Happy women’s day, lovelies. This is a day to celebrate the struggles and victories of women all over. Whether they are recognized as women, or in the closet with their identity hidden – they deserve a round of applause.
I write about plenty of women and female-identifying characters. It’s long been a passion of mine, ever since I was a child in fact, to see better women identifying characters. Even as an itty-bitty child, I noticed that women were treated differently, often poorly, and that many of their characters were secondary and poorly written.
To this, I would like to offer a story that comes to mind.
Once upon a time, there was a herd of geese in my childhood backyard. Now, if you know anything about geese, you’ll know they’re watchdogs and they can be downright vicious. And these were untrained, relatively wild, geese. They were ‘domestic’, but they bit to give an opinion of themselves.
Well, one day, as this flock grew up, a certain goose distinguished himself. He chased us children (and bit!), herded the flock, and heckled the other geese. We named him Cesar, being little history nerds.
Come one day, the other geese were losing their feathers to Cesar, who was pecking them. So, Cesar was removed from the flock and put in an isolated cage.
It was in this cage that Cesar laid his first egg. Cesar was a female!
To an impressionable little child, this was quite the lesson. Females, women, could be quite badass and territorial. It was a lesson that, truth be told, repeated itself quite often. Often it was the females in the flocks that would stand out, become prized pets, and try and bully all the others.
To me, nature showed me that women, females, could be very much everything males could be, simply because they both had souls and personalities. Women weren’t ‘less than’ or ‘half witted’ or somehow inferior. They were just as present, motivated, and clever as the males. It isn’t nature that makes women ‘inferior’ or ‘second class’, but society.
I could go on a huge rant about how gender norms affect women and how they really just need to go. But for today, I want to keep the focus on women. Let’s celebrate them, their achievements, and see how far as a society we need to go to achieve equity.
I’ve attached a picture here that I’ve recently done. It contains Rita, a martial artist, in a Farfadelian novel I’m working on, and a swan that follows her throughout the story. A swan is not exactly a goose, but they’re quite as badass and vicious, I’ve heard.
I chose this picture because, to me, it shows how women can be completely badass and lead their way, inspired by the power of the women in the natural world.
I hope you celebrate well, and have a great day ❤
Unhinged and unenlightened 