Loving Literary Ladies

Some of my earliest and most cherished role models didn’t even exist. The literary heroines I experienced growing up played such an important role in my childhood and development. It’s no secret that the media doesn’t always love women or portray them positively. There is a lot of objectification, sexualization and degradation if you are a women in any form of media. However, I was not aware of this as a child because I was not exposed to it. Growing up, I was surrounded by intelligent, well developed women, particularly in the books I read. Two stick out in my mind: Nancy Drew and Hermione Granger.

I owe a lot of Nancy Drew, as that series contained some of my first chapter books. Growing up, I thought that Nancy was the coolest chick around: she was smart, personable, strong, independent, and yet still feminine. In short, she was everything that I wanted to be as a kid, I wanted to be smart and take down the bad guys, all while maintaining an incredibly fashionable appearance.

The biggest influence in my life (besides that of my family and teachers) was without a doubt that of one Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series. Hermione was the greatest inspiration in my life. She was flawed; she wasn’t the most attractive girl, she was a little annoying at times, but she was the most down-to-earth character I had ever read at that point in my literary journey. She set the example for how I wanted to live. Hermione was unabashedly intelligent and, despite what her classmates said or thought about her, she never tried to dumb herself down to please them. Growing up, I was teased for almost everything about myself: my older parents, my loves of school and reading to be some of the things. However, every time I wanted to give up, change something about myself to please others, I thought of Hermione. Discovering her when I did was one of the greatest things that could have ever happened to me.

Other literary ladies that deserve some love (for about the same reasons as the ones above)

Jane Eyre- My feminist babe

Lizzy Bennet- first introduction to classic literature