Why would I want to be a princess?

My family is in the midst of wedding fever and one thing I am sick of hearing about weddings is women who ‘get to be a princess for a day’. I’m sick of the whole princess thing full stop, it drives me mad. From little girls being marketed crap to grown women being marketed crap. Yet it’s not the consumerist crap that bothers me so much it’s the ideas behind this princess bullshit.

Why oh WHY is being a princess seen as something we should aspire to? Something that every girl and woman wants?

Why would I want to be someone who’s elevated to a position of unfair privilege based only upon an accident of birth or marriage?

Why would I want to be judged upon my looks, my social ranking, who I’m married to and have my person achievements overlooked and ignored?

Why would I want to buy into some backwards misogynistic ideal that portrays women as docile, subservient, there to look pretty and shut up while the men do the important stuff?

 The women in these fairy tales (the mass marketed stuff, not the gorier original Grimm’s ones I developed a fondness for), they are all seen as ‘the other’. Seen through the eyes of men and as relating to men. They are not real characters per se but a vague approximation of the ‘ideal’ woman; docile, subservient , dependent. It’s the last one that got me as a kid and still gets me now.  I was always wondering why there were no girls doing the stuff the male action heroes did, I used to love Indiana Jones (and still do) but always wondered why there wasn’t a woman doing what he did (This may explain my guilty pleasure of the Tomb raider games despite the blatant sexist marketing of them). My independence is something I treasure above all else, and to buy into some ideal that seeks to lessen this, to treat it as something ‘un- feminine’ is not something I take lightly. Ever the history geek I am aware that having the right to vote, to my own property and even my own children should I choose to have any is one that was fought hard for. The idea of being depenendant upon anyone as a postitve trait is abhorrent to me.

These princesses; they just don’t DO anything, they’re boring, they are never shown as having any special skills (besides advanced doormat-ism) , no personality quirks or individuality. They are praised above all for their looks ‘fairest in the land’ and their subservience; the good girl who looks after everyone else and doesn’t complain even tough she hates it and only gets ‘rescued’ from this dull life of servitude by marrying a rich, handsome man who is also seemingly devoid of any personality but occasionally gets to be ‘brave’ , ‘wise’ and actually do something vaugely active.

Yes they are only stories, but they are stories which embody so many ideals that have been cased in stone for centuries and that we are only beginning to chip away. So to all those who wish to be ‘a princess’ I say:
If you must but remember; behind the dress ans the glitter there are dangerous ideals being perpetrated and I feel as modern , liberated women  we have a responsibility to look behind the glitz and see exactly what it is we are buying into. Listen to Ani DiFranco’s ‘Not a Pretty Girl’ (an echo of what I felt growing up and what I still feel):

In short, think twice before buying into this. Think what this all means.

I never wanted to be a princess as a child and I sure as hell don’t want to be one now!