When Women Were Dragons

I recently came across a book called When Women Were Dragons. I’m not normally a fan of science fiction, but I was intrigued by the book’s premise. The synopsis described a “Mass Dragoning,” which is an event in the book wherein hundreds upon thousands of women transformed into massive dragons and flew away from their homes and families in mass exodus back in 1955. The book’s narrator and main character is a teenage girl by the name of Alex. Alex is close to her aunt Marla, who ends up leaving in the aforementioned mass dragoning of 1955. Her mother stays to raise Marla’s daughter Beatrice alongside her.

This book certainly did a good job illustrating the difficulties present in both staying behind with family and leaving family with the other dragons. I appreciated the wide diversity within the cast of characters, and their experiences were oftentimes heartbreaking. Given the plot of the book, it’s easy to pick up that there’s a focus on the female perspective within this story, especially when it comes to women regaining their own autonomy. Something I realized about this perspective, though, is that all of the characters given focus in the book are cisgendered. There is a mention of a boy who dragons, but it’s only a cursory mention. I would’ve loved to see the book explore the notion of someone like a transgendered woman going through the dragoning process and discovering the dragon community (and thus their own identity) in the process.

Getting back to that female perspective point, I found that oftentimes men in the book ended up rendered as cartoonishly villainous. Alex’s dad moves her and Beatrice out of the family home as soon as his wife dies just so he can move his secretary, who also happens to be his mistress, into the house. He rents out a grimy apartment for the two girls and expects fifteen year old Alex to raise Beatrice on her own. Most of the other men are painted as being just as cruel and awful. I know the book is supposed to be about women and female empowerment, but did men really have to be so one-dimensional? There’s a Dr. Gantz researching the dragoning phenomenon who’s an ally to women, but that was the only example of a positive masculine figure I could find. It’d have served the narrative better to show how patriarchy hurts men as well as women.

The most uplifting part of the book is a moment in 1965 when the dragons start returning to their homes. Aunt Marla returns to help with Beatrice and volunteers at the school with her dragon friends. The young girls who became dragons, as such, are able to stay in school. Families begin to apologize to their dragon daughters for the ways they’ve been wronged, and many families are reunited in the process. I loved that the book ended on such a hopeful note and showed that relationships where great hurt has been caused can still be healed. Alex’s dad never becomes a better person, though. Go figure.

Women becoming dragons is obviously a metaphor, but what the exact metaphor is certainly leaves itself up to debate. I think it can be an analogy for accepting people who don’t present in the ways we are most comfortable with. I also think it can be about accepting the parts of yourself that aren’t viewed as desirable. Both are definitely concepts that women often have to grapple with when finding their own identity.

There’s a quite touching scene where Beatrice wants to dragon and in that moment Alex gives her permission. She tells Beatrice that she’ll love her no matter what happens. It’s important to remember that we might not always feel comfortable in our own skin and fear can be a powerful deterrent in becoming who we want to be or who we can become. There’s power in accepting ourselves and in accepting others. My favorite part of the book is an implication towards the end of the book that any woman can become a dragon if they choose. We all have the ability to choose whether or not we step into our power, and that’s the greatest lesson I took away from the book.  I also decided that I would be a blue and green dragon.