Here are examples of real women who have done real things: good, bad, and in between. We're expanding not just the definition of the female or feminine hero, but also villains and more complex, nuanced female characters. Too often I hear men say, "I don't know how to write women." Here you go, here are five incredible women you can use to inspire your own stories.

Anita Sarkeesian

Categorized in : Writing Hero Real

There’s no such thing as sexism against men. That's because sexism is prejudice + power. Men are the dominant gender with power in society.

Anita Sarkeesian

gender prejudice men

It is both possible (and even necessary) to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of its more problematic or pernicious aspects.

Anita Sarkeesian

media criticism inspirational

I am not a fan of video games, I had to learn a lot about them. I would love to play video games, but I don't want to go around shooting people, and ripping off their heads, and it's just gross.

Anita Sarkeesian

games play people

The US bombed them back to traditional values – feminism does not exist in Japan. While I don’t like judging an entire culture…that does not excuse them.

Anita Sarkeesian

feminism japan judging

When we look at these historical women and what they've gone through, it's shocking to recognize some of our own experiences in theirs. When you look at someone like Ada Lovelace who is the first computer programmer, during her lifetime doctors said that was really sick because she was trying to use a masculine kind of brain that she didn't have. Today, her legacy of being the first programmer is stil disputed.

Anita Sarkeesian

doctors sick historical

One of the most radical things you can do, is to actually believe women when they tell you about their experiences.

Anita Sarkeesian

radical can-do believe

There is a clear difference between sexist parody and parody of sexism. Sexist parody encourages the players to mock and trivialize gender issues while parody of sexism disrupts the status quo and undermines regressive gender conventions.

Anita Sarkeesian

issues differences player

I came back to this idea of telling the stories of women who aren't in all of the history books. Their names are not up there next to male names that we've know since we were little kids. Ching Shih, for example, was a pirate commander from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. She was one of the most fearsome pirates, why is her name not included when we list the names of great pirates like Blackbeard?

Anita Sarkeesian

names kids book

Maybe today we aren't being told that our brains are not capable of such things [like programming], but we [as a women] are being told that we are not good enough or smart enough or that our successes do not belong to us.

Anita Sarkeesian

not-good-enough smart brain

The struggles of dealing with online harassment is the same harassment that women have been dealing with, it's just a new medium in which it's happening.

Anita Sarkeesian

harassment online struggle

I wanted to make feminism more accessible. And I really wanted to engage with my own generation, one that is increasingly speaking in an audio/video multimedia language.

Anita Sarkeesian

feminism generations video

The other thing is that it's really hard to separate out the harassment from everything we do. When we started creating Tropes, we were hyper-aware of the intense scrutiny, the intense harassment, and the intense pressure to do something meaningful given the attention both positive and negative. That's carried over in terms of making sure that I produce the best work that I can, that's the most accurate, the most sensitive and engaged.

Anita Sarkeesian

creating attention meaningful

Well maybe the princess shouldnt be a damsel and she can save herself.

Anita Sarkeesian

princess wells

I really want to help write women back into history.

Anita Sarkeesian

want writing helping

The gaming industry has been male-dominated ever since its inception.

Anita Sarkeesian

inception males has-beens

Some male gamers with a deep sense of entitlement are terrified of change.

Anita Sarkeesian

gamer entitlement males

I hadn't mentioned, but Ching Shih is a pretty villainous character. She is a real person, but she was a pirate commander, so she probably murdered a lot of people.

Anita Sarkeesian

real character people

The struggles women face today are simultaneously very, very old and very new.

Anita Sarkeesian

struggle faces today

I want these to be names that young girls and boys and kids of all genders grow up knowing. It shouldn't just be when you take a feminist class in college, if you happen to do that. I hope this is fun and engaging for folks to watch.

Anita Sarkeesian

growing-up girl fun

For me, if folks who are watching YouTube can pitch in a bit to help cover the cost for creating this work, that's great, but I don't want folks who can't helped to not have access to it. I really like the crowdfunding model in that regard.

Anita Sarkeesian

creating cost want