Whether you enjoy it or not, there has definitely, in recent years, been an explosion of strong female characters in the media. Whether it’s movies, books, or TV shows, girls everywhere have been able to turn to media recently and see a little more of themselves.

I know that we still have a long way to go in terms of representation for all, but when I see the kids I babysit for and my young cousins watching wide-eyed while Rey and Wonder Woman kick ass on screens everywhere, I get excited, mainly because I didn’t have much of that growing up. Arguably, there were more white women than women of color that I could look up to, but for the most part, if I wanted to watch a superhero movie, it was going to be about a man.

So clearly, I find this idea that there are more women, and particularly strong women in the media now, something fantastic. It’s been a long time coming.

However, there’s something in this trend that I’ve noticed.

The idea seems to be that to have a strong female character, she has to never find love.

For a while, this didn’t really bother me. It showed a subset of women that generally wasn’t touched upon. It showed young girls that they could grow up and not find love if that was what they wanted to do.

But it has come to the point that “don’t let this female character be reduced to a love interest” equals “this female character shouldn’t have a love interest,” and that’s just as damaging in the long run.

It portrays this idea that women can either have a complex, interesting narrative, or they spend the entire time searching for, finding, and trying to keep love (which, depending on the movie can be a complex, interesting narrative in itself, but that is beside the point.)

The reality of this though, is that the female character should be able to do both. If you want to write a complex story where the woman never finds love because she just doesn’t want a husband, that is fine – you do you. However, if you want to write a complex narrative and decide that the woman shouldn’t find love solely because it removes her from the “strong female” category, that is not ok.

Women everywhere – real women – are out there with rich, intriguing personalities, and they are also out there finding love and being happy. Fiction and art are things that imitate real life, so it should not be hard to write a narrative where the woman is interesting and funny and intriguing, and also able to find and keep a love interest.

Love, be that romantic or platonic, opens you up emotionally and intimately in a way that is just as important and can be just as narratively complex as the rest of the story you are telling. Allowing a woman to find love does not diminish from the story or the idea that you have, it expands upon it.

It’s important to show all types of women, yes. It’s important to show young girls that they don’t need to find a romantic partner to be happy, yes. But it’s also important to show young girls that they can do both.