Let’s rescue the princesses
International Women's Day 2008By Magda Liliana Escobar
Saturday 8 March 2008 15:13 COT
Este artículo está disponible en ESPAÑOL
Recently, I was seeing a football game among girls of certain grade of elementary school, and thinking about what I wanted to write for this day, it was noticeable that many of them played in the court as well as any boy. But at the same time, I realized that as the game finished, all of the girls ran to the bathroom to look at them on the mirror and getting ready before going back to their next class. It was something instinctive. I believe that nobody did it because somebody made them to do it or because it was a rule of the team. Rather, It was simply a part of their essence: To be feminine.
Seeing this I thought of the fears, not only of the girls, but the ones of women at the present time. The fear to seem silly and superfluous if their attire or make-up is too noticeable or if they have a conversation topic like: “Which is the best way to comb the hair?” Due to the modern trends, we turned the weak princesses of fairy tales, mistreated and submissive, into the best friends of our male friends; to be the vivid symbol of a radical feminism that points out that the femininity should disappear, because of being a social creation.
The end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century meant the birth of the feminist movement in the western world. It stood up for equality and justice for women in comparison with the rights achieved for men at that time. In more than two hundred years, the feminism was able to get important recognitions for womanhood, besides the right to vote and participate in politics, the divorce, in more recent times, the control on their own bodies, and on the present days, to have the option of requesting the practise of an abortion when the medical, physiological and psychological situation so demands it. Although it has been achieved a lot and there is a lot to be achieved, it is also important to see always the fairness from women’s need, NOT as a misunderstood equality that has forced millions of women to assume duties that are not appropriated for them, or that are against their own essence.
The degree of radicalization of the ideas on what women should or should not do, has made us impose to ourselves tasks that cause two adverse consequences in most of times: One, to have job overloads at home, at work and in the social interaction; and two, to turn ourselves into “pals” of our men, being as fewer feminine as we can and avoiding that the princess, that by nature lives inside us, may go out, all in order to avoid being named as silly, sappy, sentimental and other pejorative words that we can even hear from our own female friends. We locked the princess in a castle and replaced her with a woman dressed up as an armoured knight who as well as him, fights, is strong and has no subtlety.
We won the “fairness” but we lost part of what we used to be. Now, we take over the leading when we want to start a couple’s relationship and men, little by little, made comfortable with that situation, becoming a passive and shy fellow that waits that his girl not only does the first move, but the second and the third one… Now we are the ones who look for conversation topics that they like. We speak about the kind of “gal” that they like, and even though it hurts us, we pretend to be the “pals” of our male friends, because it’s the new trend to which the lack of femininity has taken us. As opposite, in other cases we are so extremist that we drastically erase male partners, in an attitude of arrogance, or maybe fear, and we reach mature years without a couple, because we don’t need it or because nobody is good enough to be with us. The old saying of our moms “all men are evil,” is the slogan of many women and by the habit of repeating it, we end up convinced that the best thing for us is to be alone.
We forgot that the life in couple obviously brings difficulties and sadness, but also it brings to us the happiness of the company, of being hugged as we are sad, of hearing a compliment if we change our hair style, the opportunity to grow as a person, because in a couple relationship, we are no longer “two” but rather we are “one”, kept together to give and to receive support. We don’t remember the illusion of living along with somebody who loves us just like we are and whom we can love without waiting any Utopian perfection.
Our force is not in a face-to-face combat or in tests of “equality” through the physical strength, either. Our true force lives in our subtlety and in the calm to confront situations, in the easiness to express and to recognize feelings and in the capacity to find always inside us the solution to the problems that we have.
The radical position of some feminist factions made us forget that we are women and that it is not only a matter of equality, but rather of wondering on what we, as modern women, deserve: Lonely, money, love, care, affection, loyalty… What do we deserve?
Let us rescue from the castle in which we locked in the princesses who are neither silly nor superfluous. Let them to come back to life those who allow be loving and helping, those who always have in their hearts the necessary force to recognize danger situations and those who know how to run to find refuge in the castles of other princesses or in the company of knights willing to fight for them.
This article was originally published 8 March 2008 in equinoXio. Translated from Spanish by Rafa XII.
Tags: equality, feminism, justice for women, princess, Woman power
