Boudicca, Zenobia, Artemisia, Theodora, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Yoko Ono, Victoria Beckham, Queen Elizabeth II: strong women of history yes...but also all married. Yet in fiction, we almost never see this: certainly not with human characters (elves and/or space elves are often an exception). Our fictional strong or warrior women are single or even actively disinterested in men. Almost all our strong women in fact fall into a single archetype: the shieldmaiden. There is, of course, nothing wrong with this archetype or creating characters based off it. It simply shouldn't be the sole archetype for strong women. Not every woman wants to be that person, not every woman can. Some women desire men. Some women want a family. Some women enjoy their sexuality, and want to share it with someone else. Why can't we consider these women to be just as strong as the unmarried women?
Because when she takes part in sexual activity, according to our society, a woman becomes impure. She is demeaned and degraded in the act, no matter how much the man who does it loves her. After that point, she is no longer a full human being. She is a wife, and not assumed to have the same capacities as she once had. Something was taken from her, but what? The answer of course, is nothing, and this ideology is absurd. Most of the strong women we know and love in history, were in fact married women. We also at one point told stories of women who were strong, not despite but because of their families. Women who were loved by men not despite but because of their strength. Women like Daenerys Stormborn and Wonder Woman.
Daenerys (or Dany) doesn't exactly start out seeming like she will become a warrior mother, the Mother of Dragons. She starts off as a scared girl being abused by her brother, who is her only family. He then packs her off to the seemingly savage Dothraki. But, this is Game of Thrones and so all is not what it first seems. Khal Drogo is not the stupid oaf he first appears to be. More than being unexpectedly intelligent however, the Khal is also more interested in Dany as an individual than he has any reason to be. He demonstrates this by giving Dany's brother his well-deserved comeuppance. Later on, there is a tense scene where Dany attempts to communicate her sexual preferences to her new husband in the few words of his language that she knows. Props to GRRM here for delivering appropriate suspense despite the sensitivity of the material. He really keeps the reader on tenterhooks for a while wondering how Khal Drogo will respond.
Of course this is Game of Thrones, Drogo immediately accommodates her preferences: subverting the expectations of readers around the globe. This gives Dany an inkling that he might truly love her, not simply want to get rid of his wife's enemies. So, she asks her handmaid to show her other sexual techniques. Although this is initially framed as an attempt to seduce Drogo, it soon becomes obvious that isn't really necessary plotwise. But law of conservation of detail: why then does GRRM write out these scenes in excruciating detail? They aren't sex scenes, there is no attraction between Dany and her handmaid Irri and they are doing all of this while fully clothed. There is another purpose to these scenes: Dany is gaining control over her sexuality.
Sexuality is a form of power, that is why discussions of it are so fraught and so politically charged. Sex is the basis of politics and ultimately warfare, but also art, spirituality and every other form of cultural expression. In gaining control of her sexuality, Dany is gaining the tools to change the world. Khal Drogo [spoiler alert] dies, and Dany expertly turns the tragedy into the beginning of her own story. From fire and blood, she gives birth to dragons: from Dothraki and mercenary she gives birth to a nation. A nation built on the ideal of freedom and justice for all. As she later says to Varys: not to turn the wheel, but to break it. To establish a new order upon the world. But first she must survive the winter.
Wonder Woman is a different, but equally interesting sort of Warrior Matron. She's different in part because she looks to us like she is going to be a shieldmaiden type of heroine: a warrior woman, who has a pretty poor opinion of men. But then she meets a man who changes her opinion about men, and humans in general (since she apparently isn't, despite looking exactly like a human). Thus, more directly than Daenerys, Wonder Woman is a subversion of the shieldmaiden trope: and given the author it's reasonable to assume that was the intention. She has to teach this man a thing or two about the right way to treat women, but unlike most men in the WWI era would have been: he's an eager student.
Wonder Woman is placed opposite Ares, a representation of the toxic masculinity inherent in Colonialism. Ares in Greek Mythology is both brutal and bloodthirsty, but also daft as a post and emotionally fragile. He's all ego, and when something threatens his ego he throws a tantrum. When Diomedes spears him in the Iliad, he goes running to his mommy like a scared child. He romances Aphrodite, but also abuses her such that she's constantly running between him and her actual husband Hephaestus. Far from representing an ideal man to the Ancient Greeks, he was something of a joke. A god to be feared for his power, but laughed at behind his back.
Diana (Wonder Woman) represents what Ares is missing: the calming and rational feminine spirit. She represents how Europeans (but not Americans-subject for another post) largely became disillusioned with the idea of Colonialism, upon seeing the horrific violence that it took to maintain Colonial control. But of course, Ares is immortal: he is an ideology, this egotistical ideology of Colonial Empire. He was only defeated, not killed. He returns again and again. Diana however, is also in the world still. Again, she represents an ideology: of protecting the weak and teaching the ignorant.
She is not fighting for the Allies because she sees nothing wrong with what they are doing, but because she sees that they have the potential to be something better with her guidance. They have the capacity and willingness to learn. She is still working with men, teaching them how to embrace the feminine both within themselves and outside themselves. Rather than sequestering herself away and letting the world burn like the rest of her tribe, Diana is here with us. She is fighting against DAESH in Syria, and working with survivors of sexual assualt. She is speaking against sexual predators, and for women's rights. She was there when the Southern Baptist Conference, formally split from the Republican Party and acknowledged it's unfair treatment of women.
Wonder Woman fights for the world, because she has found a man worth fighting for. An inversion of the trope that we typically see in literature where the male warrior (the most recent example being Harry Potter) fights for the female love interest. Not that there is anything wrong with this, it is very realistic after all. Nothing motivates a person to fight more than the thought of their loved ones being in danger, that is how we are hardwired as human beings. It is simply that we do not often acknowledge that women also fight for their loved ones: indeed, that is typically the only time a woman will fight unless she is in a political position where it is required. This is because women prefer to avoid situations where their physical bodies might be damaged, at least if they ever plan on having children. Wonder Woman has sometimes been slammed as sexist because of this (and, to be fair, her costume), but this is actually the opposite of sexist. It is an acknowledgement that women feel sexual desire, and behave similarly to men when they feel it. If that isn't feminism, I don't know what is.
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