I just finished reading an article on NPR lamenting the gender confusion of our current pop culture heros, including the epitome of cutting edge femme, Madonna. References as varying as Katniss, from "The Hunger Games," to Lizbeth, "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo," to pop-shocker rapper Nicki Minaj are cited as examples of girls bending gender stereotypes for their own protection.
I'd argue that it's not just for protection, but for success.
The other night I was watching "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" with a buddy of mine. (full disclosure, I've read all three books about half a dozen times each, and was actually pretty excited to couple my favorite books with Daniel Craig) He asked my why I was so engrossed in the story, as I was clearly more interested in watching the movie than an any idle chitchat. "I think I'm Lizbeth," was all I could respond. At a first surfsce glance, the comparison seems laughable; I'm s clean cut Marine, she's a tattooed and pierced computer genius. But strip away the leather and tattoos, and the uniform and no-hair-out-of-place bun, and you have two strikingly similar women. Women who exist in a man's world, women who are more comfortable in solitude, women with unspeakable pasts, women who long for affection, but know that they have a higher calling. Women who may be a little too smart and a little too independent for their own good. Women who men will go to for everything but bringing home to their parents or raising their children.
Personally, I applaud these heros, for giving the modern successful single woman a voice. For asserting that hard work wand determination, not true loves kiss, conquers all. And that getting a job, and taking control of your destiny, even if it means wrestling it to the ground, is sexier than waiting in a bell tower shrieking as some dimwitted prince slays the dragon to save us. "The Hunger Games," is the refreshing anti-"Twilight", a celebration of strength in independence rather than feminine despair and helplessness.
But back to the article. Near the end of it, the author asserts, "It all comes back to the old problem of equality never quite being as close as it seems. Women may be moving into brave new roles, but they're not necessarily doing so in community with each other or with a clearly articulated politics to support the changes they're going through."
Arguably, women will never do this "in community with each other", as their whole reason for entering these roles is to break from community. It may take a village to raise a child, but it takes solitude to find success.
Successful women will never be part of the boys club. Controversy is surrounding the current CEO of IBM (who is.... Wait for it..... A WOMAN) joining a particular golf club. The media still comments on Hillary Clinton's hair. In talking about my time in the Marine Corps to the one I call the "mean mean man", I pontificated a "what if it had been different." He asserted a perspective I never thought about. "You were the first in their world, and here you come running faster and knowing more about everything and doing their job. Did you expect them to greet you with 'oh yay, we're so glad you're here?' You're an achiever, and a doer. And most people don't like that. But fuck them. I'm proud of you." He went on to laud my accomplishments, and get more excited than I am about the prospects for my post-school future. It was strange that this was he validation I needed in this change. That after everything I've done, and still being rejected from the boys club, I could possibly kick ass in the mean mean mans world.
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