The Damsel in distress vs Girl power

So there are more expression that Damsel in distress and Girl power but I wanted to stay high level. So hence the current title.

Once again the result of this blog might not come out as much as I wanted to be but I have delayed it a good bit so here it comes.

The concept of Damsel in distress

So I grew up with the original Disney Princess movies, and I loved them as growing up.

Snow white who is waken up from death by the Prince she saw once.

Cinderella who had absolutely nothing but being pretty and is saved by the Prince who once again only saw her once.

Sleeping Beauty who waits for decades to be woken up by a Prince she barely knows.

Anyway I am sure I can find more examples but you have the idea, pretty face that needs saving.

Books were similar, there was always a rich dude, who was helping a hard working but beautiful woman.

Anyway, following that principal, men always thought they needed to earn more than their wives if they were working.

Most of the time the women were staying home to look after the house and the children.

I remember reading a book from the 50s where it was explaining how a woman should make sure to get the sleepers ready for her husband and make sure her make up was perfect before his return to work.

He should not see any mess in the house and make sure that all the work was done before he was coming from his day of work.

Girl power?

Spice girls were a symbol of girl power. But when you look closer was it really girl power or girls together being pretty, pretending to be strong and independant but driven by men behind the scene?

I loved their music and personally still see it as a switch in thinking in the 90th from the Damsel in distress to women taking back their place in society.

But I recently was disappointing by a film which I thought was going to be very different than what it became.

The idea was that our current world is male dominated and you have that poor woman who really need her job and try to get her voice heard but is only getting sexist remarks.

Anyway the male character get in an accident and end up in the opposite world where women are the driver of the society.

Here is the disappointment, that world is showing women dressed like men, acting like men asking men for sexual favours if they want promotions.

In my opinion this is not the world of women, I believe a world dominated by women would be much more fair and nurtured.

But I might be mistakenly thinking and we will never know.

This movie was showing that the man in both world without changing his attitude was still getting what he wanted and got the girl in both world.

When you look at women CEO or politician, indeed they dress more masculine.

Why can’t a woman be a CEO and dress as she wishes?

Women starting to be stronger…but still sexy

It is nice to start seeing strong women, and now they are super strong.

Scarlet Witch, Black Widow, all the women from the Avengers movies.

They are strong, independant and sexy.

But this is also putting pressure to still have to look super sexy.

A successful man does not need to look good but a woman will be judge on her aptitude and on her look.

We still see it on the questions which are flagged all the time on Instagram on the difference between the questions being asked to men versus women.

I am not saying that women should not look after themselves, especially for health reason, it is important to be strong in your latest year, but there is still so much pressure to be slimer, sexy later and later in life.

I still remember going on the beach and men of all sizes walking with no issues or shame, as it should be.

But women are always covering up even if they have a great body, body image is a real issue, I can see more women now wearing what they want what ever their size and it is good to see but the inside demon is also very present.

I just found a picture of me from almost 20 years ago, I thought I was so big at the time…if only I knew then how I would be now, I would have laughed so hard!

Evolution?

I am starting to be surprised when the damsel does not need rescuing, I watch the movies and more and more the woman manages by herself.

The other day the main female character bumped into her ex who was drunk and he was holding her arm, as she has a new boyfriend I thought that the new boyfriend was going to appear out of nowhere and help her.

But instead she released herself from the hold and told him off something good.

I was surprised as mentioned I was not expecting this, but it was nice to see.

It does reduce the romantic gesture like we used to and gives us the butterflies….?

Mansplaining and playing dumb is still something happening.

Let me explain what is mansplaining….LOL obviously everyone knows what it is….

Anyway I utterly despise when girls or women play dumb to make the man feels needed.

Needing someone is perfectly fine but pretending to not know or needing assistance for attention.

The issue with that is that either of 2 things will happen or both eventually.

You lied about who you are in order to be liked, eventually your nature will come back and the person will be confused about that new personality.

You loose yourself to keep appearances and end up being resentful towards the person and yourself.

I know it is hard when you are younger but keeping truth to yourself should be primary for everyone’s happiness.