Minnie Driver just starred on the ABC show Speechless, where she plays an aggressively protective mom to three kids, including a son with cerebral palsy. I watched the first episode after reading an interview with her a few weeks ago and it just wasn’t enough to keep my interest. The show wrapped its first season this week and the ratings were high so it almost certainly will be renewed. Anyway Minnie covers Emmy magazine and the interview inside includes photos and quotes with her Speechless costars. She talked a bit about perception of her character and she made some good points.

In the issue, Minnie opened up on her character, who is an assertive mom, saying, “I get really annoyed when people say she’s not likable. Why are women supposed to be likable and men are allowed to be difficult, like Archie Bunker on ‘All in the Family?’ I love how fierce and passionate Maya is, and I love that she’s written with such irreverence and insight into what it is to be in a family that has special needs. When people say a woman is difficult, to me it’s a red flag that someone is interesting.”

[From Emmy Magazine via ExtraTV]

Minnie is right, female characters are stereotyped and pigeonholed while male characters, like Archie Bunker, are celebrated for being difficult. (Sidenote: have you seen the video comparing Trump to Archie Bunker? That was was funny when it came out until it became reality and wasn’t.) Women are supposed to value relationships, not principles, and are expected to be self-sacrificing. When we aren’t, when we have goals and needs and act in ways for which men are lauded, we’re labeled and talked over and expected to know our place. Even women Supreme Court Justices aren’t treated with the same respect as their male colleagues, and we’ve seen this play out over and over on a national stage, and in our personal lives, when we’re called difficult again on the few occasions we decide to speak out about it.

photos credit: Getty, FameFlynet and Emmy Magazine