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She had to have been better than any other woman who ever wanted to design a monster. She had to have been the only one worthy enough to enter that boys’ club. This way of thinking is a maladaptation women have developed over the years to be able to deal with the fact that we’re getting passed on for jobs because we’re female. You force yourself to believe that there just haven’t been any women good enough for the job, rather than accept the fact that the entire system just doesn’t want you in it. Anyone who flouts that system must be an outlier.
That’s the danger in having so few women acknowledged and hired in the film industry. Instead of looking at these women and thinking “Yes, I can get there, too!” girls can just as easily look at them all alone in a sea of men and think “They must have been perfect to get there. I never will.” It’s like being a bystander watching Odysseus sending an arrow through all those axe heads. There’s no room for faults or flaws.
When you try your very best and it’s good, but you know, good for a girl, you need to become more than yourself, more than human.
We need women to be allowed to be simply good at what they do. We need them on set, in meetings, behind cameras and pens and paintbrushes. We need them to be themselves, to be human: ordinary and flawed. That way, more girls can see them and think “I can do that.” That way, no one can look at them and say “She got that job because she’s beautiful. She just got that gig because she slept with someone.”
Women don’t need an idol to worship.68 We need a beacon to walk toward.
I’m worthy of respect, no matter what I look like.
Women don’t get to stomp around like Godzilla. Someone will just ask if you’re on your period.
Hysteria is a ridiculous, bogus medical term that is still in use today. It originated with an ancient Greek belief that all disease started in the uterus, a belief that many Republican lawmakers continue to uphold.
Women don’t get to be colossal monsters. Women don’t get to fuck shit up.
Readers just saw a talented and beautiful lady getting recognition for something that she did. But, as they say, to the privileged, equality feels like oppression.
At what point are women forgiven for not being supernaturally resilient Amazons who spend all their waking hours fighting injustice?
“Everyone is beautiful. Some choose to share it, while others hide it. It’s much better to share!”
Everyone deserves the catharsis of seeing themselves crushing a building. Everyone deserves to see themselves with terrible power and agency. Everyone also deserves to see themselves battling the creatures with terrible power and agency. We need female characters, asexual characters, fat characters, nonbinary characters, queer characters, characters of color, disabled characters, trans characters as both monsters and the heroes fighting them.
