There’s a scene in the movie Wonder Woman with Gal Gadot in which German soldiers attempt to invade Themyscira, the island on which Diana and her tribe of Amazons live. The scene is a beautifully choreographed battle that lasts about five minutes. (You can watch it on YouTube.) At one point one of the Amazon warriors—Antiope, played by Robin Wright—sees three men hiding behind a rock, grabs a bow and three arrows from the ground and, pushing off a shield held by another Amazon, jumps over the rock, shoots the three arrows in one go and kills all three men. When I watched this movie, sitting in the dark of my basement with my husband, and this scene came on? Reader, I sobbed. Sobbed.
There is death, but the scene isn’t inherently sad. The Amazons fight like the physically strong, badass warrior women they are. That’s it. That’s the scene. It was awesome and emotional to see an army of women kicking ass like that. I’m still not sure why I cried so hard, but in thinking about it after, I wondered if what I was responding to was merely seeing such an intense show of a type of power usually only wielded by men.
When I think about narratives about women and power, I always think about this scene. Most of the time, power is defined differently for us. More often, women exercise soft power—they type that comes through our voices and the choices we make. Wonder Woman does some of that too. In fact, the scene I’m talking about is in the movie to show that Diana’s physical strength is not what makes her unique. If anything, what we see is that many of the women around her are even better fighters than she is. The world in which Diana exists needs a hero with more than physical strength. Her character is what ultimately makes her Wonder Woman. It would be nice if we were all Amazons capable of fending off invading soldiers, literal or figurative, but soft power has its place. For some of us, our voices and our choices are all we have. Even when they aren’t reliable voices or good choices, they are ours.
Being “part of the narrative” is a phrase that has become especially popular in recent years in the wake of the musical Hamilton. Eliza is the wife of the titular Hamilton. She utters the phrase at several key points in the show. At first, it’s the request of a besotted woman asking her husband to let her in, emotionally speaking. Later, it’s actions she takes: “erasing” herself from the narrative she long sought to be in out of anger, and putting herself back in it in the end, to ensure he would be remembered after his death. In reality, historians don’t know why the real Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton burned the letters she wrote to her husband. Whatever her reasons, it was an impressive expression of ownership over her own words. May we all be equally strict guardians of our own.
March Book Bites
Capsule Book Review
The Sun is also a Star by Nicola Yoon - finished in 2019 - Picked this one up at the airport book store1 and it's the perfect quick-read for travel. A sweet story of two teens who meet on a fateful day and fall in love. Thoughtful, more charming than it has any business being and driven by characters that pop-off the page.
Currently on my night stand
These books may seem different on the surface. One is a novel, the other a memoir. One is about a young black man in New York City and corporate sales culture. The other is a collection of remembrances from a Muslim American woman traveling across the United States. But both address the pain of being an “other” in American culture and with acerbic, searing prose.
What the kids are reading these days
Smile and Sisters by Raina Telgemeier - My 9-year-old found this author on her own and loves both of these titles. Here’s my take on Sisters, which I finished just after the kiddo did: “This touching graphic novel came to my attention when my 9-year-old mentioned having read the ebook version via her school's library while asking to buy another title by the same author. Curious, I read it myself and never have I been more delighted to take a reading recommendation from a child who usually goes for fantasies starring faeries, unicorns and the occasional dragon. It's a kids book in so far as its central characters are kids, but anyone who remembers the awkwardness of middle school will find themselves represented here. What we see, through the kids' eyes, of the grown ups who don't have it quite together will also hit close to home for parents. A quick read but worth taking your time with.”
The Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne - From my Goodreads post after finishing the eighth in the series Midnight on the Moon: “My 5-year-old and I have been making our way through this series over the last few months. The adventurous Annie and the more cautious but curious Jack are fun travel companions. The moon is one of their more exciting destinations, but it doesn't quite match Magic School Bus for a truly educational science deep-dive. It only took us three days to get through, so a good read aloud for a short attention span.”
Recently Purchased
The Bad Seed and The Good Egg by Jory John (author) and Pete Oswald (illustrator) - I got these two companion picture books for my 5-year-old at her request and was taken by the subtle messages about mental health and being kind to yourself.
Recommendations
Here is a mix of women-focused narratives, all of them displaying different types of powerful, in honor of Women’s History Month.
Madam Secretary by Madaleine Albright
The memoir of the first female Secretary of State has everything: love, fashion, politics, history, international intrigue, war. Several inches thick but worth every moment you’ll spend reading it.
Power Quotient: Making history backwards and in heels.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Hurston’s mastery of language is magical and nowhere is that more clear than in this book. There are stories that make you realize you know nothing of the world and never will, but in a good way. This was perhaps the first of those that I read.
Power Quotient: Black woman in the post-Civil War South who will not be told her life is anything other than hers.
(Funny story: When I took the AP English Literature Exam in high school, I wrote about this book. I have never been a good test taker, though, which on that particular day, manifested in my brain’s inability to remember the main character’s name. It’s Janie. I still managed to ace the test.)
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
And speaking of messy women, here’s my review of this 2020 gem that delivers on the promised fun of the title: “This book is about messy women. Emira is young and doesn't know where she's going. Alix is older, but not wiser, and doesn't like where she ended up. Their relationship and how the racially charged moment at the start of the story affects it hover around the ideas of how women relate to each other, how money affects people and what it takes to get out of our own way and find a path toward something like happiness. The writing is sharp and funny and specific. The characters are complicated, and in some cases problematic, but the author doesn't judge them. They can feel like types sometimes, but then a thought or piece of dialogue underscores their authenticity. A quick enjoyable read.
Power Quotient: A woman at her most powerful is a woman who knows and accepts who she is.
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
As I noted in the review I wrote after I read this in 2017, even messy women deserve a chance to say their piece: “I picked up this book on the way out of town, and it's entertaining for what it is—a fast travel read, the kind that doesn't force you think too hard and makes two and a half hours on a plane in a tiny middle seat go by in a flash. Hawkins shows her hand a little too soon and then spends more time at the end than is necessary explaining what we already know. That said, though, the conceit of the unreliable narrator—however tired it may feel to some—works in this case. If nothing else, I respect the author's decision to allow an unlikeable, broken woman to tell her own version of the truth.”
Power Quotient: A lack of control is not the same as a lack of power.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The movies took the bite out of this series, in my view, and did not quite set our collective imagination afire the way the Harry Potter franchise managed to do. They hold up, though. The first book in particular. My capsule review from 2010: “Loved it. As in, LOVED IT. A strong, young heroine in a dark, compelling, sharply paced story? What's not to love. It's just the start of a three part series, so perhaps I should withhold judgment, but what a start it is.”
Power Quotient: Belittle the power of a teenage girl at your peril.
This is the first of two references to airport bookstore buys in this post. It’s extremely rare that I don’t buy a book at the airport when I travel.