September 29, 2004

I was read fairy tales as a child and I would have to agree that they do ingrain a certain fantasy about being rescued by a galant knight on a white horse, but so has everything else I have ever experienced. Every movie I have watched, every other book I have read, even classes I have taken have helped to put that fantasy in my head. It is a common theme of our society. I don't argue at all with the fact that fairy tales are subversive in this way towards females. Luckily my upbringing has taught me an even stronger lesson. Both my parents basically taught me that "anything you can do, I can do better." Regardless of the fact that I am a female, I know that I can do anything I set my mind to and I can take care of myself without any assistance from a man, and I have done quite well over the past few years. Even when a man did come into my life, I would not allow him to rescue me. I do my best to rescue him, to be his knight in shining armor. There is still a desire in the back of my mind to be taken care of and rescued, put there by the subversive fairy tales I have read and been read along with other things, but there is an even stronger desire to be a self-dependant woman which is what I learned and saw in every other aspect of my life.