Why I don’t like kick-ass heroines
Jane Dougherty presents a thought provoking article about the other side of female characters, the “kick-ass.” Psychotic, cold creatures, sometimes too much bad-ass can be a bad thing. Love this!
Originally posted on Jane Dougherty Writes:
There was a time not so long ago when girls in fiction got a pretty raw deal. Raw in the sense that if they stepped out of line, didn’t conform to social norms and expectations they got severely put down. Often in a permanent fashion. Think of Emma Bovary, Cathy Earnshaw, Jo in Little Women (the idea of her being yoked to that old German gave me gooseflesh when I was a kid), Katy of What Katy Did. They might have kicked against the traces, but they all ended up dead, crippled or married to a fate worse than death.
Women were allowed to dream but God help them if they got what they dreamed for.
Recently we have seen the rise of the ‘kick-ass’ heroine. Women, if they are to feature in the number one slot of a novel are advised to conform to a different model. It helps…
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