THE BOYS' BRIGADE

"I love that she's not the girlfriend or the wife. She doesn't really care what everyone thinks; she feels no responsibility for other people's feelings. She's not trying to be charming, which isn't always the case with a leading lady. There's [usually] sort of a responsibility to be a little bit likeable… Not that you want to be a horrendous character, just a little more human."—Rachel McAdams, on her character Detective Ani Bezzerides in Season Two of True Detective, which premieres June 21.

I feel like there's so much embedded there, about (the patriarchal ideal of) womanhood, about the roles women are expected to play in real life and in cinema.

Just juxtaposing these two ideas alone: She doesn't really care what everyone thinks...just a little more human.

I could write volumes, volumes, on how the cultural requirement of women to "care what everyone thinks" diminishes our humanity in a thousand ways every day.

And about how very interesting a journey it is for a woman to stop caring what everyone thinks and find her humanity, only to discover that now she isn't "likable" anymore.

It's pretty terrific how the Patriarchy sets rules for women that effectively mean we can like ourselves, or be liked by "everyone else," but not both.

And then its cheerleaders wonder why we want to smash it into oblivion.