I first saw Star Wars in the theater when I was eight years old. Being a little kid I loved the movie, of course, but it was especially Carrie Fisher who had the strongest impact on me. There were strong feminine role models all around me; in real life, in books, in music and in film. But for a child there seemed to be an absence of strong women role models in popular culture. I was too young to appreciate what Mary Tyler Moore represented portraying a single working woman on television and far too young to read and appreciate strong female characters in classic literature. Linda Carter was playing the super hero Wonder Woman on television but her costume made the production seem more about sexuality than about character. And then boom, here comes Princess Leia. Yeah, they named her princess but she was brash, brave, fierce, and funny. She was ballsy (and I don’t mean in the testicular way). As an eight year old she was the first fictionalized woman I had ever seen that I could truly relate to and admire. Carrie Fisher’s character was someone I could identify with and represented someone I would want as my friend or ally. And it wasn’t because she was cute or sexy. It was because of her strength and intelligence and humor and the nature of her character that attracted me and ultimately influenced the very way I regarded women. This fictional bad ass rebel helped to create a new paradigm for the representation of what a woman could be in my imagination, in my mind, and more importantly in my life. My favorite characters in print, film and in life are mainly strong women, whether it is Hermione Granger, Lisbeth Salander, Elizabeth Warren or Scout from “To Kill a Mockingbird.” It may sound strange but a space princess from 1977 made me a feminist.

Now it is forty years since the release of Star Wars and there is an abundance of strong women characters on television, in film, in books, and in our political world. But I have never before seen such disrespect or almost hatred towards women then what I am witnessing today. The dignity and the autonomy of women and their access to health care, contraception and their reproductive rights are continuously under attack in our country by the far right. During the recent health care debate Republican Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas said, "I wouldn't want to lose my mammograms," when asked wether he supports Essential Health Benefits. Foster Friess, the wealthy Republican mega donor behind the pro-Rick Santorum Super PAC, dismissed questions about his patron’s controversial views on women stating: “On this contraceptive thing, my Gosh it’s such [sic] inexpensive. You know, back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.” Texas Representative Jodie Laudenberg in 2013 said, “If a woman is raped… We have hospital emergency rooms. We have funded what’s called rape kits that will help the woman, basically clean her out. And then hopefully that will alleviate that.” Republican Senate candidate Richard Murdock told rape victims who might want an abortion, “I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God. And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.” Texas Republican Clayton Williams said, “Well, bad weather is like rape; if it’s inevitable, you might as well relax and enjoy it.” Rush Limbaugh, in response to Sandra Fluke’s testimony to congress about a lesbian friend who uses birth control for non contraceptive medical purposes, said, “What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke [sic] who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex. What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex.” Instead of MSNBC, Rush Limbaugh calls it PMSNBC to link their network to, what I suppose he believes, a woman’s menstrual cycle and thus weakness. Rush Limbaugh also refers to feminists as Feminazis. 

On January 17th we inaugurated what is in all essence our first openly misogynistic President. In “The Art of the Deal” he bragged about sleeping with married women, “If I told the real stories of my experiences with women, often seemingly very happily married and important women, this book would be a guaranteed best-seller.” And in interviews he has bragged about cheating on his own wives. In a presidential debate he expressed his disgust towards Carly Fiorina by saying, “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!” After tough but fair questions from Fox’s Megyn Kelly he tweeted, “I really enjoyed the debate tonight even though the @FoxNews trio, especially @megynkelly, was not very good or professional!” Then in an interview he stated, “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.” He tried to play it off as if that was a common thing to say to represent anger. I’ve never heard anything so bizarre in my life. He’s bragged to Howard Stern about popping into dressing rooms to catch contestants of his beauty pageants in a state of undress (sadly this even includes his teen pageants). But nothing compares to him bragging to Billy Bush about sexually molesting women. After talking about attempting to seduce Nancy O’Dell, a married woman, he then refers to Arianne Zucker, “I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know I'm automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.” This was explained as “locker room” talk. I was in the military for 4 years and heard hundreds if not thousands of off-color statements about women but never once did I hear a fellow serviceman brag about forcing himself on a woman. This would be locker room talk in perhaps a school for serial killers (which, by the way, would be a great Netflix show…”Serial High”). My God, he wouldn’t even shake Angela Merkel’s hand. This is our President. 

The Equal Rights Amendment was first written in 1923 as: “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” In 1972, almost fifty years later, the amendment to the Constitution was finally passed by congress stating:

Section 1: Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.  

Section 2: TheCongress shall have the power to enforce,by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.    

Section 3: This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

The Equal Rights Amendment is still not law in our land because only 35 of the 38 states required have ratified it. An amendment which basically states “treat women equally with men” cannot get ratified in The United States of America. And since then five states have even tried to “un-ratify” their support for the amendment.

Right wing evangelical Christian Pat Robertson has said, “The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”

“Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope.” Screw that, “Help us Princess Leia. You’re our only hope.”

It is not as if we have a dearth of strong women who are willing to fight for the rights of all women, and the rights of all of society. There is an abundance of them: Elizabeth Warren, J.K. Rowling, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Emma Watson, Michelle Obama, Meryl Streep, Hillary Clinton, and Tulsi Gabbard; to name but a few. No, it is that we need to recognize, promote, and defend the strong women we have and support the rights and equality of all women regardless of their socio-economic status or political views.

It’s sad because it never really occurred to me how profound an influence Carrie Fisher had on me and the way she, and her beloved character, shaped the way I thought about and reacted to women in print and film, and to women in the public and in my own life; until she was gone. I always got a particular sensation and had a special reaction every time I saw her on television or saw her quoted on the internet. I just never really thought about why. I was actually painting her and Mark Hamill (and the droids you are not looking for) in a variation I was doing of a painting by the artist Ingres when I heard about her death. But I began work on this individual portrait of her the very next day.

Just the thoughts of a former eight year old from Ohio.

20”x20” Acrylic and Oil on Canvas 2017