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We've Come a Long Way Baby


When I was young, the cool chicks in movies...wait, there were no cool chicks.



My niece has a poster of Disney's Belle on her bedroom wall.


Now, I know Belle is classified as a princess but really, she's a regular girl whose favorite pastime is reading.



I recall having a poster of Garfield and one from Raiders of the Lost Ark in my childhood room.



Mary Ellen Walton wore overalls and lived on a mountain, Laverne and Shirley seemed to live a fun life, Wonder Woman kicked ass in her leotard, and Jo from The Facts of Life drove a motorcycle.  But movies?  I really can't remember any girls at all. Can you? And don't give me Brooke Shields or young Jodie Foster.



 I know Diane Keaton in Annie Hall was pretty cool, but I didn't see that movie until I was well into college.  The female leads from the 1970s that I remember most are Nurse Ratchet lobotomizing the sane and Linda Blair vomiting on a priest.


Even with a few gender studies classes under my belt, it took having a niece with a DVD collection to realize how omnipresent chauvinism was.


Dora the EXPLORER with her male side kick Diego.

Sigourney Weaver as a brainy, mouthy genius scientist in Avatar.

Hillary Clinton running for president like it's nothing special at all.

And just released, the bow wielding heroines Katniss in The Hunger Games and Merida as the main character in a movie called Brave.


I think I'm going to make it a point to watch both with my niece.


What a great time to be a girl!



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