The Fucking Patriarchy

A friend and I (hey Cassie!) have been talking a little about how women should, or could, be represented in media. Getting this right is *important*, not just because “girl power” or whatever, but because it’s the right thing to do. Our conversation has ranged a little more broadly into the territory about how you would write characters that are outside your spectrum of experience (e.g., different races, or sexualities).

It’s a complicated issue. I’d like there to be a good and easy solution to it, but I think the best thing we can do is to keep talking to each other and our kids about it. And, maybe maybe, listening to women on how they’d like to be represented. I … feel like it might be rude of me to have an opinion on this either way, because I’m essentially the fucking patriarchy made flesh, white, and male, and with all the trappings that comes with.

This has become a little more poignant for me as some friends have just given birth to a beautiful baby girl. I’d like her to grow up into a world where she is recognised for the awesome human she is – child of the universe, hungry for her rightful place in the order of things, and maybe the saviour of the universe when all is said and done. Not because she looks good with lash extensions.

Until we get there, I’ll keep writing as though it’s gospel.