Why We Need To Be Seen As More Than Just Strong

Last week, Claire Foy criticised the ‘strong woman’ stereotype on screen. Helen O’Hara asks why we tell women’s stories differently to men’s

‘I HAVE ABSOLUTELY no interest in portraying what other people think of as strong. It’s a way of making women more acceptable in a male world.’

So said Claire Foy in an interview last week. It might seem a strange thing to say for a woman who embodied authority and endurance in The Crown, and who’s about to be seen kicking ass as Lisbeth Salander, the vengeful and supremely capable star of The Girl In The Spider’s Web.

But it isn’t that Claire only wants to play weak roles. The real problem is the entertainment industry’s definition of a ‘strong woman’ – a lazy shorthand thrown about over the past couple of decades as a handy counterpoint to feminist critics or actors who demand better roles for women. It’s OK that our film only features one or two female roles, say filmmakers, because she’s a ‘strong woman’.