Who Runs the World

I walked in on my daughter practicing her curtsy in front of the mirror the other day. In her 6 year old world where everyone can be a princess, it seems perfectly natural for her to assume she needs to know how to curtsy. But then she looked at me and asked, “Why do girls have to curtsy when boys get to bow? Curtsying is a lot harder.”

I had to laugh at that. It reminded me of that quote about Ginger Rogers – how she did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in heels. No one generally cares how much harder girls have to work to meet cultural expectations, just as long as we look pretty doing it. That truth hit even harder as my daughter explained that she was practicing so her avatar could do well at the Emperor’s Tea Party in her Disney Princess game. This is the game that has Mulan (the one halfway kick-ass Disney princess) telling the young girl players how much she owes the Emperor and how honored she is to attend his tea. As Mulan explains, he gave her a sword (for saving his kingdom!) and she humble gave it to her father. And then the Emperor allowed her to marry a man outside her caste, so she is ever in his debt and so is greatly honored to be invited to the tea (insinuating that the girls should feel the same way).

I shuddered as I heard my daughter playing that game. I know there are some cultural elements at play here (respect for elders, especially male elders), but the message is that even the girl who saved the realm must deny her accomplishments and focus her attentions on being an acceptable adornment for the men who control her. The men get the glory even though the women did the hard work.

That phenomena has been in the new a bit recently since the release of the final Harry Potter film. Some have commented that sure, Harry is the main character, the boy who lived, who faces Voldemort in the final battle – but he was only able to do all of that (and survive) because of Hermione’s dedicated hard work. She was the brains who figured out mysteries, the quick thinker who stayed calm in the face of danger time and time again, the one who mastered the spells that enabled them to fight the Dark Lord and stay alive in the process. Harry would never have made it without Hermione’s hard work. For that matter, I doubt Jesus and his core disciples would have made it without the women who traveled with them supporting them. Those women funded his ministry out of their own pockets, and (let’s face it) were probably more Martha than Mary – doing the cooking and cleaning so the boys could sit around discussing theology. Beyonce got it right in her recent song, girls truly do run the world. Unfortunately it's often by doing all the hard work so men can get the glory.

So as I watched my daughter practice her curtsy and thought about her question, I had to tell her the truth. That yes, it is a lot harder to be a girl most of the time. It isn’t fair, and maybe someday it will change, but that’s the way life is. But. If she would rather bow than curtsy, then she should just go right ahead and bow.