When I last wrote a blog post, I talked about how society promotes the saviour narrative, and the idea that it is attractive for women to be dainty and feminine and really, like ‘delicate flowers’. I ended the post explaining how I’d rather like women who have ENERGY and OPINIONS and PERSONALITIES to be considered attractive. But then that got me thinking, because I feel like, especially in recent years, a new caricature has been added to society’s ‘roles for women’. Alongside ‘delicate flower’, and ‘loud RELATEABLE tomboy’ (she stands up for her beliefs, giving up the possibility of a partner in the process), sits ‘power woman’.
‘Power woman’ is the woman with curves. ‘Power woman’ is the woman with confidence. ‘Power woman’ is the woman who is gorgeous AND has her own success. She’s sexy and desirable for the complete opposite reason to ‘delicate flower’. But ‘power woman’ isn’t necessarly achievable, and it creates this whole new standard.
While ‘Delicate flower’ panders to her man, making him feel big and important and powerful, power woman’ makes her man weak at the knees, and pulls him along. Both are caricatures, and it’s impossible. It’s too hard to be ‘power woman’, and life’s not worth living when you’re quietening yourself as ‘delicate flower’ (or worse, hurting yourself in the offshoot of delicate flower, ‘wilting flower’).
When I see society’s praise for a ‘power woman’, I question myself. How can I be loud and bold, when I’m not gorgeous and vivacious and able to pull off an outfit that says FUCK THE WORLD, LOOK AT ME? How am I expected to gain weight and feel happy with myself, when society turns every female into a character, rather than a human being?
I’m not sure what I want, because I don’t think we should shame women who do embody the stereotypical ‘power woman’, if that’s who they are. But maybe we shouldn’t minimalise them to just that one description. And maybe we don’t need to label them quite so much. And maybe we can just celebrate women having personalities and being confident in themselves no matter their personality or what they look like or what the enjoy doing. Being confident and loud does not mean you have to be a ‘power woman’.