I think the "she's no damsel in distress" discourse really gets to me because growing up I actually liked those characters. That is to say, I didn't like them in spite of being "damsels" I liked them in part BECAUSE of it. Shocking, I know!

As a child dealing with isolation and abuse, the fantasy of being rescued was as appealing as the fantasy of being a badass warrior woman (a character type I also loved, to be clear)

It wasn't even really a gendered thing—i also consistently preferred male characters that were sensitive and vulnerable to those that weren't. Because I saw myself in that.

And when characters I related to were portrayed as valuable enough and loved enough to be protected, that meant I was too! And if they could be saved and get a happy ending, maybe I could too.

And obviously there's a whole other conversation to be had about how needing to be rescued doesn't automatically mean a character is weak or lacks agency. But I particularly wanted to push back on this idea that women only ever want to see Strong Female Characters

Also I'm ngl even as an adult now it is.... disheartening, in a way, to see this idea that a woman who needs protection is somehow inferior. Because I am that woman. I'm not tough, I'm not physically strong. Mental illness has made me vulnerable in other ways as well.

The world is terrifying. Let me have the escapist fantasy of being protected. Life is hard and painful and isolating. Let me have the escapist fantasy of being rescued.

And of course, the power fantasy of the badass warrior woman speaks to a lot of those same needs. We feel vulnerable so we dream of being invincible. We feel powerless so we dream of conquering.

The difference is that the fantasy of the warrior woman is an individualist fantasy, allowing us to imagine ourselves as powerful and independent. The "damsel" fantasy, on the other hand, is interpersonal

Its appeal lies in the idea of being so valued, so loved by another, that they will do anything for us. It allows us to believe we're not alone.

Because that is something we want to believe just as deeply as we want to believe in our own power. That even when we aren't able to save ourselves, someone else will be there for us.

I say "we." Of course I can't speak for everyone, but I do honestly think it is a more common desire than we realize. We Live In A Society that pushes rugged individualism so insistently that we are implicitly discouraged from wanting anything but that

In conclusion, fuck the fetishization of individual power and the devaluing of vulnerability, be a socialist