Quote

I grew up surrounded by these tough, ballsy, strong women. They were also adoring women, but they were the kind of women who would argue over what kind of pants you were wearing or the color of your nail polish.

Up until 'Bridesmaids', the general consensus was that women preferred comedy a bit softer.

Why don't women have respect for themselves nowadays? What happen to the woman who learned her grandmama's recipes and made her man sweet potato pie? I tell you, they don't make 'em like they used to. Will my real women stand up, please?

I was in fact pretty much - by the larger culture, by the local culture, by people around me, by people on TV - encouraged to imagine women as something slightly inferior to men.

Womenfolk raised me, and I was full-grown before I knew I came from a broken home.

It used to be that you had to make female TV characters perfect so no one would be offended by your 'portrayal' of women. Even when I started out on 'The Office' eight years ago, we could write our male characters funny and flawed, but not the women. And now, thankfully, it's completely different.

Occasionally, some sitcoms still stereotype women - the old dragon or the dolly bird - but on the whole we've moved away from that.

After 'Kidulthood,' I was called in to a meeting and told that I didn't write women very well. I was very annoyed.

As my family saw them, men were untrustworthy, weak, and selfish. Our mother taught us to get along without them, to get along without much of anything, and to live well and have fun anyway.