The key word here is unfairly. Too many women have suffered like Celeste, whether it be from domestic violence, sexual assault, any sort of physical abuse, or even being asked to defend their ability to mother. It’s unfair that women are asked to endure and persist and persevere. But they are, consistently. And they do, constantly.

Celeste has always been painted as the daintiest member of the Monterey Five—she was the demure, stylish, slender wife to the stereotypically (toxically) masculine Perry. But I won’t say she was depicted as weak, because she is not and has never been weak. She’s been beaten down, physically and metaphorically, but in the season finale we see her rise.

As Mary Louise so graciously pointed out in court, Celeste had a slew of one-night stands, a scuffle with an Ambien haze which led to a minor car accident, and was tasked with raising two grief-stricken children while attending therapy for her own trauma. And through it all, she peeled every part of herself off the ground and sculpted herself into a composed, acute lawyer. A woman capable of winning her own custody battle. Watching Celeste win her courtroom battle in the face of such anguish was nothing short of heroic.

I’m grateful for the array of female characters women have to look up to these days, but unfortunately, in real life we don’t have masked or caped superheroes zipping through our skies and saving us from evil. So I think it’s important for us to reexamine and identify who gets to be called a hero. For me, especially right now, when our very rights and livelihoods are being called into question (yet again), those heroes are women like Celeste. Strong women who have every reason to stop pushing forward, women who are justified in giving up but who exorcise every iota of strength they have left. That’s real female strength and heroism, because we’ve seen that woman IRL. We see her every day.

Source link