Life After the Vagenda of Manocide
I thought I’d partake in a little thought experiment to distract myself from depressing news and commentary about said depressing news. It’s 2020, four years after the onset of the Vagenda of Manocide. In this setting, the branches of government have merged into one, a panel of women that maintains rule of law and exacts judgement. I am put in charge of selecting a fantasy dream team to populate this panel and ensure the patriarchy continues to be toppled for the rest of time. Here are my top 12 recommendations, because I’m so smug about the potential for success of this form of government that I’m choosing an even number of members. My criteria for selection of the best fictional sheroes for the job: super powers or highly specialized skills, demonstrated sense of justice, and leadership experience. I’ve included a quote from each character that can be used to burn transgressors who stand before them submerged in righteous shade.
12) Veronica Mars (Veronica Mars)
Super Powers/Skills: Veronica is best known for the sleuthing skills-observation, deductive reasoning, breaking and entering-she learned as her father’s protege in his private investigator’s office. Her experiences have also taught her to be both highly cynical and aware of privilege, both of which help her to be prepared when people in power are the worst.
Demonstrated Sense of Justice: Veronica is capable of orchestrating the slowest of burns to deliver pain upon her enemies. She’s also smart enough to know when it’s better to wait it out so fate delivers justice on her behalf.
Leadership Experience: Though Veronica is typically a loner-hero, we did learn in the episode “One Angry Veronica,” that she can persuade a jury of 12 to agree with her. She can also form alliances with people who have complimentary skill sets, or in pre-manocide vernacular, she can make friends.
Bonus Skill(s): Veronica knows just enough about pop culture to be disaffected by it. She also has some useful tools in that shoulder bag of hers like tasers and copies of keys to open file cabinets.
Quote: “Shut Up! If I want you to speak I’ll wave a snausage over your nose.”
11) O-Ren Ishii (Kill Bill)
Super Powers/Skills: O-Ren is a deadly assassin and one of the many women on this list with superior sword fighting skills. She’s also not the only leader on the list who gained experience in a criminal enterprise. (Maybe if there had been more advancement opportunities for her in the legitimate working world, the vagenda wouldn’t have to be so ruthless.)
Demonstrated Sense of Justice: She killed Matsumoto, the murderer of her parents, in spectacular fashion, and never looked back from a life of taking justice into her own hands.
Leadership Experience: Not only is she the Queen of the Tokyo Underworld, and accepted by the Yakuza Clan leaders (except for that one guy), she also can beckon the Crazy 88 at a moment’s notice. If you think about it, only HRC has more executive leadership experience.
Bonus Skill(s): She’ll never be accused of being too emotional.
Quote: “You might not be able to fight like a samurai, but you can at least die like a samurai.”
10) Meg Murry (A Wrinkle in Time)
(Storm Reid was recently cast as Meg in the upcoming film version of the story to be directed by Ava DuVernay.)
Super Powers/Skills: You might think Meg is too young or inexperienced to thrive as a leader in this crowd, but she has seen and confronted pure evil (aka “The Black Thing”). She’s also fiercely loyal and seems like she’d be into using #yesallwomen frequently if she were on twitter.
Demonstrated Sense of Justice: Meg learns in her journeys to not sweat the small stuff, and that love is one of the most powerful tools for implementing the vagenda. She is surprisingly forgiving of those with intellects too undeveloped to comprehend her higher purpose.
Leadership Experience: Sure, Meg may not be comfortable with asserting herself all of the time, but she knows when it’s her time to take initiative and that she can be her own hero. She can also ask for and accept help from allies. (Hmm, isn’t it interesting that the extraterrestrial guides of Meg’s journey-Mrs. W’s, the Happy Medium, and Aunt Beast-all prefer female gender pronouns?)
Bonus Skill(s): Meg is a master of math, physics, and deals with the oddities of time and space travel with the greatest of ease.
Quote: “Like and equal are not the same thing at all!”
9) Eleven (Stranger Things)
Super Powers/Skills: We probably still don’t know the full extent of Eleven’s powers, but her telekinesis can make a lot of cool shit happen, and she has literal dick control, so she’s on my panel pretty much no matter what future canon reveals.
Demonstrated Sense of Justice: Without full control of her telepathic powers, Eleven has a higher than desirable level of collateral damage under her belt. However, we have lots of great examples of her protecting her friends (who don’t lie) from bullies, bad men, and the monster.
Leadership Experience: Like many women on our list, Eleven knows what to do in clutch moments, which is the mark of a true leader. She’s slowly walking toward fires with tube socks pulled up and blood running from her nose while everyone else is running away.
Bonus Skill(s): Great listener, highly intuitive, still pretty.
Quote: Eleven has about four lines in the entire first season of Stranger Things, so I’m going to have to defer to an image here:
8) Michonne (The Walking Dead)
Super Powers/Skills: Like O-Ren, Michonne has valuable fighting skills, particularly her mastery of the katana. Her keen level of intuition helps her identify threats long before most other humans.
(Let me just say that I’m referring mainly to the graphic novel version of Michonne here, because I stuck with it longer than the TV show. I understand that Michonne is with Rick in the TV version now, which is great but I can’t make any promises about the significance of power couples post-VOM.)
Demonstrated Sense of Justice: The misogynists of the zombie apocalypse constantly try to objectify Michonne. She makes them all pay for it. ALL OF THEM.
Leadership Experience: Michonne’s survival skills give her opportunities to refine leadership qualities like none other. She doesn’t seek power, but she takes charge when she knows it’s necessary to protect those more vulnerable than herself.
Bonus Skill(s): She knows her way around the gym, and can bust out some quick core workouts pretty much wherever.
Quote: “I didn’t realize the messiah complex was contagious.”
7) Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Super Powers/Skills: Buffy is of course the Chosen One, and has multiple superpowers to help her save humanity from evil, including strength, agility, speed, and quick healing capabilities.
Demonstrated Sense of Justice: Training to defeat evil within a high school over the Hellmouth not only prepared Buffy for confronting all different forms of evil, it also helped her strengthen a sense of responsibility for protecting the victims of bullies, even if they’re just dealing with mean girls. At times Buffy gets caught up in her feelings about transgressions inflicted upon her (Why can’t I lead a normal life? Why can’t I be with my vampire boyfriend? Why did my friends bring me back from Heaven?), but she always pulls it together in the end to take out the Big Bad.
Leadership Experience: Buffy is first head of the Scooby’s, then the leader of an army of slayers. I would say she’s an original author of the vagenda and a favorite to become a leader among leaders in this group.
Bonus Skill(s): Buffy’s clear bonus skill is her inherent inclination to question authority. She sizes up the male-created institutions trying to constrict her, like the Watchers’ Council and the military, and topples them with very little effort.
Quote: “How do I kill it?”
6) Paris Geller (Gilmore Girls)
Super Powers/Skills: Paris is not only extremely smart, she also has a level of determination that is beyond most mortals. Her mind is sharp and liberated from the patriarchy. After the manocide takes place she will finally be able to replace Robert’s Rules of Order with the Geller’s Rules that I image she wrote while on student council at Chilton, but decided not to implement for personal reasons.
Demonstrated Sense of Justice: We don’t yet know if Paris became a judge or chief surgeon or both (I have to admit I care more about how her character is developed in the reboot than Rory’s BY FAR). But we do know that Paris is made for running a governing body. She’s capable of winning any debate by using her vast knowledge and critical thinking skills. She also learns in the Season 6 gem of an episode “We’ve Got Magic To Do,” that Karl Marx was right and life can be cruel to those who are disenfranchised.
Leadership Experience: Paris has a packed resume. She’s been Chilton Student Council President, Editor of the Yale Daily News, and is always at the top of the most competitive academic settings.
Bonus Skill(s): Krav Maga, pre-populated lists of enemies, and crafting/emotional homework.
Quote: “You offer nothing to women or the world in general.”
5) Felicia “Snoop” Pearson (The Wire)
Super Powers/Skills: Snoop can make bodies disappear like no other assassin. If you’re not already in awe of her skills, you have not been paying attention, and you should rewatch Season 4 of The Wire immediately.
Demonstrated Sense of Justice: Snoop’s moral compass is questionable, but she operates by the code she knows. One of the clearest examples of her world view is how she treats the salesmen that helps her select her favorite nail gun. If you earn a bump, you get one.
Leadership Experience: In the male-dominated field of the Baltimore heroin trade, Snoop is Marlo’s most loyal lieutenant. She is responsible for taking out threats to their organization, and training the next generation of soldiers.
Bonus Skill(s): Talking.
Quote: “Let us pray. Here we lay a couple New York boys who came too far south for their own f*ckin’ good.”
4) Hermione Granger (Harry Potter)
Super Powers/Skills: Hermione is the super smart and powerful witch that is the actual protagonist of the Harry Potter series and the brightest of her age. Her natural gifts and real life experiences are leveraged by her book smarts.
Demonstrated Sense of Justice: Hermione spends her teenage years fighting evil, taking out pure blood a-holes trying to make the wizarding world great again, and fighting discrimination of house elves and other magical creatures.
Leadership Experience: While Hermione doesn’t take on a lot of leadership roles in official extracurricular activities, she manages to keep Harry and Ron alive even though they are idiots and slow her down literally all of the time.
Bonus Skill(s): Killer right jab.
Quote: “Twitchy little ferret, aren’t you?”
3) Malory Archer (Archer)
Super Powers/Skills: We don’t know much about Malory’s qualifications as a spy until the Season 7 episode “Motherless Child,” when she manages to escape from an underground bunker in impressive fashion and with zero help. There’s also limited backstory on how she came to start her own spy agency, but that seems like a pretty significant glass ceiling.
Demonstrated Sense of Justice: Malory is a seasoned veteran of international espionage, so she’s guilty of some moral relevancy and seems to thrive in gray areas. But trust, if something happens to her baby boy Sterling, it will get dealt with.
Leadership Experience: She is the founder of a now defunct spy agency, but that hasn’t stopped her from running her world.
Bonus Skill(s): Foreign policy knowledge and holding her liquor.
Quote: “You’re not fit to be queen of…name a place.”
2) Willow Rosenberg (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Super Powers/Skills: In the canon of Buffy, Willow develops from a Scooby to an incredibly powerful witch, moving from sidekick to badass boss as her mastery of the magics grows.
Demonstrated Sense of Justice: Willow crosses the line from judicial to vengeful when she becomes Dark Willow, but let’s be real, we were not sorry that she skinned Warren alive. After she goes to witch rehab she knows how to control of her awesome power and only use it for good.
Leadership Experience: Founding member of the Scooby’s, releaser of slayer juju, and member of a powerful coven, Willow’s leadership skills exist in multiple dimensions.
Bonus Skill(s): Owning her sexuality, and by the time the story moves to the graphic novel format, she can fly.
Quote: “I’m very powerful. And maybe it’s not such a good idea for you to piss me off.”
1) Wonder Woman/Princess Diana of Themyscira/Diana Prince (Wonder Woman)
Super Powers/Skills: The archetype for many of the other characters on this list, Wonder Woman is a highly trained fighter and hunter. She has superhuman strength and cool accessories like the Lasso of Truth that help her take down evil.
Demonstrated Sense of Justice: Wonder Woman has seen the results of vengeful leadership run amuck. She is known for defeating all types of evil, but her 5,000 plus years of existence have also taught her to avoid seeking vengeance, and to build coalitions among mortals and gods to implement Amazonian ways in the world of patriarchy.
Leadership Experience: Given her experience in governing Themyscira with her sister Amazons and her participation in the Justice League, Wonder Woman will be the George Washington of the post-VOM era, times 5,000.
Bonus Skill(s): Her squad, an invisible plane, and multiple aliases, to name a few.
Quote: “If it means interfering in an ensconced, outdated system, to help just one woman, man or child…I’m willing to accept the consequences.”
I hope you’ve enjoyed this distraction from real news about politics, misogyny, police brutality, homophobia, natural disasters caused by climate change, war, and corruption. However, you should know that even in the fantasy world of women superheroes where I and many others retreat, I never take my eye off “the man” in power, and neither do these characters. Don’t believe me? If you didn’t notice it while you were reading, scroll back up. I didn’t select a single picture of a woman smiling, and that was completely unintentional.
