Stop Underestimating the Power of Small-Scale Change

Hanna Alwine Opinions Editor

Growing up as a young girl in America, my own personal feminism has developed alongside larger movements. My first experiences with feminism were largely mediated by the strong female characters I encountered in the media I consumed. I spent large parts of my childhood reading my way through the public library’s youth fiction section. Though my parents were self-professed feminists who pointed me toward female-centered literature, female main characters remained few and far between. When I did encounter female main characters they tended to fit a certain trope — they were headstrong, physically adept, emotionally closed off, smart, tough, and stoic. They were fighters. They were rebels. They shoved their feelings down into the soles of their scuffed-up combat boots. Most importantly — they were not like other girls. These characters — Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games, Hermione Granger from Harry Potter, and Kat Stratford from 10 Things I Hate About You to name a few — acted as molds for the woman I aspired to grow into. They were independent. They were cool. They were completely and utterly badass. They were successful, they were smart, they were respected by their male peers. While these were important qualities for a young girl to see represented in the media, they often came at the expense of putting other women down. Throughout their narratives, Katniss, Hermione, and even Kat continually distance themselves from the other female characters within their narratives, expressing distaste for their adherence to values traditionally associated with femininity — interest in fashion and homemaking and boys. In separating themselves from traditionally feminine structures, they implied that to be accepted as a strong and capable woman you must, to a certain extent, reject objects, fashions, and ideas that have long been associated with femininity.

College has given me the distance to evaluate the ways in which such narratives shaped my childhood understanding of femininity. I am not alone in my