Why Are All of the Heroines Running Away, and Can I Go With Them?

“Have you read X? Have you read Y? It is SO GOOD!”

You know the drill. You are way, way behind on work and that pile of books you bought has not been touched for weeks. But still, you keep collecting book recs from friends like a kid hoarding the Halloween candy.

Your friends know you, which means they know what you love to read. But it never fails—no matter what you like, some friends will always, always recommend the book everyone is talking about. You know the one. It has great cover art on the outside, and a woman making a break for it on the inside.

Now, let’s get one thing straight: These are great books, and super fun reads. So, no, I’m not here to bash the “runaway” trope. But I do have to wonder what this bookish trend says about us, about women, and what exactly it is that we’re running away from these days?

The stats about what women bear can be startling (well, for anyone who ISN’T a woman). Unrecognized emotional labor, for example, is a huge happiness killer. Women are doing over two times the heavy emotional lifting as their male counterparts, which may include (but is in no way limited to): unseen planning, chores, errands, calendar management, social planning and management, not to mention the additional unseen labor of motherhood for those who choose to procreate. It’s a fucking LOT. So why the fuck wouldn’t you want to run the hell away from it?

Oh, but wait . . . work can surely be your refuge from unseen emotional labor, right? LOLZ, corporate peon. You also get the pleasure of doing emotional work at work! From navigating the feelings of your male colleagues to asking for a raise the “right way” to tone policing yourself in every damn email you write, you can lose a whole day and a shit ton of productivity to managing the precious egos of those around you.

So, yeah. There’s a lot to run away from. I don’t mean to speak for all women, but I’m betting my stack of unread books that a lot of us are just done. Done with doing the work. Done with putting ourselves last. Done with fragile egos and the privileging of mediocre men in every sphere we inhabit. And so are our heroines. From Bernadette and Eleanor Oliphant to the sisters of The Nightingale and Terry McMillan’s Stella, to Frances Mayes, and Cheryl Strayed, the women we are reading about are getting the hell out of Dodge, whether physically or emotionally.

What if, though, they are running TO something, and not from something? Sure, when our souls take flight, the impetus is often the need to escape a situation—a bad job, an indifferent partner, a shitty small town with nothing left to give. But once we fly the coop, the only direction to go is toward something. And that something is a better version of ourselves.