Olivier Armstrong has full lips, big blue eyes, a small nose, long luscious blonde hair, and she isn’t sexualized once in the entire series.
One of my favorite things about FMAB is how it presents women. The women of FMAB are diverse and independent heroes and villains, and wow do they get their time to shine. FMAB refuses to adhere to sexual tropes often found in anime/manga, and aside from a few shots typical for the shounen genre, the women of FMAB are not sexualized. From Lan Fan and Maria Ross to Riza Hawkeye and Winry Rockbell, every FMAB woman is a complex, dynamic character with a significant role in the plot.
And for every woman that is sexualized, a man gets sexualized, too. FMAB has plenty of ab shots, and most of them come from Major Armstrong and are a big part of his comedic role. Major Armstrong, while he is a character used mostly for comic relief, is also a fantastic example of how FMAB handles physical and spiritual androgyny. Alex has the full pink lips, bright baby blue eyes, and long eyelashes of the Armstrong family. Additionally, he is almost completely hairless, a trait expected of modern women. He is also a huge absolutely ripped war criminal who all but defeated one of the most dangerous homunculi on his own. He’s terrifying. And yet none of us have ever once thought that while watching the series. Why? Because he also has a hair loop, is entirely silly, and has traditionally feminine features.
But that’s the thing– Olivier has those same traits. She has a hair loop and the Armstrong facial features that ARE JUST GENETICS, but she’s not big. She doesn’t need to be big to be respected by her men. The difference between them is how she demands respect. I’ll write a post later on that. She is confident and skilled, and the men she trains respect her not as a woman, but as a General. She makes it clear from the moment we meet her that her gender is not a box for her, and FMAB as a series sends out a very clear message on its views on toxic feminine and masculine gender roles.
In one scene, she embraces her sexuality and traditional femininity in order to get information from General Raven, and what happens? He sexually harasses her.
It’s possible that she learned to reject traditional femininity in order to demand respect early on as she climbed the ranks of an extremely patriarchal military hierarchy for that exact reason, but we also see in her interactions with her family that she most likely has always been extremely tough, strong, and confident. And her rejection of traditional femininity is not a rejection of her own femininity or humanity (as embracing masculinity is so often portrayed as rejecting basic human functions like emotions). Olivier Armstrong is beautiful, and she knows it. Have you seen her flipping that long gorgeous hair around?
She is also emotional and caring, displayed in how she looks after her men and grieves the loss of her good friend and soldier Captain Buccaneer.
As a woman, Olivier Mira Armstrong’s confidence and her take-no-crap attitude demands respect from every single person who crosses her path. As a General, her confidence and stability in who she is as a woman and person allow her to command armies in much greater battles.
