Kick Ass Chicks

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I'm a genre fiction reader, and always have been. But back in the day when I read mostly fantasy, I found a major lack of one important element: women protagonists. Sure, it's starting to get a bit better, but fantasy is still a man's game. And don't even get me started on sci-fi.

I've been lucky in the last decade or two with the emergence of what I call the "kick ass chick" genre of urban fantasy. You've probably read some of them. These are the series about often leather-clad, often motorcycle-riding femmes who alternately slay or sleep with the things that go bump the night. I think I've tried most of the series', at least once. Yeah, it's enough that it's getting to be a bit of a cliched character, but I can still appreciate it. Especially if there's a twist.

But there's also that genre that's always been women-driven, but that some women are afraid to claim as their own. Yep, I'm talking romance. Author Teresa Medeiros' recent post about why she is PROUD to read and write romance really struck me. My personal summary of what she says? Romance is subversive because it lets the woman be the hero of her own story. That's right folks, romance can be a feminist genre.

And the movies? We-e-ell, perhaps we're still lacking there. We're sometimes treated to women that can fight for themselves, but they usually have something that softens them. Makes them more "feminine". The real tough chicks are never the heroes. (Though I'm going to leave the Hunger Games discussion to, well, everyone else on the Internet).

One thing I loved about the book Midnight by Ellen Connor* (second in  the Dark Age Dawning trilogy, a post-apocalyptic paranormal romance), which I just finished, was the somehow familiar heroine. You know that hard-as-nails Latina from the movies, that doesn't get the starring role, and gets killed in a blaze of glory? The one played by Michelle Rodriguez? (heh). Yep, that's the character that gets to be the hero of her own story in Midnight. And that's kick ass.




* Fun fact: Ellen Connor is a pseudonym of two authors, and the name comes from two of the baddest-ass femmes in movies - Ellen Ripley (from Alien) and Sarah Connor (from The Terminator) - how cool is that?