Hitting the Representation Gym With “Strong” Female Characters

I may or may not have a famed print, lunch box, and some mints in my apartment with this image on them.

In every undergraduate class I took on the subject of gender, the professor started the semester with the same request: “Raise your hand if you consider yourself a feminist.” Without fail, most hands would stay resolutely on desks, and the only people who would raise their hands would be women majoring in humanities like English Lit. And, no matter how the professors would try to explain that feminism is not about hating men or burning bras or changing the spelling of “women” to “womyn” students, male and female, were still reluctant to call themselves feminists even if they believed in the core ideals of feminism.