This series is turning into a GITS classic. That there are Virgin stories with male leads (King's Speech, Billy Elliot, mentioned above) prompts me to ask this: Are these stories inherently female in nature, or is it just a good way to label them? I'm also curious if there are biological traits in women that don't necessarily jive with the traits that "society" imposes on women. Are women missing out on their potential journeys because we/history/society are pointing them in the wrong directions? Are we writing our female protagonists into improper roles?

What are "improper roles" for females exactly?

Sorry, Violet. That was poorly worded. What I mean is, can we write roles to allow a character to better fulfill a Heroine's Journey? Where are we falling short?

This is a really fascinating idea. I'm starting to wonder if the Virgin's journey is a model for more character-led dramas, in the same way that the Hero's journey is for plot-led dramas...

I agree with Debbie, this is a fascinating discussion. In Kim Hudson’s comment, she says: ‘There is a backlash and she has to choose whether she has the right to inconvenience people, to take up some space in the world, or she will go back to conforming. She decides she has to be true to herself and in the end everyone benefits from knowing the gift she has to bring.’ It reminded me of Joseph Campbell when he said, in Myths to Live By: ‘The ultimate aim of the quest, if one is to return, must be neither release nor ecstasy for oneself, but the wisdom and power to serve others.’ And as Kim says, ‘we all have a masculine and a feminine side we can all be heroes.’ Maybe every story has a masculine and feminine side, a hero’s and a heroine’s journey. In fact, I’d argue that it sounds a lot like the two aspects of every story that Scott often talks about on GITS - the internal and the external aims of the hero, or the want and the need. The hero wants to destroy the enemy, with his sword The heroine needs to find the 'power to serve others', through wisdom I wonder then, if each of those paths has its own slightly different structure within the same story, with Valerie Estelle Frankel’s breakdown (in previous post on this subject) showing the heroine’s journey.