The Cliffs of Insanity: Equality In Our Role Models

Welcome to this week’s adventures of climbing the cliffs of insanity. In the spirit of the holiday, the bulk of the column is about how to spread the idea of equality around to everyone.

But first, some excellent news this week:

Going to GeekGirlCon!

For the first time, GeekMom will have a table at GeekGirlCon,which is taking place October 11-12 in Seattle. Several of us will take part in the panel, “From GeekGirl to GeekMom,” about making the transition to life with minions. My own panel, “Sex Scenes From the Female Gaze,” was also accepted. It includes a group of fellow romance writers and there might be some, um, examples of said female gaze scenes.

SuperTeam Pairing

Neil Gaiman’s American Gods has a script-to-scene commitmen from the Starz Network. Bryan Fuller (Hannibal) and Michael Green (Heroes and The River) are the writer-producers developing the novel for television. This is good news for those who thought the project was dead after HBO passed on it.

Gotham for….GIRLS?

In unexpected but welcome news, DC announced this week a new monthly series, Gotham Academy, written by Becky Cloonan and Brenden Fletcher and drawn by Karl Kerschl. Look! It seems like this story is focused on girls who look like teenage girls. It will begin in October.

Sold!

And while girls and women are the target market for this book, I hope it appeals to everyone. Why?

Equality For All, Especially in Role Models

Last week on the GeekDad writers’ loop, we had a short discussion about covering Ms. Marvel. GeekMom has already reviewed this wonderful series several times and the question came up about whether a more, well, male-oriented site like GeekDad should provide similar coverage.

The answer was a resounding “Yes.”

Why?

Because role models shouldn’t be limited by race, gender, or orientation.

This point is implicit in calls for inclusion, but often not stated outright. Yes, we absolutely need to provide young girls with role models like them so they can see it’s possible. We want girls to see women being superheroes and scientists and coders and gamers and, well, everything.

But we also need boys to see women as role models too.

Women often have male role models. A famous fictional example would be Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl, who fights crime not because of Batman, but because of her stalwart father, Commissioner James Gordon. J.R.R. Tolkien and Walter Farley were as influential to me as writer Anne McCaffrey.

It was never a question that boys could be whatever they wanted to be. But we also want boys to grow up knowing that women can be whoever they want to be as well.

We want them to be inspired by women as much as men.

All of society is far better if anyone is seen as a possible role model/inspiration for everyone.