Brianna da Silva

Category: Feminism

Brianna da Silva written by Brianna da Silva
August 1, 2021 1

Mental Health in Fantasy: A Conversation With Lucy McLaren

Mental health and trauma are often represented poorly in fiction, particularly in the fantasy genre. And particularly when dealing with female characters and sexual assault.

I wrote an article earlier this year expressing many of my frustrations with this issue. Today, fellow fantasy author Lucy McLaren and I decided to dive even deeper into the topic of mental health in fantasy, in a two-part interview series on both of our blogs.

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Brianna da Silva written by Brianna da Silva
April 17, 2020 0

White Feminists, Please Stop Doing This

I’ve been reading Tamora Pierce’s classic Song of the Lioness series, about a girl named Alanna who dresses up like a boy and becomes a knight in defiance of her culture’s sexist gender expectations.

While flawed and outdated (the series was originally written in the 1980s), these books deeply resonate with me. However, I have a major criticism of the third book in this series, The Woman Who Rides Like a Man, in terms of the faulty feminism it represents.

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Brianna da Silva written by Brianna da Silva
March 31, 2019 1

Reclaiming the temple: Chapter 4

This is Chapter 4 of my story about femininity, sexuality, and faith. Read Chapters 1, 2, and 3 first.

In my Spanish 1 class, there was a boy named Daniel.*

Daniel was a smart, redheaded guy who quickly stood out to me. Admittedly, he wasn’t all that physically attractive — largely because adolescence had not been kind to him yet — but unlike all the other boys in my class, who irritated me with their outbursts of immaturity and disrespect, he seemed to have a decent head on his shoulders. He actually cared about learning.

In my book, being the studious, self-righteous snob that I was, such maturity counted for a lot.

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Brianna da Silva written by Brianna da Silva
June 8, 2018 0

Reclaiming the temple: Chapter 3

This is Chapter 3 of my story about femininity, sexuality, and faith. Read Chapters 1 & 2 first.

I first noticed boys when I started high school.

For me, as a home schooler, “starting high school” meant going to a new co-op (much like a mini private school), where I took classes with other home school students.

I was a hopelessly awkward, unstylish, bumbling adolescent that freshman year, hiding behind mismatched layers and baggy flaring jeans that guarded my figure like an embarrassing secret. My long, curly hair was an unruly tyrant, and a constant source of insecurity.

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Brianna da Silva written by Brianna da Silva
February 3, 2018 2

Reclaiming the temple: Chapter 2

This is Chapter 2 of my story about femininity, sexuality, and faith. Read Chapter 1 first.

Sex ed is rather straightforward when you’re home schooled.

As the oldest of six kids, I was the first to experience the “Passport to Purity” tradition. (As my mom always joked, I was the “guinea pig” of the family.) When I turned eleven, my mom took me on a special weekend getaway, just the two of us. We watched The Polar Express in the theaters, awestruck by the lifelike visuals. We stayed in our own hotel room.

And we spent long car rides listening to some very intriguing tapes about puberty and… human reproduction.

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