I'm getting so sick of major female characters in historical media being incredibly feisty, outspoken and public defenders of women's rights with little to no realistic repercussions. Yes it feels like pandering, yes it's unrealistic and takes me out of the story, yes the dialogue almost always rings false - but beyond all that I think it does such a disservice to the women who lived during those periods. I'm not embarrassed of the women in history who didn't use every chance they had to Stick It To The Man. I'm not ashamed of women who were resigned to or enjoyed their lot in life. They weren't letting the side down by not having and representing modern gender ideals. It says a lot about how you view average ordinary women if the idea of one of your main characters behaving like one makes them seem lame and uninteresting to you.
It also almost always comes down to poor research.
Rather than research the ways subversive women really acted, what they really said, what they actually cared about, the very specific ways in which women used to be treated, dismissed, infantilised etc, we get books and TV shows in which modern words, modern concerns and modern ways of being “a strong woman” are awkwardly squeezed into eras in which they make no sense.
It’s a disservice to the real feminists of that time, to the real women who lived and survived in a system of continuous misogynistic oppression, and the real journey we have travelled to get to where we are, and the long long way we still have to go. Worse, it feeds into the ignorance that breeds that complacency which then leads to a lot of the gains we have made being taken away from us.
