For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a hero. Or at the very least, I’d always like to pretend I was one. I’d insert myself into Power Rangers or Teen Titans then later Star Wars or Harry Potter. I was a powerful mutant, a ninja prodigy, or a sheriff out in the Wild West. Or perhaps I was the outlaw, the gangster, a master thief, or the morally gray vigilante. I wanted adventure, thrill, excitement, and daring quests. I’d imagine it all from my bedroom, staring out the window at cracked concrete, with gospel records rumbling downstairs.
In hindsight, I think I just wanted to go out into the world and do something that mattered. To be really good at something as I explained in Mastery: The Point of a Person. It’s a contributing factor to why I was so hellbent on joining the Air Force for a long time and in the midst of all that even fancied becoming a fighter for the UFC. When begging my mother to let me start taking mixed martial arts classes as a young teen, she brushed me aside saying I didn’t want to be punched in the face. To date, I’ve only ever been slapped in the face but just going off of that, she was correct.
I can recall a time in middle school when I was at the beach with my friends on a boat that was meant to take us out to see some dolphins. Like any group of young girls, we were chatty and excited about the excursion. But the captain of this vessel, a sunburned old man, decided to talk even more loudly to himself about how dumb little girls don’t know how to pay attention, and shouldn’t be allowed on excursions such as this. The eyes of my friends went wide and they covered their mouths in muted laughter, but for the first time in my life, I felt fire shoot through my veins. I had gone suddenly from having the time of my life to being absolutely pissed off.
And like most things I say when I’m pissed off, as it has happened a few more times since then, I can’t exactly remember what I went up to him and said with my Star Wars baseball cap, Air Force t-shirt, and tan cargo shorts. But whatever I said I did so calmly and clearly, explaining that we were paying attention on this trip, how I had personally been very interested in dolphins for years, but that perhaps we’d learn more if he concentrated on using his mic to explain where we were and what exactly we were seeing rather than insulting my friends. I do remember, however, that he had no response, and I walked back over to my seat to many bewildered faces.
That has almost always been the trigger for these moments. I can take quite a verbal beating, but drag my friends or my team into it and suddenly I’m walking across that Hollywood soundstage at high noon with a toothpick in my mouth ready for the quick draw. It’s why the few times my friends have had serious complaints about the various men in their lives and I ask them if they’d like me to do something about it, they immediately say no because they know saying yes would be the nuclear option and ultimately not exactly productive. I swear I’m not hot-headed. If I tell people who don’t know me as well about these instances, they can’t imagine it. The most common praise I get is how calm I am even in insane situations.
Of course, fantasy rarely aligns with reality. I’m not a Jedi or a witch or a superhero. I can’t scale buildings, do backflips, or shoot lasers from my eyes. The last thing I want is to be dropped into a combat zone. The odds are very much against me in any hand-to-hand combat against a man civilian or otherwise. And truthfully, I can’t come up with a realistic scenario in which I’d actually make the conscious decision to kill someone… which I’d hope is quite normal. Nonetheless, the art any culture produces whether that be sculptures, paintings, novels, music, or movies, reveals a lot about the values and beliefs of that culture. And while I gleefully hold harrowing tales close to my heart, I know they are a product of my often criticized male culture. And truthfully, I’ve never known what to do with that knowledge.
My default is to brush it aside assuming it’s nowhere near as detrimental as other components of male culture when it comes to self-esteem or general world outlook. I’ve always wanted to be challenged, I’ve always been ambitious, and I’ve always wanted to reach my full potential in whatever it is I set my mind to. I’m not fretting over boyfriends, viewing other women as my enemies, counting calories, or picking apart my appearance in a mirror. Considering how much those topics dominate feminist circles, that’s got to count for something… right?
Primarily, I just want to be really good at something, never afraid of asking questions or putting myself in a position to learn more about a topic or a skill. Secondarily, I never want to be seen as weak, the most innocent iteration of that described in Wall Ball: Battle of the Sexes. The most questionable iteration of that would be refusing a male escort back to a tour bus or hotel deep into the night in any number of cities around the world because I can handle myself and the back of my head tells me it’s the men you know who are the most dangerous.
But what is the impact on a young girl aspiring to the likes of King Arthur, Luke Skywalker, or Aragorn? What does it mean to absorb so deeply the cautionary tales of characters like Michael Corleone, Anakin Skywalker, or Paul Atredies? What does it mean to assign so much value to one’s capacity to carry out violence? I do not know. But that’s all to say, it’s something I’m thinking about as I go from adventure to adventure.
If anything, I do wonder how differently I would have been impacted if so much of my attention were not on men in imaginary tales, but on women in the world as it is, on all their risks, sacrifices, and triumphs so often lost or omitted or otherwise ignored in the history of men.
What would it mean to truly center women in the epic tales that define our culture without a thousand generations of male rule preceding it? How different would the hero’s journey look? What would be the values resting at the core of who we are?
I don’t have any answers for this. But again, it’s something I’m thinking about.
"But what is the impact on a young girl aspiring to the likes of King Arthur, Luke Skywalker, or Aragorn? What does it mean to absorb so deeply the cautionary tales of characters like Michael Corleone, Anakin Skywalker, or Paul Atredies? What does it mean to assign value to capacity for violence when necessary?"
Really good questions. I want to know, too.