{"id":8455,"date":"2013-08-18T21:28:12","date_gmt":"2013-08-19T01:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starshipnivan.com\/blog\/?p=8455"},"modified":"2013-08-23T13:30:28","modified_gmt":"2013-08-23T17:30:28","slug":"the-iron-madonna-or-kicking-ass-while-female","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/?p=8455","title":{"rendered":"The Iron Madonna or: Kicking Ass While Female"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note:<\/strong> this article first appeared<\/a> as a guest blog post in Scientific American.<\/p>\n

\"Mallory<\/a>I reluctantly acquired a Twitter account as a necessary accoutrement to my Scientific American<\/i> posts.\u00a0 The people I track there fall mostly into two streams: scientists and SFF writers. \u00a0This week, the two intersected, resulting in a minor epiphany.\u00a0 The tributaries were Upsides of Women in Science?<\/a> by neuroscientist SciTriGrrl at Tenure, She Wrote<\/i>; and I Hate Strong Female Characters<\/a> by author Sophia McDougall in the New Statesman<\/i>.<\/p>\n

For those eager to rejoin Twitter lest they miss a hot link, here\u2019s the kernel: the characteristics that McDougall deplores are requirements for the survival of women in science (actually in all endeavors that aren\u2019t explicitly coded \u201cfeminine\u201d).\u00a0 And the permission \u2013 nay, requirement \u2013 to be a strong silent kick-ass may be one of the few upsides of being a non(whiteAnglo)male in a STEM field, though it comes with a heavy load of baggage.<\/p>\n

McDougall follows in the steps of several forerunners (she mis\/names Carina Chocano, but these debates have been going on for a while) and hews to a meaning of the term \u201cstrong female character\u201d as narrow as Margaret Atwood\u2019s definition of science fiction.\u00a0 Within her defined parameters, McDougall argues eloquently that \u201cstrong\u201d female characters in books, movies and comics are pernicious because they devalue all non-heroic behavior (which of course depends on one\u2019s definition of heroism) and limit the range of attributes, actions and interactions available to the character herself.<\/p>\n

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that most SFF works contain a single woman bereft of female kin and friends.\u00a0 To retain her trap-strewn status, such a construct is obliged to be a perfect kick-ass while remaining \u201cwomanly\u201d and focused on the men and their needs: not for her the quirks and angst of a Sherlock Holmes or an Edward Rochester; not for her the loyalty and unquestioned support of sworn brothers.\u00a0 There are the inevitable partial exceptions, the most prominent one being Lara Croft before she got stuffed into normalization corsets.<\/p>\n

By consensus of both supporters and detractors, the standard kick-ass heroine is an extreme manifestation of the strong silent type: Shane with breasts \u2013 and, furthermore, breasts that please and\/or nourish without any demand for a quid pro quo. \u00a0I call such characters Iron Madonnas: a ratcheted-up variation of the Iron Maiden that requires women to be maternal while remaining asexual and literally selfless, like the Christian prototype. \u00a0To give just a few highly visible SFF examples, Arwen, Cordelia Vorkosigan, Sarah Connor, the reboot Uhura and Padm\u00e9 Amidala (until she turns into a floor puddle) are obvious Iron Madonnas; so are most of Miyazaki\u2019s heroines, which is why Mononoke Hime<\/i> is such a landmark work: just the centrality of more than one woman (Mononoke and Eboshi) breaks the mold \u2013 to say nothing of their attributes.<\/p>\n

SciTriGrrl\u2019s article posits that, customary gloom to the contrary, there ARE some upsides to being a woman in STEM.\u00a0 However, most of the pluses she and her commenters list are non-specific to either gender or discipline: following a consuming vocation; flexible if long hours; lack of a dress code.\u00a0\u00a0 The rest, frankly, are a wishlist.\u00a0 Worse yet, they arise from tokenism (\u201cAs the single woman in X you stand out!\u201d \u2013 which means you get to serve and be ignored in tons more committees than a male counterpart, to say nothing of the micro- to mega-aggressions that rain on you as a stand-in for all non-men) or from gender-coded behavior along the lines of \u201cWomen have more personal\/ized interactions and less horn locking!\u201d (as in: being warm and understanding and reaping benefits therefrom).<\/p>\n

To which my retort is, if only.\u00a0 Contrary to SciTriGrrl\u2019s hopeful assertions, women in STEM, regardless of where they are in their career path, have a narrower permitted response spectrum than men.\u00a0 Not only is weeping instant career demolition; so is anger, sarcasm, moodiness, flamboyance, charisma.\u00a0 All, incidentally, are deemed leadership attributes in men and add depth and piquancy to male heroes \u2013 and are also reflected on what\u2019s acceptable in corresponding outerwear.\u00a0 A male mentor is never expected to waste valuable time and gray matter to even hear, let alone tolerate, tales of personal woe.\u00a0 A male faculty member can show up in sweatpants or with hair combed by touching an electric socket, no problemo; and unless he\u2019s non-white or has \u201codd vowels\u201d in his name, he\u2019s never chosen for draining service duties with the reasoning \u201cWe need \u2018diversity\u2019 so we can check off that box in our reports to funding agencies.\u201d\u00a0 Women are called to lead a department or company only when it\u2019s in deep doodoo: not only are their careers deemed more disposable but \u201cas women\u201d they\u2019re considered magically (or genetically) equipped to clean up messes while the men forge ahead with advantageous exit strategies.<\/p>\n

What I just described is the narrowly defined kick-ass heroine excoriated by McDougall et al.\u00a0 The Iron Madonna has been, and remains, the sole viable behavior mode for women in STEM \u2013 in part because we\u2019re still asked to prove non-stop that \u201cWe\u2019re as good as boys.\u201d\u00a0 The stance does not guarantee success or happiness, far from it; it only gives people who do science while non-male the chance to pursue their vocation without handicaps of Harrison Bergeron size.\u00a0 It\u2019s a persona, an armored exoskeleton that must be worn on a planet where toxic molecules are inhaled with each and every breath.<\/p>\n

Which is where the tiny sliver of \u201cadvantage\u201d comes in, if it can be called that: women in this configuration can sometimes dodge the automatic expectation of standard \u201cfeminine\u201d responses.\u00a0 They will never achieve a fraction of the fame, success and authority of male counterparts with a fraction of their dedication and talent; but they may be left alone to dream and shape the dark in small, meagerly funded labs without demands to be den mothers, wear floppy bow ties or make soothing noises (though they still get summarily slapped down if they deviate from the spacetime local academic norms).\u00a0 The real solution, of course, is to make others more multifaceted and human(e) rather than women less so.\u00a0 But that\u2019s still \u201ca consummation devoutly to be wished\u201d even in first-world academia.<\/p>\n

Related articles:<\/b><\/p>\n

Of Federal Research Grants and Dancing Bears<\/a>
\nA Plague on Both Your Houses \u2013 Reprise<\/a>
\nThe Persistent Neoteny of Science Fiction<\/a>
\nThose Who Never Got to Fly<\/a>
\nBridge Struts in Pink Pantalets<\/a>
\nSo, Where Are the Outstanding Women in X?<\/a><\/p>\n

Image:<\/strong> Gina Carano as Mallory Kane in Haywire<\/em> (Photo: Associated Press)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: this article first appeared as a guest blog post in Scientific American. I reluctantly acquired a Twitter account as a necessary accoutrement to my Scientific American posts.\u00a0 The people I track there fall mostly into two streams: scientists and SFF writers. \u00a0This week, the two intersected, resulting in a minor epiphany.\u00a0 The tributaries were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10,13,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biology-and-culture","category-science","category-science-fiction","category-writing-and-literature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}