gender Archives - Lisa Lilly

The Workplace, Veterans, PTSD, & The Mockingjay

admin — Wed, 11 Nov 2015 16:08:00 +0000

Over the last week, I rewatched the Hunger Games movies. (CAUTION: Some spoilers ahead.) In the beginning of Mockingjay Part One, hero Katniss Everdeen, survivor of two battles to the death, hides in a narrow corridor, rocking and whispering the few facts she remembers, desperate to reorient herself. The scene reminded me of a question a friend asked me after I saw the film at the theater. She hadn’t seen it yet, but she’d heard other moviegoers say they did not like it as much as the previous two Hunger Games films because, in this installment, Katniss seemed weak.

Having just read an article on veterans and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, it occurred to me on rewatching Mockingjay Part One that Katniss suffers from PTSD. In her two times in the arena, Katniss sees people killed right in front of her, including a little girl she thought of as a younger sister, and she kills others to defend herself, Peeta, and her allies. She sets off an explosion that causes her to lose her hearing in one ear (though the hearing loss is omitted from the movies). These are all experiences that can cause PTSD, especially close proximity to explosions.

The symptoms of PTSD include many of those we see Katniss exhibit in Mockingjay Part One and, to a lesser extent, in Catching Fire. Flashbacks, disturbing dreams, severe emotional distress on being reminded of anything related to the trauma, negative feelings about self, overwhelming guilt (think of how angry and upset Katniss feels over being rescued from the arena while Peeta was not), trouble concentrating, angry outbursts, and feelings of hopelessness. Fellow survivor Finnick Odair, also shattered by the experience, tells Katniss with conviction that they’d be better off dead.

I admire Suzanne Collins for delving into the consequences of war. Both The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, the first two films, depict the pageantry of war. Young people are sent to fight battles with everyone knowing how many of them will die. (Further, those in lower income brackets are the most likely to “volunteer,” as each time a family puts its child’s name in the reaping, it gets extra rations some need to survive.) Catching Fire and the third film, Mockingjay Part One, show the severe effects of combat on the survivors. These consequences are particularly striking seen against the propaganda both sides engage in during Mockingjay. While obviously Katniss Everdeen is a fictional character, that some audience members might see her as as weak when she exhibits those effects made me think about our culture’s views of strength, weakness, and emotional and mental challenges.

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People who live with PTSD, depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues also face the challenge of how others see them. Despite greater awareness, many people still see emotional or mental illnesses as a form of weakness. I am a fan of many self-help guides and methods, and I use techniques I’ve learned regarding meditation, goal setting, and being aware of what questions I ask myself to feel my best and achieve as much as possible. But versions of these techniques and their related messages often trickle into popular culture in an oversimplified form. We are told that your life circumstances are those that you’ve created, as if we had complete control; that you get what you focus on; that the world returns to you what you put out into it; and that if you are struggling with anything from low earnings to depression to difficult relationships, it’s all your own doing. Further, improving anything is solely a matter of the adopting the correct mindset, evoking the right emotional state, or taking a more spiritual path. These advice soundbites can leave those facing challenges that can’t be addressed through a change of individual mindset or habits alone feeling guilt and shame over not being able to “pull themselves together” or “get over it.”

Reactions to Katniss are also, I suspect, grounded in cultural stereotyping of certain emotions as feminine or masculine. When Katniss cries uncontrollably and is distracted and depressed, President Coin of the rebellion sees her as weak. When she expresses anger, even against the President, she’s seen as a strong symbol for the rebellion. This is not so far off from norms for girls and boys, and women and men. Boys are socialized not to cry but are allowed to express anger while girls are taught that crying is acceptable, but showing anger is inappropriate. Because of this socialization, many women report that they cry when they’re angry, making dealing with workplace disagreements particularly challenging. A man who raises his voice to a coworker in anger or slams a poorly written report by a subordinate down on the conference table never risks being seen as weak. A woman who cries in the same context will likely never be seen as a leader. She might not even be seen as competent.

I saw shades of this in my past life as a large law firm litigator. In a retreat for senior associates, a consultant advised that if a junior lawyer came to your office, started talking about a work problem, and began to cry, you should immediately leave to give her a chance to compose herself because the woman crying would be embarrassed and also needed to learn to manage her emotions better. Talking while calm is a good idea, but the idea of standing up and walking out on someone who starts to cry strikes me as awful in most circumstances. I did not hear any similar advice given about men who became angry, though women were cautioned against expressing anger too often or too strongly given the likelihood of being perceived as a bitch. Recently I read a woman blogger who said that her new plan is that every time a man shouts in the workplace, she’s going to say, “I can’t talk to you when you’re so emotional. Please come see me when you compose yourself.” If that starts happening, I will be more OK with the advice about walking away from a woman who cries. But the reality is still that expressing emotion through tears is seen as weak, while expressing anger, for men, is seen as empowering.

It’s a stretch to imagine that The Hunger Games books and movies can change that. But I love that in Katniss, we have an action hero who shows the real effects of what she’s been through. Rather than being stoic, she cries and shouts, falls apart when confronted with certain scenarios, and eventually finds her way through–not by toughing it out, but through finding a sense of purpose and with the aid of medical help and friends. Perhaps her story will open the way for more heroes, real and fictional, of any gender, to express all types of emotion.

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Lisa M. Lilly is the author of the occult thrillers The Awakening and The Unbelievers, Books 1 and 2 in the Awakening series. A short film of the title story of her collection The Tower Formerly Known as Sears and Two Other Tales of Urban Horror was recently produced under the title Willis Tower. If you’d like to be notified of new releases and read reviews of M.O.S.T. (Mystery, Occult, Suspense, Thriller) books and movies, click here to join her email list and receive free a short horror story, Ninevah, published exclusively to M.O.S.T. subscribers.

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Extant, Transcendence, and Who’s Talking To Whom

admin — Tue, 26 Aug 2014 17:04:00 +0000

The concept of recent sci-fi movie Transcendence– what if a human’s brain becomes an A.I.? – fascinated me, and I enjoyed the film. What bothers me is that despite one of the two main characters being a woman, Dr. Evelyn Caster, I can’t remember, in the entire movie, any woman speaking one-on-one with any other woman. About anything.

I understand men outnumber women in the hard sciences, but Evelyn has not a single woman friend to support her in a crisis? I also understand that writers can’t throw in scenes solely to show a character has friends. Yet, somehow, men in the movie talk to one another, not only to women. It wouldn’t be so bad if Transcendence were unique. But in so many action, sci-fi, and suspense movies, and often TV shows as well, women interact primarily, if not exclusively, with men. Even in romance movies, where women are shown as having female friends, the only topic the women typically discuss with each other is men. I can’t help wondering whether film and television writers and directors truly believe this is how women’s lives work.

One reason I love the new CBS show Extantis the relationship between main character Molly and her best friend and physician Sam (Samantha). I started watching Extant because of the mysterious pregnancy aspect. No surprise, given my love for the book Rosemary’s Babyand movie The Terminator. Extant is well acted, with compelling plot lines, and I love the Sam/Molly dynamic. Molly trusts Sam, and Sam puts herself and her career on the line for Molly. When drastic circumstances push them into conflict, they strive to understand one another through the depths of their anger and fear rather than becoming enemies or, worse, engaging in the emotional equivalent of a hair-pulling fight. Or, worse still, engaging in an actual hair-pulling fight, which I’ve never seen two women do in real life, but have seen several times on TV.

Women colleagues have played a pivotal role in my life. Soon after I became a lawyer, I had a case opposite a woman attorney who also had just started practicing law. Each time we appeared in court, we waited our turn among about thirty other lawyers – nearly all men. The opposing attorney and I argued vigorously in court, but before and after we talked about being lawyers, our law schools, and where to find good pantsuits (most stores sold only skirt suits at the time). We ran into each other at professional events after the case was over and eventually became friends. Ten years later, I stood up at her wedding. Other women attorneys generously shared information about finances, hiring staff, and computers when I started my own law practice.

In my writing life, too, women have been wonderful advisers and friends. Through social media, I met New York Times bestselling author Melissa Foster, who invited me to join a thriller book launch she organized and gave me marketing advice. Through Melissa, I met Chicago-area horror author Carrie Green. Carrie and I had a blast presenting a panel at Chicago Comic Con called Girls Gone Gore. (The title was Carrie’s idea – mine was much less exciting – Women Writing Horror.)

Men, too, have been wonderful mentors and colleagues to me, and I owe several a great debt. So my point is not that women are better friends and mentors to women than men are. My point is that women arefriends and advisers to one another. If I saw more stories like Extant that portrayed women as the real people we are, with professional and personal relationships with one another that are as strong and varied as men’s are, I would go to movies and watch television a lot more. I suspect a lot of other women would to.

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Lisa M. Lilly is the author of Amazon occult best seller The Awakening. Her poems and short fiction have appeared in numerous print and on-line magazines, including Parade of Phantoms, Strong Coffee, and Hair Trigger, and a short film of the title story of her collection The Tower Formerly Known as Sears and Two Other Tales of Urban Horror was recently produced under the title Willis Tower. If you’d like to be notified of new releases, including The Unbelievers (The Awakening, Book 2), click here to join her email list. To pre-order The Unbelievers for Kindle click here.

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From My Mother’s Bookshelves (Favorite Books Post No. 3)

admin — Sat, 10 May 2014 22:13:00 +0000

My mom and dad had in their bedroom three large bookcases, which I thought of as my mom’s because nearly all the books were hardbacks she’d bought from book-of-the-month clubs she’d belonged to in the 1950s and 60s. The books had a slightly musty yet dry old paper and cloth smell I love to this day. Most of them had plain cloth bindings with titles that were barely visible on the sides, as the paper jackets had fallen apart and been discarded.

My favorite book on those shelves was The Elegant Witch. Set in England in the early 1600s, the writing style and sense of irony remind me of Jane Austen, but the plot and mood is suspense/mystery. Protagonist Margery, youngest sibling and misfit in her Puritan family, is sent to live with her kinsman Roger, a Justice of the Peace in the small town of Pendle. Mysterious deaths and illnesses occur often in Pendle and accusations of witchcraft are common. Margery is smart and brave, and she helps Roger with his Justice of the Peace duties and helps unravel the source of the evil in Pendle. (See my full review here.)

Another favorite was The Emperor’s Lady about the life of Empress Josephine of France. It starts when she’s a young woman embarking on an arranged marriage to a pompous young man. I was fascinated by this woman who married, divorced, established a fashionable Paris salon, married Napoleon, was crowned Empress and died without her crown. Josephine was smart and went after what she wanted. She was also unconventional, engaging in infidelities, giving her husband business and political advice, and warring with her in-laws, who spent a lot of time trying to get her set aside because she could no longer have children. The Emperor’s Lady sparked a lifelong interest in France. I was thrilled when despite living on a very tight budget, my mom and dad sent me on a week long school trip to London and Paris, though my parents hadn’t been to Europe themselves and rarely took vacations at all other than to visit family. During the trip, I visited Malmaison, Josephine’s country castle.

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I also loved a book called The Concubine, a fictionalized biography of Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII. This portrait of Boleyn is far more flattering and probably somewhat more historically accurate than the later book, The Other Boleyn Girl, that was so popular a while back and was made into a movie. In The Concubine, Anne is portrayed overall as neither victim nor villain, but as a complex woman struggling to make the best of the limited options open to a woman in her social position and time period. Over the years, I read several biographies of Boleyn and continue to be fascinated with her. I’ve also read and reread The Concubine to study how author Norah Lofts created such a strong character.

That my mom had a number of books about women, real and fictional, who were strong and didn’t allow themselves to be boxed into the roles society dictated for them isn’t surprising, though when I was a young adult I would have thought it was. While my mom encouraged me to become educated, think for myself, and take advantage of opportunities she never had, as two smart, determined women who were certain we were right (most especially when we disagreed with each other), we often clashed. Over forty years separated my mom and me, so our frames of reference for women’s roles, religion, work, and nearly everything else differed significantly. But at my mom’s funeral, my godmother – a very great lady who recently passed away – gave me a gift. She told me she wished I’d known my mother when my mom was a young woman. Gloria said my mom had done all sorts of things that women her age were not supposed to do. Took trips to New York and California at 18 years old with just another girlfriend and no chaperones, earned her own money, bought her own car, waited more than a decade longer than her friends to get married. Talking with Gloria, I realized that the very traditional, conventional mom I thought I’d had was probably not that different from me after all. It only seemed so because we’d been born in such different times. If I’d thought more about what my mom kept on her bookshelves, I might have realized that sooner.

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Lisa M. Lilly is the author of the occult thrillers The Awakening and The Unbelievers, Books 1 and 2 in the Awakening series. A short film of the title story of her collection The Tower Formerly Known as Sears and Two Other Tales of Urban Horror was recently produced under the title Willis Tower. If you’d like to be notified of new releases and read reviews on M.O.S.T. (Mystery, Occult, Suspense, Thriller), click here to join her email list.

The post From My Mother’s Bookshelves (Favorite Books Post No. 3) appeared first on Lisa Lilly.

The Military, Make Up, and Rereading Katniss (Favorite Books Post No. 1)

admin — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 22:57:00 +0000

Recently I reread the Hunger Games trilogy. It was great fun, and the themes seemed particularly timely. (I’ll do my best not to spoil any of the plot for those who haven’t read the whole trilogy.)

(1) Women in Combat: In the Hunger Games, each combatant (known as a tribute) competes to become the sole survivor. The arena for the games changes from year to year and even within each game. A combatant might face mountains, drought, fire, floods, or all of the above. Author Suzanne Collins does an excellent job of showing how each challenge requires different skills and traits. In one scenario, being a fast swimmer is the most important skill, and brute strength provides little or no advantage. In some parts of the game, a young, small tribute outwits and outmaneuvers larger, stronger and tougher opponents because she’s stealthy and quick and can swing from treetop to treetop without being noticed. Knowing what plants can be eaten and having the skill to distinguish between ones that are medicinal and ones that are poisonous also can be vital — another skill that has nothing to do with strength or size. While The Hunger Games and its sequels are fiction, they raise good questions about what makes someone able to handle combat situations or survive in hostile territory. That seems appropriate at a time when the U.S. is inching toward allowing women in combat positions for the first time.

(2) The Importance of Appearances: Before they compete, tributes undergo a rigorous remake of their images, and those images are vital in getting sponsors. Sponsors are people with money who send tributes things they need to survive during the Games. The boy tributes have style consultants just as the girls do. But the girls are subjected to more intense treatments that generally do nothing to help them in combat. While she’s being put through hours of waxing, eyebrow tweezing and skin polishing, Katniss reflects on how her male counterpart, Peeta, has this same time free. He can rest or eat during those hours to build his strength, train longer to hone his skills, or schmooze with potential sponsors. This echoes U.S. culture, though obviously the books present this in a larger and more dramatic way. But studies show that women who wear make up are viewed as more professional than those who don’t, leaving women who choose not to use cosmetics at a disadvantage. Then there’s wardrobe. For men, the standard business attire is a neutral suit and tie or, for business casual, a long-sleeve shirt and khaki pants. There is no neutral for women. A skirt suit can be too girly, a pants suit too manly, a gray outfit too boring, a fuschia blouse too frivolous. (Think of the 2008 primaries — no one commented on John McCain’s or Barack Obama’s pants suits.) My routine is pretty basic, and I still spend about 20 minutes every morning on hair, make up and clothing choices, 20 minutes my male colleagues don’t need to spend. That’s over 120 hours a year, the equivalent of 2-3 work weeks. I could take a vacation, earn another 3/4 of a month’s pay, or finish rewrites on my current novel in that time. Not to mention what cosmetics cost. I spend an average $30 a month on cosmetics and skincare. That’s $360 a year, which would buy a plane ticket for that vacation.

(3) Likeability: Much of the preparation of Katniss for the Hunger Games involves making her likeable so she can attract sponsors. Katniss is fierce, stubborn, smart, strong and resourceful. All great qualities for survival, and if she were a boy, particularly a large boy, those qualities would get her sponsors. Everyone likes to bet on a winner. As a girl, though, she needs to project vulnerability, niceness (even to the people who are orchestrating a game whose aim is to kill children), and loveability, regardless whether the boys she competes against project those qualities or whether those qualities in themselves will help her win. This reflects many real women’s experiences. Women are generally raised to place a premium on relationships, being nice, and being liked. Indeed, many women report being told by strangers on the street to smile if they look too serious or stern, something I suspect never happens to men. Similarly, when men are demanding bosses, take hardline positions, or grab the spotlight in meetings, these qualities are seen as signs of strength and leadership. Women who exhibit these behaviors are more often seen as too aggressive, and aggression is almost always viewed negatively in women. At the same time, women are instructed that to get ahead, they must adopt male body language (see, for example,
10 Common Body Language Traps for Women in the Workplace) or typically male approaches to business to succeed (see Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office).

The reality is, as in The Hunger Games, different qualities, strategies and skills work for different people at different times. There is no one “right” way to behave in every situation. But because the standard for so long has been based on how men behave, women still struggle either to show how they match the male model or why their approach is just as effective. (For a good book about women, men and leadership, check out Closing the Leadership Gap by Marie C. Wilson.)

As a writer, I aim for my work to entertain and intrigue first. Then I hope that after readers close the book, questions and ideas linger about the conflicts the characters faced and how they reflect the real world. I admire the way Suzanne Collins manages that throughout the Hunger Games books without slowing the story for a second.

What are you favorite thrillers, and how do they reflect the larger world around us?

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Lisa M. Lilly is the author of Amazon occult best seller The Awakening. A short film of the title story of her collection The Tower Formerly Known as Sears and Two Other Tales of Urban Horror was recently produced under the title Willis Tower. Her poems and short fiction have appeared in numerous print and on-line magazines, including Parade of Phantoms, Strong Coffee, and Hair Trigger. She is currently working on The Awakening, Book II: The Unbelievers.

The Awakening for Kindle: http://amzn.to/pFCcN6

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Visit Lisa’s website: www.lisalilly.com

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