On the Road to Becoming the Rose-Petald Warrior

This assignment I have set myself has many layers to the purpose or why of doing it. This idea came to me during my Masters course and alos, the desire to overhaul my life. As a lover of action, comic and blockbuster films, and the lack of relatable women action heroes, I wondered if I could do and prove that an average, working class woman like myself could become a hero. Of course, there is more to being a hero than looking the part and no longer having self-destructive tendencies, but I think ultimately the goal was to building the strongest self-respect and confidence, and authenticity that in when I campaign an defend for feminist and human rights, their attempt to discredit and destroy my character, which is the main and common weapon of the patriarchal and capitalist system, that my mental health is so resilient I will cheesily reply in the wise words of Captain America, "I can do this all day."

I don't wholeheartedly remember how I came to the conclusion of this, but I found out that a lot of writers and directors of epic hero films follow a blueprint called the "The Hero's Journey" that was created by a man called Joseph Campbell, but during my library research for this book, I found a book called "The Heroine's Journey" by Maureen Murdock and started reading both at the same time. In Murdock's introduction of what her book was about, which I soon realised was more of psychology manual inspired by mythology than a guide to writing the hero's journey, but she points out quite early that she had met Campbell and wanted his opinion on the heroine's journey, his response was that women don't need to make the journey. "All she has to do is realise that she's the place that people are trying to get to. When a woman realises what her wonderful character is, she's not going to get messed up with the notion of being pseudo-male." A very sexist way of saying I only know how to write women as being supporting characters, symbolisms or foils for my patriarchal male fantasy stories, because that's all I see women are for in my own life. *eye roll* So, I soon took Campbell's back to the library and realised that if I wanted to learn how to write a woman's version of the hero's journey is to continue to let Murdock inspire me is to listen to the stories of the women around me in my personal life and the headlines; and myself.

This is a hard line to toe because I believe that men, women and non-binary folk shouldn't be treated differently and I don't think truly we are opposites or different, it is the popular gender standards that make us differ. HOWEVER, because the dominance of the patriarchal ruling of gender stereotypes, we have had different journies, different obstacles and fights.

I want to write my stories that are similar to Brienne of Tarth's story or have the likes of her leading my stories. There aren't enough fantasy stories out there for me with women lead characters that inspire me to be the hero of my own story or see myself in them. I need more stories that have heroines who aren't hyper-feminised to make up for the "masculine" traits they have and less love-at-first-sight romances. And so, to solve this, I need to weave my own experiences into my novels. This is not me saying that I am the perfect model of womanhood, I am very imperfect, I have hurt people and have made A LOT of mistakes and will continue to do so, because that is the only way we can truly learn, but the aim is to make the mistakes once in a blue moon. But I am proud of the strength that I have, the strength to have continued and the strength to keep trying to stay authentic. But all I have done is survived, I need to now live and fight to help make sure that the next generation of girls, young and old women, have the strength to be their own heroes.

I feel currently nearing the end of the stage of my Hero's Journey that Murdock calls "The Initiation and Descent to the Goddess" but after this post, I will talk about the other stages prior and the relation to my own story, before talking about the current status of my journey. However, to refer to Campbell's stages of the Hero's Journey to put it simply, I have endured the Abyss and on the edge of the rebirth, where I will Transform and continue to into Atonement by giving back.

So, I will end by saying, every woman's Hero's Journey is different, a fact that they have failed to capture in TV, cinema and in novels, especially in the superhero/comic, fantasy, sci-fi, action genres, and we know the reason why. And I am definitely saying, my story isn't special or noteworthy, or particularly traumatic and hard, but it is unique. May be my branch of white Yorkshire working class-ness will broaden people's minds or surprise people. End of the day, it's a story to tell that may help another person feel less alone. A lesson I learnt from Hannah Gadsby.

Telling our stories is a sort of activism. We will be silenced no longer.