mutedmirth replied to your post: Just took a break from drawing and watched...
I felt the same way about girls in stories to the point where I just couldn’t identify with girls in media but could with boys. It helped growing up with voyager and Xena but they were adults.
It’s hard to relate to female characters when you’re a young girl and the only ones you see on the television are adult women! Good role models but, not the same as seeing young girls going on adventures..
I constantly count myself so so lucky to have grown up on Studio Ghibli films. Only recently I realized how much of an impact movies like Kiki’s Delivery Service, Spirited Away, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, Howl’s Moving Castle, and The Cat Returns had on me growing up. I didn’t have much other media besides those films that were so powerfully ‘here’s a young girl going on an adventure and nobody questions it’, and they really helped me with my self esteem and self image growing up!! (How I prayed and wished and imagined that I could be Sheeta and Kiki, haha)
It’s weird how growing up with such male-focused media made it so I could identify with boys, but not girls. It’s actually sad!! I mourn for my childhood a lot. Only recently through self reflection and unlearning have I been able to start appreciating and identifying with female characters, haha.