Category: Caricature, Satire.
It’s not easy dealing with difficult people especially when the difficult person is you. I spent my childhood devouring Barbie movies and pop culture so, who can blame the part of me that still believes in the idea of finding my dreams, my true calling, at the cost of the arrival of my prince. The notion just pops us randomly as a potential solution when I feel I’m a bit out of my depth meeting today’s expectations.
Alas! today, a damsel in distress is a condition they will point out for you on the spectrum of attention seeking and for teenage girls like me who grew up seeing responsibility as something to be swept off your feet from, there’s been no accommodation program, no workshop, no prospectus so what about us? The lost generation of fantasy princesses; programmed for royalty in every sense of the word.
Look closer and you’ll find that the landscape has changed quite drastically for us over the span of a few years; the time taken to graduate college. And although many like me have adjusted to the pseudo feminism and even embraced it but at some point, we all tend to lose the plot. I suppose, like others, I’m afraid of being shook into a mindset that is not even mine. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. (Twenty is old, okay!)
So, we put a pillow over our ears believing the world will put itself back for us, but it doesn’t. Fast forward, today when I want to talk it out; that’s not what Barbie or pop culture is about anymore. The emotions of girls younger than me might resonate well with this year’s soft pop music than what they’re reading here but bear with me. They now want us to redefine gender roles! Prepare for workplace ethic! Know Microsoft Excel! If Swan Lake was my fantasy come alive, get a load of this!
Perhaps women will call me out as being one of the reasons hindering their empowerment. But I can’t stop being old-fashioned for your taste and it’s too far down the line to turn back from the conventional home maker I have become. In the end, I’m old school and I mimic misogynistic rap without flinching. Sometimes, women in my field make me feel out of place because I am emotional and have a soft corner for men because I can get myself heard without the flow charts and Venn diagrams. I like to call it the force of femininity. Alas, like I said, it’s not easy dealing with difficult people especially when it’s your stubborn self. But in my defense, pop culture shouldn’t have raised one if it wanted to erase one! Burn!
Zainab Shah Khan 