I admit it. When Kate Middleton burst into the spotlight
with her fabulous fascinators and polished suits, I was overcome with jealousy.
For weeks, I withdrew into existential malaise, ruminating over her good
fortune—she had ascended from a commoner to a princess simply because she had charmed
the buck-toothed heir to the British throne. The fact that she would someday
wear a bejeweled crown, ride in a horse-drawn carriage, and live in a historic
palace while I continued to toil in plebeian anonymity felt like the most
brutal of all injustices.
To cope with my rampant case of princess envy, I decided to
overhaul my wardrobe. If I couldn’t be a princess, I could at least dress like
one. I acquired beautiful, leather Ralph Lauren riding boots, tailored pencil
skirts, elegant nude pumps, bold Derby hats, tweed blazers, crisp wool
trousers, linen shift dresses, elbow-length satin gloves—even an intricately
embroidered turban-like headband, a vague homage to princesses from kingdoms more
closely intertwined with my own heritage. Thus attired, the fantasy of royalty
felt more attainable.
Fortunately for my rapidly dwindling savings account,
buyer’s remorse eventually overpowered my outlandish delusions of grandeur, and
most of my princess costumes were returned by the time the Royal Wedding aired.
I listlessly watched as Kate, in her infuriatingly lovely and tasteful wedding
dress, became Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge. I reluctantly acknowledged
that no amount of fancy new clothes could make me into a princess; you’re
either born royal, or you marry someone who was. You can’t be awarded a crown
because you studied hard or you scored highly on an exam, and you can’t sit on
a throne because you organized a successful campaign and convinced people to
support your cause. Being a princess is honor without accomplishment.
In Disney movies, princesses are invariably beautiful, kind,
feminine, clever, and either helpless or willful, depending on the era. It
wasn’t until the very recent Disney/Pixar hit Brave that a princess was portrayed as a genuinely spunky tomboy
whose storyline was not dominated by the quest for a husband. As a child, I
never questioned the soulless homogeneity of Disney princesses. I memorized
their songs, dressed like them for Halloween (and sometimes on other days as
well), and daydreamed about sitting on a throne and bossing people around. But
eventually, I began to wonder: what actually made these characters special? Did
being a princess mean that they were innately superior? Was everyone who wasn’t a princess somehow unworthy? I
knew that couldn’t be true; my parents had emphasized the importance of
education, a good work ethic, and dedication to one’s career as being the
central tenets of success, so I knew that being innately superior had nothing
to do with it. Then wasn’t all this princess nonsense just a bunch of elitist
horseshit?
As I aged and progressed in my education, I noticed that the
anecdotal use of the word “princess” had a negative connotation, and was often
used as a synonym for “entitled” or “demanding”. Many of the girls who went to
my college and majored in Elementary Education—the ones who wore Uggs and
donned false eyelashes to go to the gym and socialize next to the elliptical
machines—were derogatorily referred to as “princesses”. There was a tacit implication, amongst
observers and the girls themselves, that they had no real desire to work, and
were hoping to marry wealthy men. Such girls were generally regarded as prissy,
high-maintenance, and unambitious.
Bravo’s much-maligned new series Princesses: Long Island presents a particularly unflattering
portrayal of young Jewish women from economically privileged families,
colloquially referred to as JAPs, or Jewish-American Princesses. For the most
part, the women on the show are entitled, shallow, immature, pampered, unintelligent,
overly indulged, inarticulate slobs who drink too much and have no marketable
skills. Unduly impressed with their own looks, they all labor under the
delusion that a prosperous, handsome man is waiting for each of them in the
great wide somewhere, desperate to wed and grant them eternal comfort and
elysian bliss. They seem unperturbed by the fact that they bring nothing to the
table: no remarkable insight, no personal accomplishments, no interesting
experiences, no ambitions of their own—not even the subtle, traditionally “feminine”
qualities of being a good homemaker and mother. The simple designation of being
a “princess” apparently earns them the right to be cherished and adored.
After all, being a princess has nothing to do with your own
accomplishments. You’re treated like you’re worthy of respect and reverence
only because you’ve arbitrarily been designated as superior. Your status
depends on the perceived inferiority of others and on the continuation of your
father’s or husband’s sovereignty. At least princes and kings have historically
been known to win battles and make important decisions; princesses are rarely
more than commodities, bargaining tools, and figureheads. This is a hardly a role
to which any modern woman should aspire.
What I’m about to say will probably seem unnecessarily
harsh, but I’ll say it anyway. Women, stop behaving as if being female and/or
attractive and/or the daughter of well-to-do parents makes you inherently
superior.
The monarchy is a dying breed; civilization has finally started
to wise up to the fact that nobody is born inherently superior to anyone else. Monarchy
has flourished as long as it has because people have believed in the divine
right of individuals who bear a certain genetic lineage to rule. Throughout
history, hundreds of thousands have died in revolt against the monarchy, yet
modern “princesses” uphold the belief that being arguably attractive and having
been raised in a privileged environment gives them the right to certain
luxuries. It doesn’t. Misogyny, like the monarchy, is also getting phased out. No
one has to pay for your drinks, buy you expensive bags, and marry you simply
because you exist. Modern women in the western world have every opportunity to
buy their own drinks and expensive bags, because our predecessors have fought
and struggled and advocated for women’s equality. It seems rather hypocritical
to subvert decades of feminist advocacy so that we can view ourselves as
“princesses”, because being a princess is a silly, childish fantasy that’s
inaccessible to 99.999% of the female population. What is accessible to all of us who were fortunate enough to be born
into middle-class families in the western world is equal pay, equal
opportunities, equal education, and an equal chance to succeed. Those who live
in developing countries where women are subjugated and commodified surely view our reality as a fantasy.
I’m a woman. I’m attractive. I’m the daughter of well-to-do
parents. And I’m studying to be a doctor. Some women have no desire to work,
and that’s fine. Kate Middleton is probably a wonderful princess, and that’s
fine too. But I’m not a princess, and I never will be. I’m happy to have the
opportunity to take ownership of my future and create my own stability. I’ve
been give the chance to be anything I want to be, to take risks, to devise my
own timeline, to marry if and when I choose. If I were a princess, all of those
decisions would be made for me. Being a commodity means sacrificing autonomy, and
autonomy is precious to me—much more precious than a sapphire heirloom
engagement ring.
Some women have no problem with being a commodity, and I
wish them well. I would also caution them to remember that, by labeling oneself
as a commodity, one has no right to demand respect or equal partnership. If
you’re to be coddled and pampered like a princess, you had better be prepared
to be patronized and controlled as well. Don’t say no one warned you.
I won’t claim that I will never, ever don a rhinestone tiara
and gaze wistfully at myself in the mirror, wishing for something more genteel and
glamorous than the dreary hospital wards and lifeless white coats. Fantasy can
be a harmless coping mechanism. But I will always remember to be grateful for
my reality: choices, opportunities, autonomy, and self-respect. Heavy is the
head that wears the crown, but I’m happy to carry the burdens that I’ve chosen
for myself.
