Today is the international women’s day. One thing I struggled with while writing my book was how to write in a fair and “equal” way, when the society I depict was very patriarchal? I don’t want to give my characters modern values. It would give you the impression that the character is a 21st century person stuck in ancient times. I have read plenty of historical fictions like that, and I want to avoid it.
I asked some people and got the radical advice to describe the women in my book as… humans! (Gasp!)
Because no matter the era and not matter the character’s own values, people are still unique people. The female stereotypes we see in older movies and books never existed. Daisy Duck and Minnie Mouse are prime examples. They have no character or personality of their own. They are nothing but a decoration on the male main character. Women who only think or talk about their men and never have any kind of independent thoughts – don’t exist and never have. Avoid those characters like the plague.
Among my characters I have a warrior girl who joins the Jewish rebels. I have a motherly character. I have one who is secretly studying Torah with her rabbi by night. In my second (now temporarily halted) book I have a female villain as well. They are humans, and their personalities and characters deserve just as much attention as the male ones.
On the other hand I don’t want an artificial equality. There are less women than men in my book, partly because they were in fact underrepresented in society. I can’t have a female rabbi or a female Roman soldier. They didn’t exist. But they are probably also underrepresented partly due to my own biases, and what I’ve gotten used to in fiction.
When I invented a new character I often caught myself automatically assuming it would be a male character. Some of my female characters came into being with myself challenging that notion. “What would happen if this character was female instead? How would it change the dynamics?”
I am a nerd. I have never been able to live up to the rambo-defenition of “manliness”. The male vrs female stereotypes we grow up with are often hurtful to anyone who don’t follow the exact norm. There are other, healthy, biblical, definitions of masculinity and femininity that are great guidelines, that can be molded to fit with our different abilities and personalities. The modern stereotypes however, shame us when we don’t act, look and behave in the right way. This is damaging for men and women alike. I don’t want my sons to see James Bond as a role model. Neither do I want my daughters to strive to be like the thin models of magazine covers.
I am careful with the word “feminism”, as many Christians confuse it with anti-biblical teachings. Feminism, however, is a very broad definition with many, often conflicting, views within it. There is such a thing as a biblical feminism, just as there is also anti-biblical feminism. The Bible teaches us that everyone are equally valuable, and we are all created in the image of God. That is the type of feminism I can say that I believe in.
I want my daughters to grow up happy healthy and safely, and I want them to be able to freely choose what they want to become when they grow up. Does that make me a feminist? I don’t know. Maybe.
Tuvia Pollack - writer 