Cavans Princess Sacha S162
Originally uploaded by Robert Scarth
Upon my flickr search for some interesting princess photos, one of the many that came up were pictures much like this one of cows. Cows?
Now I realize that I really don’t know anything about what these cows are about or the reasons for why they are posted. I just thought it was interesting that page after page of these cows came up when I searched! It also got me thinking about reasons for why we, as women, get so caught up in the way we look and often refer to other overweight or out of shape women as ‘cows’. Granted, we probably don’t need a reason to call another woman a cow if we are feeling a little bad about ourselves.
Cows. Rows and rows of cows. It may as well be rows and rows of us women looking in the mirror and berating ourselves for eating that extra cookie or not working out for 5 minutes longer when we’ve already done 30 and feel great.
The image of how we view ourselves, shamefully, is so centered around how we look and what size pants we wear, that it really doesn’t surprise me that we call ourselves cows. Our self-esteem is in the gutter. Or in the dirt as shown above.
In deconstructing this idea of a princess, the idea of a cow never crossed my mind, yet, when I came across these pictures, it just clicked! Princess are supposed to be pretty and thin and beautiful. They smile all the time and never have bad days and they are never mean to other princesses.
Princesses are not cows. But are they?
Why are we stuck in the traditional thinking of a cow as described above as fat or mean? Cows are actually very gentle creatures, they provide food and drink to humans, and are nurturing toward their young babies. As I write that, I realize how much that sounds quite a bit like a traditional role of a wife, a mother, a caretaker of children and family. I don’t believe that’s necessarily such a bad comparison.
It also raises questions to me about these ideas of traditional females vaules and roles. Do we have to identify with the cow? Can’t we be our own person, direct our own path and not have to be stuck on the farm nurturing and caring for all the other animals?
Princesses are not stuck in the mud in careers they don’t like or values they don’t choose or self-images they loathe. Princesses are not tagged at the ear or trapped in pastures by fences.
Princesses roam free to choose their own destiny, just like real cows do. They choose their role whether it be a stay-at-home mom or a career girl on the move. So go ahead, call me a cow. I dare you.
