I have a lot of thoughts about this! I feel like i should reread the article and then what you wrote and thennn post, but whatever. I'm going off more of what you wrote here than what was in the article, because I find what you said really interesting, and I'm trying to figure out how to put my thoughts into, like, words.
I come at this from a weird angle, because I've legitimately come to realize that I don't remember most of my childhood, which somewhat scares me, but that's okay. But I had Barbies and dolls and all of that, and I think, in some ways, I am secretly more of a girly girl than I actually am. In terms of the fact that I used to love to try and paint flowers on my nails and that jazz, and I was always kind of envious of the girl who wore high heels and skirts in elementary school, though tbh I feel like I remember having conversations with my mom about how she was sort of a slut or something, idekkkk, lol elementary school drama, she was such a bitch to me. Getting sidetracked. The point is, like, I liked things like that, but I distinctly remember judging her for it. My favorite outfit was a pantssuit-ish thing I got at Marshalls that had leopard trim Iif I ever find a picture, I will share, I know they exist somewhere); but tha's also where things get sort of interesting, because I tended to lean towards pants and shorts and not really like dresses, and my best friend in kindergarten was Derrick, and we played with Tinker Toys and Legos and water guns, and like. Caitlin is not a girly girl, at all. When it comes down down to it, thinking it over, I'm pretty split between girl/guy best friends, but, like, in terms of people I consider best best best friends it's more guys than girls. And I feel like I have a lot I could analyze about that, because I - I tend to find guys more reliable, because I don't trust girls to always be there / not disappear on me when I need them. Lol family issues, maybe. But I'm with you on the ways that you're against the stereotype - I am most definitely not overemotional in the real sense of the word, I mean maybe I am sometimes when my life is all explodey, but I think that's acceptable and understandable, and while I have my personal brand of emotional crazy, it's not what I would think of as typical 'feminine' overemotional...ness. On the other hand, I couldn't get much more stereotypically ridiculously feminine re: Hans, re; C in the early stages of our friendship, re: B for parts of the past three years. SO....idk. All my other arguments might pale in comparison to that. But that's the thing and I feel like that's kind of the point re: female characters, is that they don't show both sides of that. They don't show that strong wonderful women are also weak and insecure as shit about some things. And so I think somewhere along the way it ended up making more sense to go for the male characters, to see their strengths and identify with them and project the insecurities onto them, to figure they probably went through the same things but didn't let us (their audience, their friends, the viewers, whatever) see. And that's kind of how I've always seen it, in some ways, I think. Is that there is all this stuff under the surface for them, but with a lot of female characters I just kind of feel like..."oh, okay, so you do the omg boy thing and don't do the strong thing", idk if that makes sense.
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I come at this from a weird angle, because I've legitimately come to realize that I don't remember most of my childhood, which somewhat scares me, but that's okay. But I had Barbies and dolls and all of that, and I think, in some ways, I am secretly more of a girly girl than I actually am. In terms of the fact that I used to love to try and paint flowers on my nails and that jazz, and I was always kind of envious of the girl who wore high heels and skirts in elementary school, though tbh I feel like I remember having conversations with my mom about how she was sort of a slut or something, idekkkk, lol elementary school drama, she was such a bitch to me. Getting sidetracked. The point is, like, I liked things like that, but I distinctly remember judging her for it. My favorite outfit was a pantssuit-ish thing I got at Marshalls that had leopard trim Iif I ever find a picture, I will share, I know they exist somewhere); but tha's also where things get sort of interesting, because I tended to lean towards pants and shorts and not really like dresses, and my best friend in kindergarten was Derrick, and we played with Tinker Toys and Legos and water guns, and like. Caitlin is not a girly girl, at all. When it comes down down to it, thinking it over, I'm pretty split between girl/guy best friends, but, like, in terms of people I consider best best best friends it's more guys than girls. And I feel like I have a lot I could analyze about that, because I - I tend to find guys more reliable, because I don't trust girls to always be there / not disappear on me when I need them. Lol family issues, maybe. But I'm with you on the ways that you're against the stereotype - I am most definitely not overemotional in the real sense of the word, I mean maybe I am sometimes when my life is all explodey, but I think that's acceptable and understandable, and while I have my personal brand of emotional crazy, it's not what I would think of as typical 'feminine' overemotional...ness. On the other hand, I couldn't get much more stereotypically ridiculously feminine re: Hans, re; C in the early stages of our friendship, re: B for parts of the past three years. SO....idk. All my other arguments might pale in comparison to that. But that's the thing and I feel like that's kind of the point re: female characters, is that they don't show both sides of that. They don't show that strong wonderful women are also weak and insecure as shit about some things. And so I think somewhere along the way it ended up making more sense to go for the male characters, to see their strengths and identify with them and project the insecurities onto them, to figure they probably went through the same things but didn't let us (their audience, their friends, the viewers, whatever) see. And that's kind of how I've always seen it, in some ways, I think. Is that there is all this stuff under the surface for them, but with a lot of female characters I just kind of feel like..."oh, okay, so you do the omg boy thing and don't do the strong thing", idk if that makes sense.