Excerpt from A Conversation with Kelly Sue DeConnick

1. DeConnick: Its just, look, women are raised without much representation in the media. So we’re taught very early on how to identify with a male protagonist. This is a switch we have no trouble making. Right?
2. But men are actively discouraged from identifying with a female protagonist because female is less in our culture and we don’t want to power down, right? Anything you do that is feminine is weak and small and not a good idea. From a business perspective, if you publish something from a male point of view, women who read these things will probably buy it anyway. But if you do the same story with a female protagonist, you are going to alienate your core readership.
3. Finke: But you are writing the books that are stepping out from that. You’re writing Captain Marvel and Pretty Deadly, and it sounds like eventually Bitch Planet will be a break from that as well. So, what propels you as a storyteller to say, I know that these stories are not going to propel the business side but I’m going to do this anyway.
4. DeConnick: I’m filled with piss and vinegar? I don’t know. It makes me angry. I was asked in an interview once: You’re writing another book with a female lead? Aren’t you afraid you’re going to be pigeonholed? And I thought, I write a team superhero book, an uplifting solo hero book, I write a horror-western, and I write a ghost story. What am I gonna be pigeonholed as?
5. Has a man in the history of men ever been asked if he was going to be pigeonholed because he wrote two consecutive books with male leads? Half of the population is women. I lose my temper here. And it’s certainly not at you. It’s just this pervasive notion that “white male” is the default. And you have to justify any variation from it.