Beautiful statement and I agree wholeheartedly
All of this!! I completely agree!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D8nRpJsQlk
Little Women - Marriage Is an Economic Proposition: Amy (Florence Pugh) explains her situation to Laurie (Timothée Chalamet).
A feminine conservative character who display internal strenghts and powers of self-assertion.
I'm glad that I sat and listen to your Tedtalk because PeriodT.
I love your TedTalk, sonic you excuse me, I would like to add more.
As you said, there is a tendency in these stories that a strong female woman needs to be a masculinised woman. What do I mean by masculinised? I mean, she needs to do the same the men in the manga do. If they wield swords, have magic, fight, be knights, or whatever, she will also do it, because she is a strong female lead.
If she ever does something femenine, she thinks that it does not suit her, that others will mock her for it because she is, basically, a masculinised woman, and, of course, being femenine or liking/doing femenine things doesn't suit her because she sees herself internal and subscoinciously as a man, not as a woman, and in these kind of historical settings, a man (even if it's a masculinised woman) being femenine is something to be mocked, because women are the "wrong, weaker sex that needs to be protected" (Sorry, I studied gender studies as an optative course in my degree and I love talking about these issues).
There are cases in real life in which queens, and I mean queens as they are the one who hold all the real power (coughcoughENGLANDcoughcough) had to make speeches for her army referring to themselves as if they were men, because a woman cannot lead am army, so they had to talk as if they were men.
Another thing to think about is that we see as strong the men who have an alternative masculinity in a world where their masculinity has to be the "I'll protect my woman because she is mine and I'm a strong alpha male who will fight you and drag my woman to my cave" one.as strong, but if they have this kind of masculinity, they are also strong, but if the female lead is not a masculinised woman, we see her as weak because she cannot do what the male lead can do, so I THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART.
Don't get me wrong, I love all kinds of strong female leads from Pauline (The Female Knight and the Emperor) who is physically strong and a badass to Yeninica (or whatever her name was because it's strange, from Seduce the Villain's Father) who is not physically strong but a total badass nevertheless.
Preach sis
Preeaaachhhhh, and also to the one who added additional info! I didn’t read this yet but I already agree
Society needs to stop looking at things from a view that separates people into boxes. I’m not gonna go cuz I feel y’all did a wonderful job explaining!
yes! I agree! I found myself wondering if she's a strong female lead and she is! The way she'll do anything to protect the princess and go out of her way to make sure her fiancé grows up well shows her strength. (づ￣ ³￣)づ
Great ! Thanks for the link, we certainly forget how we still live in the shadows of this culture for many, and sadly still exactly there for many
Gret tedtalk too :)
So there’s been some comments about the FL being a weak female character. I disagree. You’re judging her based on the way society views strength as being masculine and feminity as weakness.
As much as I love stories where the FL wields a sword and takes down the men around her, that isn’t too different from writing a male character, putting a skirt on them and saying, “this is a strong female .” Women come in all types with different types of power and it’s refreshing to see a more feminine strong woman. Although these sorts of FL seem more docile than the typical strong female trope, she’s strong in the way of her mentality, conviction, and love.
For example, a mother who chooses to stay in an abusive relationship to protect her kids is just as strong as one who is able to take her kids and leave.
We need to stop looking at strength as something Purely physical but also internal because that’s where women shine.