Socrates, Disney Princesses, and Men

For a guy who was forced to top himself with hemlock after being found guilty of corrupting the youth of Athens, Socrates had a rather tidy and convenient definition of wisdom. Socratic wisdom is to believe that one knows nothing. Socrates was also rather keen on asking questions. And so, in the spirit of said Greek philosopher, I’m going to metaphorically put on a toga and begin this with two admissions:

1) I’m in my late twenties, and, ergo, I don’t have this figured out.
2)The following ought to be taken as a series of questions and musings rather than a definitive treatise.  

So, now that I’ve admitted to knowing nothing, here’s the issue and the questions. Last week, I saw the following video:

I’ve never seen Frozen, and this isn’t a critique of the movie. However, I found this little clip 
of a character from said movie singing to other Disney princesses slightly unsettling. Let’s first, however, concede that Disney has often given girls a false idea of romance. The whole love-at-first-sight/I-danced-with-you-once-upon-a-dream deal is a bit over the top. On the other hand, I’m not sure that teaching girls to go around singing that they don’t need a man is the answer to ultra-romanticism. I wonder if it is swinging the pendulum just a bit too far in the other direction. Just because we can’t have the happily ever after version of love in real life doesn’t mean we should throw men out the window (or, if one lives in Greece, off the balcony).

The song reminded me of a story my grandfather told me from his twenties. Before he dated my grandmother, he was courting another woman. One evening at dinner, this young lady said the phrase, “I don’t need a man.” My grandfather said that, looking back, it was probably just some I-can-do-this-myself sort of exclamation, but he remembered vividly being crushed at the time. He did not continue to pursue that woman, and he ended up dating my grandmother. When he told her what this other young lady had said, my grandmother tilted back her head and responded quite simply with, “I need a man.” It was at that moment, according to my grandfather, that he fell in love with her.

Now, that was the fifties, and language usage has changed a bit since then, and I’m not sure I’d advise young women to go around saying, “I need a man” on first dates. But the heart of what my grandmother communicated still remains. When she said, “I need a man,” she wasn’t communicating neediness; she was communicating humility, and perhaps even vulnerability.

When I heard the above song, I wondered what it would sound like if we substituted any other type of person or relationship into the lyrics. How would we react to “I don’t need a woman!” or “I don’t need a father!” or “I don’t need a friend!”? All of those options sound a bit narcissistic, arrogant, unhealthy, or just laughable.  

On the other hand, there’s an element in the song that has some substance. Should we be so dependent on the idea of a relationship that we throw everything else out? Should women lack the ability to be emotionally stable even when life is a bit on the lonely side? Probably not.

What bothers me about the song is that I can imagine it quickly followed with Simon and Garfunkel’s “I am a Rock,” which—while one of my favorite songs of theirs—is obviously not the way we ought to live. One of the most haunting lines in the song is this: “I have my books and my poetry to protect me; I am shielded in my armor…”

I wonder if we are inadvertently teaching girls to put on armor when we teach them that they don't need men. And in that armor, what will they find? A kind of safety, I suppose. But not the good kind of safety. The kind of safety that C.S. Lewis warns against when he says, "The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."

But armor aside, is there anything wrong with telling girls that they can be the hero, as the song says? By no means. Women are born to be heroes. A woman is often innately sacrificial in her very nature. But the song seems to suggest that heroism and self-sufficiency go hand-in-hand. Should we really teach women that they should not only be heroes, but heroes all alone?

Admittedly, I feel a bit odd writing this. I’m an unmarried woman in a long-distance relationship who lives by herself overseas. If anyone should be touting girl power, I am she. I’m an adventurous little person who likes the uncertainty involved in travel and exploration. But I’d be lying if I said that it isn’t exhausting being brave by myself all the time. We aren’t made to be alone forever. We’re made to love and to receive love. For most people, that takes the form of a male-female relationship. But regardless of marital status, we all need a Samwise Gamgee, of sorts—someone to look at and say, “I’m glad you’re here.” Frodo wasn’t any less of a hero because he had a companion. But he was successful in his quest due to his friend.

One of the best scenes between Frodo and Sam is the moment when Sam says, “I can’t carry it for you, Mr. Frodo. But I can carry you!” What
 if Frodo had retorted with, “I don’t need another hobbit”?

Speaking of carrying, my favorite memories of my father involve him carrying me from the car to my bed when I was little. There’s just something lovely about being held by someone stronger and bigger. As women, don’t we need that? But in today’s I-can-be-superwoman world, it takes humility to admit it. It requires vulnerability not to glory in the popular trend of female self-sufficiency. But we can neither love nor receive love without that kind of humility that says, “We need men.”

My last question, before I stop playing Socrates, is this: are we willing to take off our armor?

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries: avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable." -C. S. Lewis