Who was your favorite heroine as a child? Samantha Parkington? Heidi? Anne Shirley? Nancy Drew? Lucy Pevensie? Ramona Quimby? Junie B. Jones? Meg Murry? Sara Crewe?
It struck me the other day that, as children, we don’t look for much in a character. If they happen to be space pirates or fairies, that’s cool…but it’s equally as cool if they have glasses and braces and go to school and live lives just like us. The heroines we look up to as young girls aren’t consumed with female rage or using their sexuality to manipulate people. (At least I hope not.) When it boils down to it, even if they are on a grand adventure to a fantasy world or saving entire planets, they’re still just normal girls. And truthfully, that’s what we look for most as kids—someone we can relate to, someone who embodies what we want to be, someone who overcomes the same insecurities we have, someone who embraces the strengths and weaknesses we have.
What happened to that?
I think of Meg Murry, the heroine of A Wrinkle in Time. She’s introduced to us as having glasses and braces and mousy brown hair, not quite dumb but not quite smart either (who is compared to Charles Wallace, though?). Her character arc in the novel is centered around embracing her weaknesses. Embracing her individuality. Embracing her humanity.
What made her special wasn’t super powers or staggering self-confidence or physical strength or irresistible sex appeal.
It was her ability to love.
Spoiler alert: that’s how she overpowers IT and saves her brother. Something so simple yet so divine. Something so human yet so otherworldly. Something that is so often twisted and abused and misdefined.
What happened to meeting girls where they’re at, with heroines who have doubts and difficulties just like us? What happened to heroines that can encourage and inspire us? What happened to the feminine softness and the female weakness?
We don’t always, 100% of the time, want to read about someone just like us—but I think that, deep down, we do, more often than not. Maybe not a character who’s exactly the same (that would be creepy), but relatable. Real. Not an ideal, but a human.And real and human and weak doesn’t have to mean a puddle of nerves and tears. Annoying characters or doormat characters aren’t very encouraging or inspiring either. But strong doesn’t equal emotionless or careless or all-powerful, and neither does weak mean incapable or unworthy. It simply means imperfect, which is what we all are.
I think we as storytellers need to embrace humanity again. Our heroines (and heroes, for that matter) don’t have to be the ideal woman or the epitome of womanhood or the culmination of centuries of feminist rage. Our characters don’t have to be larger-than-life and superhuman for them to be role models or interesting or uplifting. We don’t have to solve the problems of the universe in one story, or right every wrong with one character.
We just have to be honest and true. Human and real. And that is where the beauty is found. In all the sorrow and suffering, the doubt and pity, the pain and heartache, the inability and the failure—there is beauty. And it’s worth telling stories about.
So here’s to the everygirl. The orphan, the sister, the mother, the friend. The loud girl, the quiet girl, the smart girl, the average girl, the pretty girl, the not-so-pretty girl. The adventurer, the homebody, the problem-solver, the troublemaker, the girly girl, the tomboy.
Here’s to the Lucys who are so full of hope and faith but nobody listens to. Here’s to the Megs who are so smart and so capable but don’t know it. Here’s to the Annes who are brimming with adventure and joy but can’t see past their mistakes.
Here’s to you, girl. Whatever your fears and insecurities and failures, you’re beautiful and you’re worth all the words in the world to tell your story. Why? Because you were created in the image of the Almighty, with the unique design of human, of woman, and the ability to love. Embrace it.
Thanks to the lovely Katherine Joyce (The Bookish Bouquet) for first sparking my thoughts on the everygirl with her post.
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