How do film and television portray romance for strong, independent women? Why should we care?

Join Professor Allison Palumbo as they explore 40 years of fighting female characters onscreen—from private eyes to cops and spies—who struggle to find love. Even in these fictional worlds, where anything should be possible, romantic relationships tend to disempower female-bodied characters, no matter how kick-ass or otherwise empowered they might seem.

Learn how love has been constructed in American culture based on heterosexual norms and power dynamics that favor men’s strength and independence. How do America’s ideals for romance create inequitable relationships? How can we imagine more inclusive and equitable ways of loving?

Allison Palumbo (they/them), or “Dr. P,” is a professor of English and gender studies at Big Bend Community College. Palumbo’s first book, Love and the Fighting Female: A Critical Study of Onscreen Depictions, reflects their lifelong love of all things romance and action. They have presented their research as a cultural critic and feminist scholar at the Seattle Institute for Film and the Moses Lake Museum & Art Center.

Palumbo lives in Moses Lake.