The Problem with Women

My husband, Troy, is a writer, and has just finished a book that we are hoping will be picked up by a publishing company sometime this year. Just getting to this point in his career has been a long, difficult journey. He's had to submit his book to countless agencies and go to convention after convention putting himself and his name out there, hoping that an agent would finally take a chance on him. During this time, Troy's met authors such as L.E. Modesitt, George R.R. Martin, Brandon Sanderson, and many other talented authors that have shared with him how they got into the business and what publishing houses are looking for in a writer.

It's been my dream as an English teacher to have an author talk to one of my classes, and last week, my 8th grade Pre-A.P. class was honored by getting to talk to author Gerald Brandt via FaceTime. Brandt talked to us about his writing process, his failures and successes, and his novel, The Courier. Troy finally came through!

In Brandt's breakout novel, protagonist Kris, a 16 year old motorcycle courier, finds herself fighting for her life after accepting a job that put her in the middle of a murder scene.  Brandt explained to the class that the idea of The Courier was built around the thought of creating a female character that kicked major butt, and didn't need the help of another character (especially a male character) to save her. Even as a father of two boys, Brandt was tired of reading novels that had weak female leads and set out in this novel to prove that a woman doesn't need a man to fight her battles.

This got me thinking about how many novels I could honestly list that had a strong female character. The first that came to mind was Scarlet O'Hara from Gone with the Wind, then Jane Eyre from Jane Eyre,  and most recently Lisbeth Salander from The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo (not recommended for my class to read). So besides Kris, from The Courier, four-- only four novels have a strong female lead that didn't need a man to fit their battles. There might have been men in them, but the men had no influence on the outcome of the story: Scarlet would have fought for Tara, regardless of Rhett Butler; Jane would have stayed virtuous and independent, despite Mr. Rochester; and no matter what Lisbeth would have killed her father and brought down his empire (still not recommended for the students in my class).

This brings me to wonder why we have new female protagonists that have to have help (usually male help) in order to save the day, world, vampirism (is that a thing)? What's even more surprising is that these weak, female characters are being written by women. This also makes me wonder if feminism is regressing in some way.

Class, tell me: Do you think that Brandt is right and that it's time to start writing stronger, female characters? Or explain why you feel like women are being written to need help? Do you feel like it's only women that are being written to need help now, or do all characters lately have some sort of support in their stories? Is the meaning of what being a hero is changing?