Pretty Princesses.

First of all I just need the record to show that as a woman in my early twenties it's beyond ridiculous how much the Horned King terrifies me still to this day, and I'm not ashamed to admit it, but seriously, it's a film made primarily for children, is there any need for this...

...honestly?

Anyway the task at hand, Disney Princesses; now I have no strong opinion on Disney Princesses, I think as a group they're all kind of bad role models for young women, yeah Belle reads, but then again she also commits occasional acts of bestiality, and yes Snow White teaches the dwarves how to clean the house and look after themselves properly, but then she cleans the house for them and looks after them anyway, she's essentially a housewife to seven men, bloody Ariel gives up her entire life, family, friends, voice, and for what? A man that dumps her like a sack of hot shit the second a pretty girl walks past, Cinderella looks after orphaned mice, and has a break through moment where she escapes the clutches of the child abusing, child labour law breaking Lady Tremaine, just to go back to the castle and wait for Prince friggin' Charming to rescue her. Which really is something they're all guilty of. And do not even get me started on Jasmine, she has absolutely no redeeming features, she is rude, she is disrespectful to

almost everyone, like fair enough Jaz the men in your life shouldn't be trying to marry you off, they don't own you, but at least use your manners, she sneaks out of her room at night with a complete stranger and doesn't tell anyone where she's going, FUCKING STRANGER DANGER JASMINE, fucks sake, she uses her sexuality to seduce Jafar into doing her bidding, which isn't that bad, but come on Jasmine, you're a strong woman, use your words, you are more than your body, plus you are a fucking child and he is at least 50. Which brings me onto my next point, why do all the Disney Princesses end up with men that are years older than them, I'm not one to judge an age gap but when the younger of the couple is still a child I'm calling 'hell no' on that one. (Side note: Mulan rocks).

I digress because my original point was my favourite Disney Princess is, drumroll please.....Princess Eilonwy. Who the fuck is that I hear you ask? Princess Eilonwy, is the kick arse, no bullshit princess from Disney's The Black Cauldron (which explains my Horned King based terror at the beginning). Why is she so much superior to her fellow Princess? I'm glad you asked...

 1. She is sassy as fuck.

2. She is kind to everyone

3. She boosts moral.

4. Finding a man is not top on her list of priorities and she does not let any man boss her around. 

5. And when she does end up with a fella, it's not love at first sight, they've gone through several traumas which have brought them closer together, there is no talk of immediate nuptials AND he is age appropriate.

6. She does not hesitate to knock Taran down a peg or two when he starts with his 'we wouldn't have got out the castle if it wasn't for me' thing, she quickly informs him that he found a magic sword and the sword got them out and that if it wasn't for her breaking him out of the dungeon he'd he lying there still.

and last but not least...

7. In a film filled with peril she does the rescuing just as much as she is rescued.

Also shout out to Gurgi...

Real men fight, and other kids games.

Tonight my Mam took me out for me and a couple of my nieces out for tea, and a few tables along is this family of four, standard boring nuclear family, two parents, one girl and one boy, who is in the same class as my nine year old niece, and a we can hear the family telling him off, and there was so much wrong with this conversation that I can only give you highlights, but the long and short of it was that when people pick on him he can't get upset, and he needs to take up a sport, and stop eating so much, 'From now on you can only eat breakfast, dinner and tea, and not grown up portions' like dude, what the fuck, he's a child, and not a tall child, I'd be surprised if he can ever reach the worktops, if he's eating grown up portions it's because that's what you're feeding him.

I was just getting over this incredulous lapse of logic, when the 'man' of the family starts saying, 'you need to take up a man's sport, a real man's sport like boxing, shut up telling him to pay football, football's a man's sport, but it's not a man's man sport, boxing is a sport for real men', and that 'men watch football but they're not real men, real men box and play rugby and knock each other about', at this point his mother chips in 'yeah if you played rugby you'd be able to plough right through him', somewhere in the middle of this speech I sent my nieces to the play area while they waited for our food to come, being nine and ten I didn't want them to hear this bullshit.

'Real men knock each other about', now I know you can't judge how other people drag up bring up their kids, and that it's their own business, but who the fuck tells a little boy and girl that basically the real measure of a man is how hard he can punch something?

Now I consider myself a good Northern working class girl, granted I have a blog and a university education (almost), but I also have a 'top for best', I indulge in the occasional Snakebite, and I consider any Christmas without a bust up a dull affair, I know, in my heart, that I am a working class lady, and from my experience and from the accounts of others and through things I've learned, I know that upper class misogyny and working class misogyny are two different things, the misogynistic upper classes consider their wives to be sweet pure little things that belong to them and that can't possibly have been seen naked by another man, regardless of how many women have had his cock in their mouth, (*cough* Madonna/Whore complex *cough cough*), working class misogyny is 'real men don't hit women', women are to be protected, we need looked after, because heaven forbid a women can take care of herself.

Tonight I witnessed the newest little generation of damsels in distress looking for their hero, and big strong men looking to 'knock each other about'. Ain't life grand?