Monday Postcard #29 – Badass Princess
I admit it, I watched the royal wedding. Did you? For me, it was not so much about the wedding itself, I just like to people watch, look at the outfits, see who is there and analyze everything with a friend. When I was a child, I loved weddings, I thought about the dress I would wear one day, the location, the flowers, all of that. I was a planner already back then. And looking back, I definitely wanted to be a princess and lived up to the cliché – I loved Disney movies, had a huge collection of Barbie dolls and my favourite colour was pink. Well, most of you will now think, what has changed? 🙂
When I arrived in the corporate world, pink obviously was a no-go. And showing a side of you admitting that you love Disney princesses was definitely not a topic either. It was expected to be tough. I had a string of failed relationships with what I thought were “prince charmings” and then turned out to be frogs. I realized they wanted a princess – in the sense of a woman who depends on them, will stay at home with the kids and will be what they consider a good wife – instead of a young woman with brains, a doctorate and a six figure salary. I realized that I had moved away from my childhood princess wedding aim. But not because of my experiences with men, I just realized that my dreams had changed. One of my former bosses – a father of three girls – said to me: “I always tell my daughters: You don’t want to be a princess, imagine all the stress: you always have to look good, paparazzi everywhere, no eating and the crazy mother in law!”
However, I actually did not understand why being a successful woman automatically meant giving up on your princess – or let’s rather call it your feminine – side. Why am I not allowed to wear pink? Why is it not OK to sometimes dream of a tiara? I am a feminist. This is no question. Nevertheless, I do not think that a woman has to become a man to be taken seriously. I started to wear pink at the office, I started with small details until I showed up with a pink skirt at the office one day. And to one of my job interviews, I wore neon-striped 10 centimetre high heels. And you know what? I got that job. And two years later, the woman who interviewed me even asked me where I bought those shoes. And I even met my friend Nadia, another female power house being a legal advisor at the UN, while bonding over that very same pair of shoes. My feminine – and sometimes funky – style corresponding to my personality became my differentiator.
I think the difference today is that you can actually choose how you define princess – some might still look for a (rich) prince charming, but there are so many others who do not want to “rule” side-by-side with their husband but building their own empires. And for some, it might be a mix of both. There are definitely prince charmings out there who can deal with badass princesses. Whatever you choose, the most important feature of princesses we should bear in mind is dreaming. We need dreams as fuel. And when we fall, we get up again, adjust our crown and keep walking with pride.
