This week a guy friend of mine shared a picture of Princess
Leia in her slave chains online, and a shitstorm of controversy erupted. The
resulting anger, defensiveness, and general mayhem made me pull back and think.
But when an idea just won’t let my brain rest and stirs up my dreams, I know I
have to write about it before it will give me any rest.
What really struck me was a well-intended explanation that
Leia in her slave attire is the sexual fantasy of all men of my generation. Now,
I’m as big a Star Wars fan as the next geek, but Leia the slave is and always
has been a really troubling image for me. Leia is many things, leader of the
rebel coalition, a strategist, a warrior, and a spy. In spite of her diminutive
stature and her unfortunate wardrobe, she is a power to be reckoned with. But
it is Leia objectified, humiliated, and chained, stripped of her guns, clothes,
and dignity, that makes men’s hearts (or whatever) pound.
When I say that bothers me, I’m speaking from a deep, deep well
of feminine anger and pain. We’ve worked so hard – gone to college, climbed the
ladder, educated ourselves and each other, fought for the right to vote, the
right to own property, the right to credit, the right to manage our
reproductive health, the right to run marathons, the right to walk onto the
playing field or the stage or the space station or the boardroom. And some few men
have helped us on that path, or at least cheered us on while we fought.
But feminism is far more than our achievements or limitations
in the outside world. It is also about our intimate, emotional lives. We want
so badly for our partners to love, understand, cherish, and respect us in our
entirety, not just as the embodiment of some sexual fantasy. And certainly not the fantasy of woman defeated, humilated, violated. The old fairy tale
of a man to complete us, to sweep us off our feet, to protect us, frankly
creeps us out, because we know the flip side. Also most pop songs about romance, and most TV shows and movies,
to be perfectly honest. Everywhere we’re surrounded by images and messages that
present a romantic ideal that is at war with our truth. If you go beyond
romance to sexuality and passion, it gets even worse. The archetype of the
physically dominant male and submissive female is deeply ingrained in our
culture. The man takes, the woman gives. The guy scores, the woman acquiesces.
Scrawny female models pose drooping in their lace and chiffon, contrasting the
pervasive imagery of the robust, active, sweating male. Even archeology and
history are tainted – the truth of human history and cultures twisted to fit a
heroic male dominance of time itself.
Your casual displays of misogyny make us relive every
wretched heartbreak of our lives. Every man we risked loving, whose interest in
us was revealed as only a pursuit of sexual satisfaction. Every man who admired
our intellect until it contradicted his own views. Every man who was impressed
by our strength until it defied his whims. Every man said sweet things to win
our hearts, and then engaged in our methodical destruction with
micro-aggressions and gas-lighting until we were at the edge of despair. Every
man who laughed at the expression of our truest emotions. Every man who said “I
love your voice” but never took the time to listen to what it had to say. Every
man who interrupted or belittled us in public. Every man who sought our
confidences and then used them against us. Every man we looked in the eyes,
seeking tender connection but finding only coldness and distance. Every man who
said “It’s not you, it’s me,” when we asked why. Oh, we know it’s you. We know
damned well the carefully constructed walls you have built to protect your male
privilege even at the cost of love and life and joy. But we keep hoping anyway.
When a woman, a woman that you know, says this is wrong, this
makes me angry, why don’t you pay heed? You say you love and support us until
we disagree with you or call you out. Then you retaliate, strike back, call us insecure, call
us manipulative, call us weak. Insecure? We have lived our entire lives
fighting against a culture that dishonors us and tries to force our submission.
We know how hard we have worked, every single day, to overcome that and to
achieve success. Insecure? When you’re not around we stand naked in front of
the mirror and run our hands lovingly over our own delicious curves and through
our silken hair. We turn the music up loud and dance, shaking our breasts and
laughing and loving ourselves the way no man will. Manipulative? Every day we
walk out our doors into a world that threatens our lives and bodies. We’ve
learned hundreds of things that men need never know to walk the tightrope of
survival. We work each day with men who devalue us and undermine us and yet still
we succeed. Weak? With every muscle of our bodies we push new life into the
world, through pain your worst nightmare cannot imagine. We work and cook and
launder and clean and pay bills and read bedtime stories and stay up late to
grade the papers or write the report and get up the next day short of sleep to
do it again, over and over, holding the world together with nothing but our
strength because we have to. And when our hearts and bodies and minds are exhausted
and broken, we provide each other the bandages and salves to heal, so that we
can stand up and walk forward again.
You lust for a princess in chains. But we know that in the
end, Leia is alone, unchained and gray, and still stronger than anyone. It’s
lonely, but it’s better than being a slave.
