, or because that’s just the way they are). Any more than I would have a problem with a male character who liked cooking and didn’t like his home being messy.

I do dislike characters that don’t ring true, but I’m flexible on what ‘true’ is.

Rabia — I agree, though it’s also worth bearing in mind that historically speaking, having kids does eat up a lot of a mother’s time and attention. I’m reading a selection of Ada Lovelace’s letters now, and watching her argue with family friends about how she’s a BETTER mother if she hires somebody to look after her children, because then she doesn’t get so irritated with them — but that family friend was basically accusing her of being a bad mother because she hired a nanny and went off to do math instead. How many other female geniuses labored under the same limitations?

Jaws and Sam — from a more flexible gender perspective, you’re right that she’s a hyper-soldier, and I shouldn’t necessarily class it as masculine. My choice of words echoed what I think was the assumption at the time, though, and still for many people is the assumption now, that the epitome of masculinity is to be a tough gun-slinging killer, and that Vasquez, as an example of that type, is therefore extremely masculine. I’d love to move on to a point where we don’t auto-link that type with a specific gender, and I should police my own words better to achieve that, but I don’t think we’re there yet.

Damien — I name-checked Zoe specifically because she’s a soldier, as Buffy and Willow are not. (In Buffy’s case, she’s a warrior, yes, but not military.) They’re definitely strong characters, though.

A friend last night noted that fairy tale heroines usually have dead mothers, and their stories end with their getting married to the prince. Presumably they die young themselves, to provide the next generation of motherless girls… Only evil mothers survive, to become stepmothers.

Would you count Buffy and Willow as well as Zoe?

I’ve been more steeped in anime and related media than English fiction recently. Lots of strong non-masculine women there.