Tag: feminism

Why I love haunted houses

This is the speech I gave at my local library this past week. I’m still working on this week’s post, so please en

Hello. My name is Nicole Luttrell. I’m a local speculative fiction writer. That means I write about ghosts, dragons and spaceships. Sometimes I write about the ghosts of dragons on spaceships. 

I want to start by thanking Dianne and everyone here at the Butler Library for hosting this talk. And frankly, for being here and doing the job they do. Being a librarian has never been easy, but it seems to get harder all the time. 

I’ve written a fantasy series called Woven, which I have copies of today, about a prince who weaves visions and a princess who spins light. I also write a science fiction series called Sation 86. It’s about murder, politics and possibly the end of mankind on the station of First Contact. I have a QR code here so you can get the first book in that series free. 

But what I love writing most is horror. 

This month is my time to shine, yes. 

I became a writer for the same reason most people do. I love stories. I love reading. And that love has been well fed within these very walls for most of my life. One day it occured to me that someone had to write books the same way someone had to build cars or wait tables. Someone had to do it, so why couldn’t that be me? So I came to the library, and I found the section upstairs with the books about writing books. And there I found a copy of the Writer’s Market. 

If you’re not a writer yourself, or even if you’re just a writer who started submitting work after the internet was in everyone’s homes and pockets, you might not know about this book. It’s like a phonebook for the publishing world. Magazines, publishing companies and literary agents are all listed. Itwas a thing of beauty. An expensive thing of beauty that had to be replaced every year. But it made me feel like a real writer to use it. 

The Writer’s Market isn’t updated anymore because, again, internet. And while I certainly wouldn’t use it anymore, I’ll forever be grateful to it for helping me see that writing is a career as well as art. 

But it’s almost Halloween, and today, I want to talk about something scarrier than the publishing industry and a teenage girl’s flounderings through it. If there is anything scarrier than that. 

I wrote a book called Quiet Apocalypse. It’s about a witch named Sadie. She’s enjoying her quiet life as a school nurse, living in a cozy apartment with her dog Sage. 

Yes, Sage makes it.

Then a tree falls on her apartment building, and it lets something loose. Something bloody and dark. 

Allow me now to read the introduction. 

 The end of the world started on a dark winter night.

 Trees circled the apartment building at 437 Oakmont. They weren’t old trees, nor were they tall. Yet to look at them, one would think them ancient. They were twisted and gnarled. Every gust of wind found them, even when no other tree moved. The cold of winter clung in their branches, no matter the weather. Passersby didn’t like to dawdle along the sidewalk. The trees made them feel unwelcome. Children especially felt this, but of course, children always feel these things most keenly. 

 But we weren’t talking about children. We’ll come back to them. For now, we’re discussing the trees. 

 They’d been groaning and moaning for most of their lives. Sometimes you couldn’t hear them unless you were listening carefully. Other times the inhabitants of the apartment had to turn their TVs up to drown the trees out. But on one dark night in February, the sounds were unrelenting. There was a winter storm. The wind was hellacious, cutting through the town like a vengeful spirit. It took out hanging signs for stores on Main Street, brought down the old pine next to the library, and crashed Mr. Wallback’s patio table into his sliding glass window. Ashley Homestead regretted leaving her potted pine tree out for the night. It was thrown against the house from the back porch with such force that the pot shattered. 

Leslie Richard’s trampoline, covered over with a tarp for the season, was lifted and thrown into the yard of his next-door neighbor. 

 The wind rattled windows, pushed its way through cracks in the walls and around doors. Heaters couldn’t keep up with the sharp, blistering cold. The families in the apartment building were kept awake by it, huddled under blankets to keep warm.

The storm built up steam as it headed for Oakmont. It was as though those trees in a circle were its target, and it meant to have them. The storm came to a head at almost four in the morning. One of the trees, exhausted from a night’s battle, couldn’t hold on any longer. It came down, crashing into the roof and jutting sharp, dark branches into the attic apartment.

The wind died away almost at once. Gentle snow replaced it, covering the ice. The next morning this would cause several accidents. 

The trees that remained continued to scream, as though mourning their fallen brother.

I wrote Quiet Apocalypse for two reasons. First, I was starting to feel more comfortable as a witch. I wanted to write a character who was also a witch. A real world witch, not a magical creature one. 

Secondly, and what I really came here to talk about, I wanted to write a haunted house story. Haunted house stories have always been my favorite sort of story. The House Next Door, The Haunting of Hill House, The Amittyville Horror. These are the sort of books that keep me turning pages and rethinking every creak and groan in my own house. 

I’m not alone in my love of haunted houses. They’re a mainstay of the horror genre for a reason. We all want to think that our homes are our safe havens from the world. That our front door acts as a barrier to the bad things. The dark things.

So the thought of something lurking in the dark and dripping corners of our homes is viceral. But it’s also realistic. I would argue that haunted houses are the most realistic horror genre. 

Bad things happen in our homes. House fires from wires we didn’t even know were frayed. Carbon monoxide leaks. Storms large and powerful enough to rip and tear buildings apart. 

When was the last time you checked your smoke alarms? 

Quiet Apocalypse starts with a very mundane and realistic disaster. One that almost takes Sadie’s life before the story even starts. Allow me to read a passage.

 Sadie sat in the doorway of her ruined apartment. Her eyes were itchy, there were rivets of tears dried to her face. She had cried herself out the night before. Now she only wanted a shower and a good long rest. But, as a tree had crashed through the roof of her apartment, neither of those things could happen. 

 She knew she ought to be grateful. She’d been in the kitchen with Sage, her creamy colored lab mix when the tree came down. Branches seared through the exterior wall, crashing through her living room and bedroom. One had pierced right through her bed. It was still there, jammed right in the center of the quilt. If Sadie’d been asleep, she wouldn’t have survived. All she’d lost were things. She should be thankful for that. 

 When she was done mourning her things she would be. Her mother had made her that quilt. The crystals on the altar in her living room were all buried in the rubble. Her whole living room was a loss. What wasn’t destroyed in the crash or buried under the roof was damaged by the snow that had flooded in. 

And her books! Her family had given her irreplaceable books. Thank the Green Man Himself that her grandmother’s grimoire was at Aunt Helen’s place. But Sadie had her mother’s grimoire. And now it was destroyed. 

 She looked at the cardboard box that contained everything she now owned. There was her teapot, gray with a design of cherry blossoms. The cups that matched it had shaken loose from their shelf and shattered. 

There was her grimoire, a battered old sketchbook with a red cover. A french press, some herbs. A truly astounding assortment of tea. A handful of crystals and candles had been on her kitchen windowsill. Sage’s food and water bowl. That was all she had. 

 They were just things. Things that didn’t mean anything aside from everything. Ties to family members lost. Tools for her magical work and her mundane life. Decades of learning were destroyed in no time. 

A haunted house story can be seen as an alligory for accidents and natural disasters that threaten our families. But the ones that scare us the most, and stay with us the longest, are usually about family traumas and abuse. 

Amityville Horror is about a family tortured by dark entities until the father nearly kills everyone. But it’s also about dark financial worries. It’s about a man feeling like he failed as a provider and taking it out on his family. 

Poulterguist is about a house opening a portal to a horrific and hungry dimension. But it’s also about Suburban Sprawl and guilt. 

Quiet Apocalypse is about a demon trying to break free and cause the apocalypse. But it’s also about the fear of dying alone. Of having no one to leave behind a legacy for. 

I’ve been in a haunted house. And I bet you have too. If you’re fortunate enough to not have lived in one, you’ve visited one. It was the friend’s house where things got quiet when their mom came home from work. Or one that got way too loud. Maybe it was a family home after a funeral. 

Maybe it was just a place that didn’t feel right. It seems safe, but it doesn’t feel safe. Your instincts are screaming at you to run. To get the hell out of there despite no apparent danger. 

In my experience, it’s best to listen to those instincts. 

So we understand why cultures all over the world come back over and over to the haunted house story. But I want to go a step further and suggest that women in particular are drawn to reading and writing haunted house stories. We, along with children, tend to be the main characters and main victims of haunted house stories. 

It’s Eleanore who senses something wrong and eventually goes mad in Hill House. 

It’s Diana Freeling who insists to her husband that something’s wrong in the house, only to be dismissed until their daughter is sucked into the television. 

It’s Col Kennedy who has to convince her husband that there is something very wrong with the beautiful new house next door.

I think this is the case for a number of reasons. First, women historically spend more time at home than their spouses. Or, we at least spend more time caring for our homes and the people in them. So if the kids are talking to invisible playmates, we’re more likely to notice. If there’s blood dripping out of the ceiling, we’re probably the ones cleaning it up thinking it’s rust stains. 

At first. 

If our loved one is suddenly spending an uncomfortable amount of time with their axe collection or singing in a language we don’t recognize, we’ll probably be the ones to point it out. 

In addition to this, haunted house stories are cathartic to women. Consider how often in a horror movie the main character starts out trying like hell to convince someone, usually her partner, that something is wrong. Blood’s coming out of the faucets, there’s a spot in the back yard that’s never warm, bottles are popping and spilling with no one in the room. But no one is listening! No one else seems to see it all happen. It’s almost like they’re looking away at just the wrong time on purpose. Only to calmly and condecendingly explain the shape and color of the trees while missing the forest entirely. 

What else does that sound like to you? Maybe like trying to explain medical symptoms to your partner, or doctor? 

You just need to lose weight.

It’s the house settling.

You’re just getting older.

You didn’t hear a child screaming, it was just these old pipes. 

You’re overreacting.

You’re being histerical. 

Finally, I think women are most often main characters in haunted house stories because home is a place of guilt for us. We feel more responsible for our homes because we’re taught that we’re responsible. At least, I was. So if something is wrong with our house, it’s our fault. 

The dishes aren’t done. It doesn’t matter if we dirtied them, it’s still our fault. The laundry’s piling up, our fault. An ancient demom is cracking through the basement floor, our fault. 

Of course, as society changes so do the stories we tell. A great modern haunted house story is How To Sell A Haunted House by Grady Hendrix. The main character is acutally the one who needs convinced that something is wrong, and it’s her younger brother who does the convincing.

That book, by the way, is a great example of siblings being raised by the same people but very different parents. 

All of that being said, haunted house stories appeal to everyone. There isn’t a culture in the world that doesn’t have haunted house stories. The Himuro Mansion in Japan. The Wolfsegg Castle in Germany. Every community, neighborhood and village has a haunted house. I’m willing to bet our cave dwelling ancestors had certain caves they didn’t want to go into because they were jsut too creepy.

Finally, I would argue that haunted houses are more frightening than other supernatural elements because they are so incredibly intimate. If houses are alive, and as a witch I believe they are, they know us. They see us at our best and our worst. They see us in moments that we manage to hide from everyone else. And so if your home wanted to scare you, wanted to harm you, they’d know just how to do it. 

This is something that Sadie learns in Quiet Apocalypse. Allow me to read one final passage. 

 “Do you know where my mommy is?” the child asked. 

“I don’t know,” Sadie said. “What’s your name?” 

 The child didn’t respond. She just shook her head.

 “Where am I?” 

 Sadie swirled around. There was a little boy, standing in the middle of the main room. He looked terrified. 

 “Oh, it’s okay,” Sadie said. “Here, come over here. I’ll try to help you. I mean, I’m not really good with spirits, but I can-.” 

 “Mommy? Where am I, why can’t I see you?” 

 Another child was coming out of the bathroom. Then another. Suddenly there were two sitting on the futon, and three more standing in the middle of the room. They were all covered in blood. In their hair, on their shoes, on their clothes. It dripped onto the floor, smearing from their feet and dropping from toys or blankets they clutched.

 Sadie spun, looking around at all of the children. There were so many of them, and every moment there were more. Sage stood next to her, gasping out sharp, panicked barks. 

 “Sage, stop barking,” Sadie said. She whirled around again. “Please, calm down. I can help you, but I, I need a minute to think about what to do.” 

 They crowded towards her, reaching out with bloody hands. Crying out for her, reaching for her and pulling at her clothes. “Help, help us,” they cried. 

 “I’ll help you, I will,” Sadie said, but the children were pulling her down. 

 “Help us. You have to help us!” 

 Sadie couldn’t answer. She could barely breathe, drowning in the sea of bloody hands and crying screaming faces. She couldn’t see Sage anymore, couldn’t see anything. There were only the children, clawing at her. Killing her. 

Sadie is a school nurse. As I’m sure you can imagine, that carries an emotional burden. 

Now, unfortunately I don’t have any personal really good haunted house stories to share with you. Most of my experiences are subtle. I saw a shadowy figure out of the corner of my eye. I felt someone staring at me when there wasn’t anyone there. I found myself in a terrible mood, or unable to control my anxiety in certain parts of a house. This is all scary to live with but not overly interesting. And since you’ve all been listening to me ramble for a while now, it’s your turn. Tell us about your haunted house story in the comments below. 

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I was almost a Tradwife

I was raised to be a homemaker. I was raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, where being a wife and mom is considered the highest calling a woman can have.

My mother wanted to be a homemaker. My grandmother was a homemaker. My great grandmother was a homemaker. I was not encouraged to go to college or prepare for a career. I thought for sure I was going to grow up, get married, and be a homemaker.

I had an image of what my life was going to be like. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was thirteen. So I imagined that I’d get married, raise babies, and write stories. I had these lovely fantasies about bouncing children on my lap while I edited manuscripts. Writing poetry while the meatloaf baked. Submitting queries while the children were at school.

I suppose that would have been alright. That would have been a nice life.

But life happens. I was a full time homemaker for three years, until I couldn’t handle the abuse at the hands of my previous partner. After this, I discovered that I liked working far more than I liked homemaking. So when my Darling Husband and I moved in together, we decided together that he would be the homemaker and I would work. We did have discussions about this, and decided it was the best plan for our family.

When we got married, the Darling Husband had some health issues. But he was mostly fine. In the past ten years, his health has gone downhill.

Way down hill.

Last December, as you might know, he suffered from a hemmoradic stroke. One moment, he was sitting in our bedroom. The next, he was calling to me from help.

The next moment, he wasn’t able to form sentences. Or move. He was moments away from death.

Now, I’ve told you all that to tell you this. I despise Trad Wife Influencers. I think they prey upon women, selling them fantasies that are unrealistic and dangerous. Using our inherent guilt and years of bad traditions, Trad Wife Influencers tell women that not only should we all want to be homemakers, but that we can all do it. They post videos of themselves making bread from scratch, dressed in immaculant prarie dresses while carrying cherubic babies on their hips in gorgeous well lit kitchens. And they say that we can do it too.

These videos are lies. They’re staged, produced, lovely lies. These women are business owners, lying to you to make money off of you. And these lies can destroy you.

If I had still been a homemaker when the Darling Husband had his stroke, we’d have been cooked. I don’t know what we would have done. But this is just one example of what could go terribly wrong. Consider my mother. Through no fault of her own, she never found a partner and so failed to be a homemaker. Or my grandmother. She was a homemaker until all of her children moved out, but suffered through not one but two abusive marriages.

Marriages might not last. Healthy men don’t always stay healthy. The cost of living is getting more and more expensive, and a lot of families can’t afford to live on one income. Not all women want to be homemakers.

None of these things are failings. None of these things are wrong. In short, it’s not your fault if you’re not able or don’t want to be a trad wife.

I do not say any of this to shame homemakers. I have nothing but respect for them. I was one myself, my Darling Husband was one before his stroke. I would even suggest that I am still a homemaker, just not full time. I do, after all, keep my home. I cook. I clean. I mend clothes. I crotchet and knit. I care for my Darling Husband and our pets. I even bake things from scratch sometimes. These are all lovely things that I take pride in. I do none of these things perfectly. Even if I didn’t have a full time job, I probably still wouldn’t do any of these things perfectly.

It would be easy to say that I’m a failed homemaker. Even if I didn’t want to work, I’d have to work. And I am just over women attacking other women for not reaching unatainable goals. I am way over ‘traditional gender roles’. So let me leave you with some advice. If you, man or woman, want to be a homemaker, consider this.

Get financially smart. Just because you’re not making money doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be helping to manage money. Learn about long term savings accounts and low stakes investing. Learn about credit, and how to use it to your advantage. And build credit in your name. Having no credit score is worse than having bad credit. It seems like a cheat, but it’s true.

Find ways to keep your hand in with some sort of career. Massive gaps in your resume aren’t going to help you if you suddenly need to get a job. Have a plan in case you suddenly need to step into the work force.

Have money of your own. Money that you have control over. Maybe you babysit, recycle for profit or sell handcrafts on Etsy. Maybe you and your partner agree upon a certain amount of money that is yours to save, spend or invest how you see fit. Remember, your partner benifits from your hard work. Domestic labor is labor and you aren’t being selfish asking for a safty net. I have a savings account set up for my Darling Husband for this exact reason.

Yes, all of this advice is about money. But, while I hate this, we will starve and become homeless without money. You need to be able to care for yourself and your family if the worst should happen.

In short, homemaking is not for everyone. It’s not desirable for everyone, and it’s not realistic for everyone. Don’t let someone making sourdough on social media tell you that you’re less of a woman if you can’t or don’t want to do it full time. Live your life, do your best, and do what makes you happy.

I am not living the life I thought I would. I am not living the life I was raised to live. I am living a much better life. One that is full of unexpected joys and surprising adventures every day. I have worries. I have sorrows. But I’m satisfied in the work I do in my day job. I am proud of the writing that I do. My home is comfortable, if not always tidy. My life is full of friends, loved ones, art, good food and good coffee. And good books, of course. So many good books.

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Missing Stitches is now available wide. Click here to check out all the places you can get it.

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Some thoughts on Tradwives

Have you ever been so obsessed with one topic that you just cannot shut up about it? Like to the point where all of your friends and family, and even your therapist are sick of you talking about it, even though they agree with you?

That’s where I am right now with tradwives.

On the off chance you don’t know what a tradwife is, let me give you a description with as little of my personal bias as I can. A tradwife is a woman who believes in and practices traditional gender roles.

To be clear, I am not talking about homemakers. I am not talking about people who enjoy home crafts, cooking, cleaning, or domestic tasks. I enjoy these things myself. I think most of us enjoy home crafting to some degree, no matter our gender.

And to be clear, I don’t care if a woman chooses to be a tradwife. If she and her family can afford for her to stay home, that’s her life. None of my business. That’s the whole point of feminism, after all. She chose to stay home, I chose to have a career and neither one of us can choose our medical care in several states.

Wait, that last one doesn’t sound right. We’ll circle back to that.

No, what I’m mostly upset about are tradwife influencers. People like Mrs. Midwest, Girl Defined, and Paul and Morgan.

I have a complicated relationship with traditional gender roles. For those of you who don’t know, I was raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I wrote all about it here. I was a tradwife for years.

And I mean that in the literal sense. I believed that my place was in the home taking care of my family. I was also a pro-life conservative Mormon woman who thought I was straight and had a lot of guilt over my love of playing cards. I had a lot of guilt over a lot of things.

Maybe that’s why I put up with my first partner being mentally, physically, and sexually abusive. I thought that I deserved it because I was dumb enough to have a baby with him.

And obviously, I’m not the only woman who went through that. Hell, my mom went through it. My aunt went through it. My grandmother went through it twice.

I just do not believe that a relationship is healthy when both people don’t see each other as equal. I have lived it. I’ve seen other women live it. I’ve frequently seen women say that God calls us to be Christian wives even if our husbands are not doing their part. Even if a man is beating us, cheating on us, or abusing us, God wants us to try to make it work.

I call bullshit on that.

I crawled out of that. It was hard. I’m still healing from that. And now, I’m watching all these young women run right into the trap I escaped. Worse, they’re trying to drag other women along with them.

Now, I’m going to generalize a bit with this next part. I am not saying that all tradwives are like this. I am saying that the vast majority of tradwife influencers are like this. And again, that’s who I’m mad at.

Tradwife influencers are against every single thing that I’ve built my life around. They sure wouldn’t be working a full-time job like I do. They never seem to be big readers, so I’m guessing they’re not really into sci-fi or speculative fiction. At least, the high-profile ones I see on social media aren’t ever reading anything but the KJV Bible. They seem to be pretty sure that positive affirmations are too close to witchcraft to be trusted, so my tarot-reading self would be an affront to them. They are anti-choice, anti-birth control. Many of them are super racist and xenophobic, too. And I assume I don’t need to tell you what they think of the LGBTQ+ community.

Most of these influencers don’t even have pets.

And yet, there are two things that I do have in common with most tradwife influencers. I am married to a man and I am a Christian.

This brings me to the first reason why I am so angry at tradwives. They have taken the two things in my life that give me the most support and peace, and they’ve turned them into nightmares.

My husband and I have been married for nine years now. Our relationship is a comfort to me. I have a best friend who lives with me, and who will share the burdens that life puts on us. Having a steady long-term relationship should be part of your support system. Your partner should truly be your partner, and they should make your life easier. They should make your life better.

Likewise, I get a lot of comfort from my faith. I understand that this isn’t for everyone, and that’s fine. I know plenty of other people who have deconstructed who do not want a relationship with any religion and that is more than valid. The point is, that my faith makes my life better. My partner makes my life better.

So here is the thing that tradwives do that bothers me the most. They have taken two things that are very good for me in my personal life, and they’ve twisted them. They say first that everyone has to have those things, it’s non-negotiable. Then they say that these things shouldn’t make you happy. Your partner doesn’t have to make you happy. Your relationship with your deity shouldn’t make you happy. If you’re expecting that sort of relationship with your spouse or with God, you’re wrong for that. In the world of a tradwife, you as the wife are there to support your husband, he is not there to support you outside of financially. Your faith isn’t supposed to lead you to good things or a better understanding of yourself and the world you live in.

I reject that. I reject the thought that God doesn’t want me to be happy. I reject the notion that I am meant to be a helpmate to my husband and not expect that same help and support in return. I frankly reject anything that isn’t a net positive in my life. I reject that not just for myself, but for the next generation.

And here is the point that I want to get to. So many of these tradwife influencers are younger than me. These are younger millennials and Zoomers who were happy crying and dancing in the streets when Roe V. Wade was overturned.

So, what the hell happened here?

I am not going to claim that I’ve been leading the charge for female empowerment. I had to fight for my liberation, but I didn’t have anything to do with societal liberation.

But I think that we, as elder Millennials and Gen X, let go of something. We inherited a world that didn’t have as many barriers for women as those before us. There are still some, but not as many. I was born into a world where I could have an abortion, have a credit card, own property, have a bank account, and get a no-fault divorce. My mother was not. Any woman born before 1974 was not.

I feel like we got distracted. We didn’t get lazy, that’s not fair. But we got distracted trying to survive and we forgot about these battles. Maybe because just providing for our families has gotten so hard. Maybe because we’ve seen so much violence in our lifetimes. Maybe it’s hard to worry about whether or not we’re still treated as equals when there’s another school shooting every week and it feels like WWIII is gonna break out if one more country bats an eyelash weird. Maybe it’s because we thought we had our rights on lock, so we could keep moving forward.

Whatever the reason, we dropped the ball. And we’ve got to pick it back up again.

Now, I’m not telling you to go off on these tradwives on social. What I’m suggesting is that we don’t engage with them at all. Don’t give them attention. Understand that anyone can be a homemaker, but nobody has to be. And if you know a young woman who’s going down this road, check in on her with compassion. Don’t judge, but do give her the support she needs. And vote for politicians who will fight for gender equality. Write to your politicians, call them, and attend protests. Don’t believe that we are safe because the rise of the tradwives means that we are not.

These constricting, dehumanizing rules don’t belong in the world our mothers and grandmothers fought to give us, and they don’t belong in the world we’re giving our daughters.

In conclusion, let me leave you with this. I’m a Christian, but I’m also a witch. As such, I like the Wicca rede. As it harms none, do what you will. If tradwives weren’t harming anyone, I would not be upset about what they’re doing. But the way they prop up and romanticize these dangerous, self-hating ways of life is hurting people. And we have got to be loud enough denouncing it to drown them out.

If you want to learn more about this phenomenon, please check out Fundie Fridays on Youtube. It’s a great place to learn about dangerous fundamentalism.

Don’t forget, Nova starts on February 5th. And you can get book one of Station 86 for free right now on Smashwords.

Paper Beats World is a labor of love. If you want to support what we do, you can do so on Ko-fi.

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Would Your Book Pass The Bedchel Test?

Do you know what the Bechdel Test is? I only heard of it recently, which makes me sad as a feminist.

The Bechdel test, named for the cartoonist Alison Bechdel who came up with it in a comic called Dykes to Watch Out For, consists of three rules. If a movie didn’t follow these three rules, the character in question wouldn’t go see it.

  1. The movie must have at least two female characters.
  2. They have to talk to each other,
  3. About something other than a man.

I thought this was silly, until I made a chart of all the movies I like that don’t pass that test. I’d like to share that with you. If you don’t see a movie on here, please keep in mind that I am being honest and I won’t add a movie on here if I haven’t seen it. I also have not listed all the movies I’ve ever seen, I would  be here all day. This is a list of the movies I’ve watched over the past 12 months, that are fairly well known.

Movies that Pass

The Hunger Games

Catching Fire

Mockingjay Pt 1

Frozen (Disney got a win)

Thor

Star Wars, Episode 7

Maleficent

Descendants (I have two pre teen daughters, don’t judge me.)

Mona Lisa’s Smile

Scream 1,2,3

Paranormal Activities 1-5

Dogma

Movies that don’t pass

Captain America

Iron Man 1,2,3

Avatar

The Avengers

Independence Day

Star Wars, 1-6

All Three Batman movies from the recent trilogy

Jersey Boys

All the Indiana Jones movies

All the James Bond movies

All the Men in Black movies

Jakob The Liar

Patch Adams

All 7 Freddy Kruger movies

Star Trek, 2009

Star Trek, Into Darkness

Yes, Stan Lee can be blamed for a lot of list two. We all know he was a sexist asshat, despite being a brilliant writer. He’s still an asshat.

What kills me is this; why doesn’t every movie pass this test? Is it really that hard to have two women in a book talk about something other than boys? I had to add some movies that were specifically known to be ‘feminist friendly’ to fluff that first list out.

Why? Why is it really so hard to ‘include’ women, when we are fifty percent of the population? Why do more than fifty percent of movies fail this test?

Now, I like all of the movies on the bottom list, don’t get me wrong. But, ladies and gentlemen, hear me loud and clear;

Representation Matters

I’m not the only person who’s said it, and I pray I won’t be the last. To have just one woman shown as a real person instead of background eye candy, it sends the message that this is the exception. Sure, Black Widow is badass, but we sure got Pepper Potts reminding us how women really do live to take care of men.

And don’t tell me those kinds of movies don’t sell. We’ve got Katniss, who is freaking awesome, her sister who’s just as awesome, and Joanna, and President Coin. The cast is pretty balanced with awesome women and men. Seems like those movies are doing just fine in the box office.

As writers we don’t always consider ourselves part of the ‘entertainment industry’. We should, because a lot of those movies up there were books first. Even the ones that weren’t were screen written.

And so, as one member of the entertainment industry to another, let me ask you, would your book pass the Bechdel Test?

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Women Hurting Women

 

This post could be sub titled, let me take a break from talking about writing to complain about something that pisses me off almost every day.

 

Women uphold what we refer to as ‘the patriarchy’ more than any man I have ever seen.

 

This post could also be sub titled, “Let me piss off some people who don’t want to hear this.”

 

Don’t believe me? Think about it. When was the last time a man told you that you couldn’t do something? When was the last time a random guy you didn’t know made you feel judged?

 

When was the last time a woman did that to you?

 

Women, we are way too quick to judge other women. What we wear, what we do for a living, how we raise our kids, if we even chose to have them! And we are really good at inventing new ways to do it, too.

 

Skinny/fat shaming

 

I am neither skinny, nor fat, so I used to keep out of that whole mess, until I realized a rather nasty fact. There are some who do consider me fat. And I know who they are, because they make a point of letting me know that I’m fat, but that it’s okay. As though wearing size sixteen jeans is akin to a deformity.

 

We all know the stereotype. Skinny, thin girls are bitchy, because they don’t get to eat cupcakes like us jolly fat girls. Only dogs like bones and real women have curves too.

 

See what we’re doing there? We’re being just as catty and judgmental as we perceive thin women to be. Worse is the insinuation that thin girls only do things to impress men. Do you really think that women’s drinking a kale smoothie because she wants some man to think she looks hot? Maybe she just wants to look hot all by herself. Leave her and her kale smoothie alone.

 

The dreaded Mommy Wars.

 

Parenting is hard. We are raising people, doing the best we can every day and just pray that they don’t end up serial killers or stoners playing guitar in our basements.

 

So maybe we should leave each other the hell alone.

 

I am as bad about this as anyone. Parents who don’t read to their kids, or let them watch Spongebob, let them drink soda, listen to Kesha, all of these are parents who I hate. Women who tell little boys that they should let the girls go first because that’s what gentlemen do, I hate you.

 

But it is none of my damned business when it comes to your family. It’s none of anybody’s business. My kids, my family works because of the decisions that my husband and I make. I’m sure the same can be said for you. (My one exception is vaccinations. Please vaccinate your kids, so that all of our kids die.)

 

It’s also none of anyone’s business whether a woman has kids or not. We don’t do assume men will eventually have kids, do we? No guy’s ever heard his mom tell him about his biological clock. There’s no rush to marriage, or at least not nearly so early in a man’s life. I know a lot of people have said this, but I don’t think some people heard, so can I say it louder? Not every woman wants to have kids!

 

Slut shaming/ burqas/ what we chose to wear.

 

Full disclosure, I used to be really bad at this. I’m working to be a better person, I am. There was a time when I could not shut my mouth about women who were dressed ‘slutty.’ They were terrible, they obviously didn’t like themselves that much, and they behaved as though they had nothing to offer the world besides their bodies.

 

I have no idea what the hell makes me think I have got any right to judge these other women.

 

I don’t know why any of us have a right to judge another woman’s appearance. What we wear, or don’t, how much makeup we wear, or don’t. How we chose to express our faiths, or not. If she’s over eighteen, it’s no ones business.

 

Opening our mouths in front of our kids

 

What don’t you like about your appearance? For those of you with daughters, do you talk about it in front of them? If you’re having a fat day, or eat too much, or hate how you look without makeup. “Don’t take pictures of me yet, I’m ugly!” we yell in front of them. “I can’t believe I had all that. I’m such a cow.”

“Ugh, look at those crows feet.”

“This dress fit a few months ago, I’m so fat!”

“I can’t stand how red I look.”

 

I guess a lot of us forget this, but our kids think we are perfect, at least for a little while. Girls look to their moms for an example of how women are supposed to act. We’re teaching them, as women, that we hate ourselves.

 

They should hate themselves, too. That’s what they hear. We hate ourselves, and they should too.

That, I really think, is the core of this. We don’t like ourselves. We are taught at a young age that we shouldn’t like ourselves. We are taught, by our mothers, to be hypercritical of everything so that we can be better. We want to be faster, smarter, more beautiful, and those are admirable things. I want to be smarter, I want to be better. But I am done making myself feel bad about who I am right now. I am a pretty cool person. So are you, man or woman.

 

If you’re running marathons or eating Oreos, running carpool or running a business, hitting Sephora or hitting Staples, you’re cool. If you’re being nice to people, and you like how you spent your day, go you. You should keep doing just what you’re doing, girl or guy. You should let other women do the same.

 

Stop holding up the patriarchy, ladies, and let your sisters be who they want to be.

 

 

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