As part of my unit on Media Literacy that I teach to my high school students every year, I talk about gender representation and The Bechdel Test. For those of you that don’t know, there’s a detailed explanation of the test here, but essentially, a movie/tv show passes if:
- There are two, named female characters
- Who talk to each other
- About something other than a man
Seems like a low bar, huh? Yeah, well a surprising number of films don’t pass. I always ask my students to suggest some things that women could talk about: Make-up! Shopping! Shoes! (Yes, thank you. What else?) Their jobs! Math! Science! (Yes! Women in STEM. Very progressive. What else?) Bread! Apples! Very small rocks! (Yes, literally fucking anything other than a man.)
In class, I also talk about how this can be applied to other marginalized groups like people of color (talking about something other than a white person) or members of the LGBTQIA+ community (talking about something other than a straight person).
In anticipation of an upcoming “mom date” I have a with a friend (without our kids!!!), I started to wonder if we’d be able to talk about anything other than our kids. I decided we needed to be able to pass the Bechdel Test…For Moms:
- Two moms
- Talk to each other
- About something other than their kids
Shouldn’t be too hard, right? Right?! Now excuse me while I brush up on my tiny rock trivia…
