or - “Including Badass Older Women in Fiction”
It should go without saying that this post is inspired by the recent passing of Carrie Fisher and the fact that, before she passed, she got to portray General Leia Organa in the newest installments of the Star Wars franchise. Unfortunately, strong, badass older women in fiction - women who aren’t stereotypes - are far and few between, and we need more of them.
There’s a very good reason that Minerva McGonagoll is so beloved among the Harry Potter fandom. Was she a kind and loving mentor? No - not at all. Quite the opposite in fact - where Dumbledore was wit and charm, she was the no-nonsense mentor that Harry often needed to get through his time at Hogwarts. But we do get to see her personality shine at times - to see her softer side. And this is precisely why she’s so great.
She’s not a caricature, just like Leia Organa wasn’t a caricature ( - didn’t get to be a caricature, because she was based on a character from three existing films).
Older women far too often get the short end of the stick in fiction. They play the nannies, the grandmas, the crotchety teachers… they usually aren’t repositories of military strategy or strength. Which is precisely why seeing a McGonagoll or a Leia Organa in film is so inspiring to women of all ages.
Hard Doesn’t Have to Mean “Shrewish”
This is a point that people really need to remember when writing older women. Just because an older woman isn’t all “soft” around the edges doesn’t mean she has to be a shrew. McGonagoll certainly isn’t. As I already mentioned, she’s well loved. Leia Organa could certainly be called hardened. She has a strategic mind - one she puts to good use - but she’s considerate of other people, as shown in The Force Awakens, and she has an emotional side that is only natural of someone who has been through her struggles.
Don’t think that because an older woman isn’t stereotypically “soft” like the grandmothers you might see in children’s TV shows that she can’t have a rich emotional world. Women don’t lose their characters because they grow older.
Think About How They Connect to Your Protags
Especially if you’re writing from the POV of a younger protagonist, such as in a YA novel (as an example), you’ll want to think about how an older woman might connect to a younger protagonist, or group of protagonists. Obviously, she’s probably not going to immediately be their best friend. If she’s their teacher, then there’s going to be a natural sort of connection. But what if she’s another sort of authority figure? Or what if she’s connected to them in another way? For example, what if they’re in the same community and they have to work together to survive?
I urge you in these cases to think about the woman as a character - what she’s been through in her past, in her life - and how she might use her experiences to connect to the younger people around her. Has she been a mother? An aunt? A teacher? How would she, personally, connect to them? How would she speak to them?
Especially as a woman (and if there are other young women around her) what would this connection mean, if anything special? Think about these things as you write.
I could go on more, but I just wanted to draft up a post of encouragement to get people thinking about the importance of writing older female characters in fiction. They’re still far underrepresented and we really should see more of them - especially older WOC!
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