When I was young, I had a lot of baby dolls. I had all the accessories too, including a stroller, bottles and toy baby food. I carried them with me everywhere I went. I cared for them and hugged them like they were real. I loved them with all my heart.
The ironic thing is that now, as a 20 year old college student, I don’t want to be a mother. It’s nowhere near the realm of my desires at the moment. But back then, to be a mom was all I wanted. No one forced me to want these dolls; I wanted them all on my own because I wanted to be just like my mom. I wanted to be a grown up and tough woman.
A few years later, when I started school, I told everyone I wanted to be a teacher. This couldn’t be farther from a career path meant for me now, but then, my teachers were all fierce working women, and that’s what I wanted to be.
Representation of fearless women is far too important for young girls. Not because they’ll want the jobs they have or the look, but because they’ll want the independence and strength that comes with being a loud and proud female. This desperate need for strong female representation is why the 2018 Golden Globes are so important for girls of all ages to see.
Women of all ages and sizes, from Meryl Streep to Millie Bobbie Brown, came strolling down the red carpet draped in black, some with well-known female activists on their arms. The message they were sending was clear: they mourn the loss of fearlessness women in Hollywood, or in any workplace, have experienced at the hands of overly powerful men.
Enter Oprah. Oprah Winfrey was awarded the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement at the Golden Globes. She opened her acceptance speech with a story of herself as a little black girl watching Sidney Poitier accept the first Oscar to go to a black actor and later the Cecil B. DeMille Award himself. “It is not lost on me,” Oprah then said, “that at this moment, there are some little girls watching as I become the first black woman to be given this same award.”
I’m not a black woman. I can’t speak for the multiplied atrocities women of color experience compared to those of white women like myself. But even Oprah knows the power of seeing representation like that, so I must emphasize how necessary it is that women and girls see what female strength looks like.
Right now, it looks like Natalie Portman calling out the Best Director category for lacking women. It looks like Nicole Kidman praising her character for surviving abuse when she won for her show Big Little Lies. It looks like a sea of black fabric telling Harvey Weinstein and company that their time is up, and it’s time for the new day on the horizon that Oprah spoke of; “The time when nobody ever has to say ‘Me too’ again.”