{"id":862,"date":"2009-09-14T22:00:04","date_gmt":"2009-09-15T05:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/?p=862"},"modified":"2010-07-20T08:18:15","modified_gmt":"2010-07-20T15:18:15","slug":"what-is-the-heroines-journey-part-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/2009\/09\/what-is-the-heroines-journey-part-iii\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the Heroine’s Journey? (part III)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I will make one personal caveat before I start: despite much screeching and near-hysterical insistence that “man” automatically equates to (or conflates with) “human,” the delightfully fascinating Language Log<\/a> and Grammarphobia<\/a> have conclusively proven (through both common sense and examination of historical literary precedence) this is not actually the case. That being so, it amuses me to use “heroine” and “woman” the exact same way the conservative (dare I say: reactionary?) grammar mavins would insist on using the equally specific words “hero” and “man.” I shall, therefore, be using the term “heroine” in an equal opportunity sense, including both heroic male, as well as female, protagonists under that rubric. <\/p>\n

Personal Independence<\/h2>\n

For me, this is perhaps the most important element within a personally satisfying fictional heroine. As a child who spent time in a Roman Catholic country, as well as several states in the Southern US, I had the bemused belief that being married meant the woman was somehow horrifically consumed<\/i> by, or nearly absorbed into the man. She had no outside job nor income any more; she was the housemaid, cook, nanny, and breeder. She had no independent personality: she often lost her true name and family, becoming Mrs. (husband’s name) rather than a person in her own right; she was ceremonially absorbed into the man’s family through her father giving her away to the groom at the wedding; and was consequently generally regarded as the man’s property, or “taken.” She had no future; if he tired of her he could take a prettier mistress or divorce her, while the reverse was certainly not the case — and she knew<\/i> it, which led to her accepting poor (and sometimes atrocious) treatment from her husband in an effort to keep him from dumping her penniless on the street.<\/p>\n

That was what I saw, and so I swore to myself as a child that I’d never<\/i> do so foolish a thing as to sell myself so to any man. Through the years I’ve continued to do my best to maintain my independence, even when it caused issues. I remember with amusement a single example: while living in Oklahoma I set up a joint checking account for household expenses with my then-boyfriend. I filled out the name and address form with my name first, and my boyfriend’s name second. When the checks arrived, the teller had “helpfully” swapped the names, so the man’s name came first — even though our surnames were different, and it was clear we were not married! Needless to say, the bank reprinted all those checks at their<\/i> cost.<\/p>\n

While I still think this is a surprisingly under-mentioned and critically important gender issue, I’m not quite so furiously adamant about it now. I understand some women truly want to be married, and it’s their choice, not mine. However, I shan’t ever be engaging in it; as Mae West famously noted: “Marriage is a great institution, but I’m not ready for an institution yet.”<\/p>\n

Further, over the years several of my friends and lovers have, and still use, the term “fiercely independent” in regards to me — not always as a compliment. ;) What that means for me as a reader is that passive protagonists (whether strong, lovely, clever, or otherwise) who need constant physical or mental rescue by their beaus simply don’t interest me. Likewise I’m not attracted to someone who cannot conceive of themselves as anything outside of their relationship with a man. I like my fictional heroines to be how I think women should be in this world: at the very least<\/i> capable of thinking and speaking for themselves, and doing their best to support themselves financially. Financial independence is, after all, a powerful metaphor for a strong and independently minded woman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I will make one personal caveat before I start: despite much screeching and near-hysterical insistence that “man” automatically equates to (or conflates with) “human,” the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,3,21,5,8,12,1,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-firestarter","category-anthropology","category-book-review","category-ethics-questions","category-feminism","category-library","category-uncategorized","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1910,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862\/revisions\/1910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}