Lemon's Top Five Strong Female Role Models for Young Women, Fictional Category

When you’re complimented on something, how do you take it?

I haven’t been paying much attention to how my guy friends do this, but among the ladies, it’s very common for them to say thank you and accept it, but very uncommon for any of us to believe the nice things that are said about us. We hear them, but for a lot of us, actually incorporating them into the way we view ourselves doesn’t even really seem like an option. Everything bad or mean we hear or think about ourselves gets stored away forever, but the nice things don’t stick for more than a few minutes.

I should note that when I say “we,” I mostly mean everybody else, because I actually have no problem with this (most days). I take compliments as confirmation of all the awesome things I already think about myself. There’s a whole other set of problems associated with that, of course (borderline arrogance?), but I have to say that I think it’s incredibly important to teach young women to view themselves as deserving of the praise they receive. They need to know that the good things have just as much validity as the bad things, and even if they want to choose to filter them a little, it is an absolute outrage that so many young women are incapable of believing anything truly good about themselves. The constant comparison to other girls, celebrities and images in the media, as well as the overwhelming cultural emphasis on appearance make it so that no compliment about looks ever really rings true, and no compliment about anything else matters.

I credit a lot of my skill in this area to books. Find characters you relate to, respect them, and it gets easier to respect yourself.

I was recently home in Seattle after surprising Papa Lemon for Father’s Day, which meant that I was with the half of my books that don’t live in Portland. And it seems like as good a day as any to talk about some of the books that made it possible for me to believe that I am smart, funny, and deserve respect. I will also credit my parents, of course, because they probably have more to do with my self-image than the books do. But I do consider these books influential, and I think it’s maybe even more important for young women than for anyone else to be able to find themselves in books. It helps them see themselves as valuable, and gives them something to relate to in a positive way. So. Here are my Top Five Strong Female Role Models for Young Women (Fictional Category).

1. Ella, from Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

This story is a retelling of Cinderella in which the protagonist has been cursed since birth with obedience. The fairy who made her this way meant it to be a good thing-- girls were supposed to be obedient. But of course this can be abused, and Ella spends her whole life finding ways to be herself in spite of it. Of course eventually she falls in love and has to figure out how to break the curse so she can be with the Prince (which involves saving the kingdom, in an entirely relational sort of way).

It wasn’t until thinking about this recently that I realized how incredible this story was. When I was a little girl, I loved it because it was Cinderella. Now I love it because it’s about a young woman who knows she needs to make her own choices in a situation where she can’t, and she fights to be able to do what she wants, which is to protect the people she loves.

2. Cimorene, from the Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia Wrede

Also a sort of twisted fairy tale set-up. Young Lemon was not as widely-read as adult Lemon.

In this quartet, Cimorene is a princess who just wants to do things that are interesting. But princesses, in this world, are typically beautiful, vapid and constantly plotting ideas to put themselves in harm’s way so they can be rescued by a prince or an industrious knight. Cimorene wants more than that. She wants adventure, which she gets, of course, and ends up saving her true love, their son and entire kingdoms in the process. She’s badass, and these books are hilarious.

3. Hermione Granger, from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter would have died in book one if it weren’t for Hermione. Everyone knows that. At the very least he’d be stuck in that chamber with the logic puzzle and the potions until someone else came and rescued him. She’s the brains and nothing would get done without her. Still, she has to go through a process of learning to accept herself. She’s always been smart and hardworking, and her fellow students kind of hate her for it. But everyone grows up and moves on to worrying about more important things, like Voldemort living inside her best friend.

Oh, and that’s another thing: Being with Harry and Ron all the time puts Hermione in kind of a boys’ club, which is fine, but she keeps up healthy female friendships as well, which completely baffle the boys.  Hermione is the only one among them who completely understands the importance of how someone feels, which is something they learn from as the series progresses-- they wouldn’t have been able to find the Horcruxes without Hermione’s ability to empathize. I’m going to stop now. Don’t let me talk about Harry Potter.

4. Anne Shirley from the Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery

Not typically feminist, I’ll give you that. Anne’s story includes the fact that at the time she couldn’t be married and have a job, among other forms of oppression. But here are a couple of things that put her on my list:

1) She goes to college. Lots of her friends went to school so they could be teachers, which is all well and good. But women, for the most part, were not going to college then. She was the first girl from the Island to get a B.A., and she didn’t let anything get in her way-- not lack of money or gossipy old women or homesickness.

2) She doesn’t let anybody stop her from being who she is. Her caretakers expect a boy, and the girl she turns out to be is entirely overwhelming to nearly everyone around her. But she stays who she is, with her insane imagination, her exuberant love for everything and everyone, and, of course, the hair. She’s unapologetically herself, and she finds her place because of it.

3) During a recent reread, I was struck by the emphasis on Anne making her own way. She’s repeatedly told by the most important women in her life that it’s important for her to be able to make her own living and not rely on a husband, that she is capable of as much as any man, and that even though falling in love is a wonderful thing, she is loved and valued whether she gets married or not.

5. Meg Murray, from the Kairos series by Madeleine L'Engle

Most popularly, Meg is the star of A Wrinkle in Time. She’s brilliant in some ways and an idiot in others, and she grows into a capable, confident woman as the series progresses. But she does not start out that way, which I think was my favorite thing about Meg growing up. She gave me hope.

Meg has to rescue her father in her first installment, her brother in the second, and the world from nuclear war in the third, all with help from friends, family and various fantastic creatures along the way. She’s one of my favorite fictional protagonists of all time, exactly because she’s so relatable: her failings and strengths are both very real. She never quite knows exactly what to do or how to solve the problems in front of her, but she knows that it’s important to value every person, to love, and to encourage a sense of worth and purpose in everyone she meets, which always gets her there eventually.

There are my recommendations, if you’re looking for books to suggest for your sisters, nieces, young friends, etc. Happy reading!

  -Lemon

Meg Wolitzer, Where Have You Been All of My Life?

"People usually thought we were a 'good' couple, and I suppose that once, a long, long time ago, back when the cave painting were first sketched on the rough walls at Lascaux, back when the earth was uncharted and everything seemed hopeful, this was true. But soon enough we moved from the glory and self-love of any young couple to the green-algae swamp of what is delicately known as "later life."

A few weeks ago when Lemon and I were at work (we work together, live in the same room, write this blog together, and we still choose to hang out with each other everyday) we were perusing our respective Amazon accounts (Where do we work?! It’s fine, we really do work), and Lemon brought up a new book that sounded awesome: The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer. As we read some of the reviews we concluded that Wolitzer was probably a literary soul mate of ours and we couldn’t figure out why we hadn’t read anything by her before. We took to reading Amazon reviews of her other novels almost immediately and learned that basically every single one sounded fantastic. Lucky for us, we had a planned book-buying date the following day where we both purchased multiple novels by our soon-to-be favorite author of the moment.

Lemon read The Uncoupling first, which I can’t wait to read myself, while I read The Wife. I debated whether or not I wanted to review this book because it focuses on the relationship between two people who have been married for forty years. Seeing as how I am currently unmarried (at least for another 123 days), I wasn’t sure I would have much insight to bring to this topic because I obviously know nothing about being married. As I thought about the book more I realized that there was a lot more to the plot and the themes were not mutually exclusive to those in a marriage relationship.

I don’t want to reveal too much about the novel in this post because there are some pretty major plot twists, so I’m going to be fairly general here. The novel begins with a woman, Joan Castleman, deciding, on an airplane, flying over the ocean, sitting next to her husband of forty years, that she wants a divorce. As Joan recounts the past forty years, the humiliation and betrayal she has suffered at the hands of her husband’s actions, the stifling of her own dreams and aspirations that have come as a result of her marriage to this man, I was reminded of the Kate Chopin’s tragic novella, The Awakening. Side note: I adore The Awakening, so the similarities were enticing, but I digress. There was a huge difference between Chopin’s story and Wolitzer’s. Wolitzer’s suffering housewife was married in the the late 50s with the early parts of her marriage being largely in the 1960s. That being said, unlike Edna in Chopin’s story, Wolitzer’s protagonist had other social options than to get married. She didn’t need marriage to secure her place in society, and she didn’t need it in order to be successful in the eyes of her culture. She chose marriage, and she chose her husband, yet at 40,000 feet in the air, after years of a difficult marriage, Joan has an awakening of her own.

As Joan’s perspective of the past forty years are described in the novel, the reader can’t help but root for this strong and brilliant woman to leave this man who is uninterested in monogamy or anything else self-sacrificing. The reader, like many other characters in the novel, see her potential that has been squelched by this “terrible man.” I found myself guilty of this surface-level reading up until the novel’s end when Wolitzer’s forces you to look at the situation, at the Castleman’s, more complexly.

Sure, Joan’s husband could’ve, in a lot of ways, been a better husband, but she concludes that this situation she has found herself in, this marriage, was not something that happened to her, it was something she chose. The treatment she endured within her marriage was also something she chose to approach passively, the decision to not pursue her dreams, to ride on the laurels of her husband’s success thinking it enough to satisfy her own ambitions, was a mistake she made. She recognizes the responsibility each individual has in their current situations. Obviously, we all come into contact with people who are selfish, or self-absorbed and aren’t looking out for our own best interest but if that person gains significant influence and say in our lives, that is, most often times, our own doing. We are never innocent in our situations because we are all broken humans who fail to love others and love ourselves as much as we should.

At the end of the novel Joan concludes that she is going to make up for the past forty years, leave her husband, and finally begin her life, ousting him for all the wrong he’s done in their marriage. The thought of such an action is completely satisfying, to both Joan and the reader, but the time comes for her to act on this and she doesn’t follow through. One could conclude that Joan is simply following the trend she has set for the past forty years in her marriage, a natural passivity and desire to remain neutral in her husband’s actions, but this is not the case in her final act of the novel. She recognizes this satisfaction is fleeting and would never make up for the fact that she has fault in the situation. In the greater scheme, revealing her husband to be the man he truly is wouldn’t really satisfy the disappointment she feels for not pursuing her dreams and her talents.

We all make choices; we can blame those involved with our choices when our lives don’t turn out the way we thought they should, or we can recognize our own hand in it. Taking responsibility in our circumstances allows for real change and self-examination rather than fleeting self-satisfaction. I don’t yet know the weight of what it means to weave your life into another’s for the rest of your life, and there are many things within this book that I don’t feel I can speak to, but I know that marriage is a decision made by two people, and we can’t live our lives in blame of the other and expect to grow.  

Kansas

We Can Do Better: Zadie Smith's On Beauty

All right, let’s talk about beauty.

I can’t come close to claiming authority on how black women feel in a culture full of white beauty standards, but I can talk about how it feels to exist as a white woman in a culture full of impossible beauty standards. Part of me doesn’t want to write this because it feels like beating a dead horse, but Kansas and I had a conversation the other day that made it clear the horse isn’t dead yet but definitely deserves to be.

We were talking about cellulite, and how there’s an insanely large industry built around getting rid of it. Companies who have a profit to make have successfully convinced us that a) cellulite is unattractive, b) having it is something to be ashamed of, and c) getting rid of it is possible. And none of those things are true. As far as we can tell, all women have some cellulite, no matter their weight or build, and not a single product has ever been proven to get rid of it. I’m five feet and seven inches tall, solidly above average, and whether I weigh 100 pounds or 130 pounds, whether I am solid muscle or haven’t exercised in a year, I still have cellulite. Which, I will be honest, has never bothered me, because of my superhuman self-esteem, probably, but that doesn’t mean that seeing celeb beach bods on tabloid covers denounced for something only Photoshop has control over doesn’t drive me a little up the wall.

So I read a book like Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, and while there are a lot of themes at play other than beauty, I am drawn to the universal insecurities that all women have from being constantly told they are not, physically, good enough. The novel tells the story of a family in the aftermath of the father’s affair. Howard is a white, English college professor, and his wife, Kiki, is black and less educated. Their three children embrace varying sides of their heritages. Race, class, education and belonging are all explored, but noting that Smith chose to title her work On Beauty, passages like the following stuck with me the most:

“This was why Kiki had dreaded having girls: she knew she wouldn’t be able to protect them from self-disgust. To that end she had tried banning television in the early years, and never had a lipstick or a woman’s magazine crossed the threshold of the Belsey home to Kiki’s knowledge, but these and other precautionary measures had made no difference. It was in the air, or so it seemed to Kiki, this hatred of women and their bodies-- it seeped in with every draught in the house; people brought it home on their shoes, they breathed it in off their newspapers. There was no way to control it.”

I think most women feel the same way, when they stop to think about it. It’s Barbie’s world, we’re just living in it. It’s a dangerous way of thinking: we should be perfect. If we aren’t, we deserve nothing more or less than hate, from ourselves and from others. Affairs like Howard’s, then, are to be expected, and when they happen it’s only a confirmation of what so many women already believe about themselves.

Claire, the woman with whom Howard had the original affair, is interestingly optimistic about the future of women’s self-image (long quote coming, but stick with it, I promise it’s worth it):

“And were they still like that, [Claire} wondered-- these new girls, this new generation? Did they still only want to be wanted? Were they still objects of desire rather than desiring subjects? Thinking of the girls sat cross-legged with her in this basement, of Zora in front of her, of the angry girls who shouted their poetry from the stage-- no, she could see no serious change. Still starving themselves, still reading women’s magazines that explicitly hate women, still cutting themselves with little knives in places they think can’t be seen, still faking their orgasms with men they dislike, still lying to everybody about everything. Strangely, Kiki Belsey had always struck Claire as a wonderful anomaly in exactly this sense... her beauty was awesome, almost unspeakable, but more than this she radiated an essential female nature Claire had already imagined in her poetry-- natural, honest, powerful, unmediated, full of something like genuine desire. A goddess of the everyday... For Claire, Kiki was proof that a new kind of woman had come into the world as promised, as advertised.”  

But while Claire’s optimism is encouraging, the overall conclusion is that it’s unwarranted. It is clear from the rest of the narrative that Kiki doesn't think of herself this way at all. She sees herself now as overweight, undesirable, unworthy in comparison with the women her husband is surrounded by. Her daughter Zora is nineteen and the inevitable heir of the same cycle. She is beautiful now, but won’t always be, and her intelligence and force of will make men react negatively to her, choosing other beautiful women whose personalities offer less resistance to their single-minded goal. Kiki knows that there is always beauty to be found, but never will it stay with one woman for her whole lifetime. Claire's idea of the "essential feminine nature" is a wonderful one, relying on the best characteristics of humanity rather than anything stereotypically feminine, and it is something for all of us to pursue. But until our value is found outside our beauty, that ideal nature will never be possible. 

-Lemon 

Accurate Renderings of the Post-Collegiate Human Experience According to Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Marriage Plot

“There are some books that reached through the noise of life to grab you by the collar and speak only of the truest things.”

This book holds a special place in my heart that I recognize won’t have quite the same effect with many who will read this post. Jeffrey Eugenides’ latest novel focuses on a girl in her early twenties in the midst of finishing her undergraduate degree in English and writing her senior thesis on feminist literary theory and female authors. I read this book a few months ago while putting off my own senior thesis on feminist literary theory, the only thing standing between me and my BA in English. To say I could relate to the protagonist would be a grave understatement.

When I read a book and decide I love it (often deeming it my favorite book as I have a tendency to use hyperbolic speech à la Liz Lemon), I base my opinion of the book on a few different categories. Typically, the more tragic the ending the more I love the book. This is not because I am a deeply unhappy person but because I believe that tragedies and disappointments in life reveal the most about a person’s character and are the best teachers. However, as I said, I am not an unhappy person. Life is often difficult but accompanied by ever-present symbols of hope. Hopeful, tragic endings are the best kind of endings. Also, and this is an obvious one, I love an author who can make their plot and their characters, in whatever genre of fiction I’m reading, believable. I am not equating believable with realistic; a character who behaves in accordance with the world the author has created is a character I want to read about. Another category I simply can’t ignore is that I want to read beautiful sentences. I’m not saying that a book comprised of sentences you don’t ever think about highlighting or underlining can’t be a well-written or concise piece of literature; rather, I’m saying that a book like that will never be my favorite book. Sentences are important. Eugenides is a champion of all of these categories, both in The Marriage Plot and in his two previous novels. While I don’t consider this a vital category in determining my level of affection for a novel, I love a book that is filled with nods and references to classic and modern literature. Reading Eugenides is everything a literature nerd could ever want.

In this novel, Eugenides accurately captures life after college, at least in my opinion. The rotating first-person narration gives insight into male and female characters navigating life post graduation, and Eugenides proves himself in his ability to accurately portray this unique and transitional phase in the lives of young adults. Upon graduating from college, after having most of your life carefully mapped out and straightforward and then entering four years of feigned independence while still in a controlled environment and strict routine, the young adult is thrust into, essentially, the rest of their lives, realizing that all the books they read and professors they listened to didn’t necessarily equip them with a comprehensive set of lifeskills. Post-collegiate human life is chaotic while conjunctively hopeful. There is a sense of having no control while simultaneously feeling like every possibility is before you and within your reach. It is then the job of the college graduate, 20-something to make a choice. They can continue in chaos which will lead to the embracing of the numerous possibilities ahead of them or they can cling to the first picture of stability they see. For many, including Eugenides’ protagonist, that stability isn’t all that stable, the predictability isn’t all that beneficial. Eugenides captures the dichotomy of early adulthood as he emphasizes the importance of embracing the chaos, no matter how conflicting that may seem to your previous twenty-two years of life.

I love this book. I read through it in a matter of days (when I should have been writing my thesis) and found my nearest book store so as to pick up his previous two novels, The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex (to be reviewed in the near future). I was astounded by the honesty he assigned to this stage in life while offering conclusions so necessary for readers of all ages to hear. His other novels offer compelling thoughts on vastly different subjects while maintaining the unique quality and lessons to be learned in adolescence and early-adult life. I’ll say it again, he writes beautifully, and it is well worth your time to pick up something of his.

“In Madeleine's face was a stupidity Mitchell had never seen before. It was the stupidity of all normal people. It was the stupidity of the fortunate and the beautiful, of everybody who got what they wanted in life and so remained unremarkable.”

-Kansas