How the “Helpless Princess” and the “Bad Witch” Shape Our Culture

We have grown up in a patriarchal culture, and its stories about women affect us, whether you’re a stay-at-home mother, an entrepreneur, or a woman who’s working in a corporate setting. 

In our male-centric culture, masculine is considered normal and preferable and feminine is considered weak or “other.” 

This is reinforced by tradition--and in the stories and the archetypes at play in our culture. 

The stories about our princesses have changed in recent years in pop culture with princesses becoming more empowered. 

And some of the storytelling is beginning to shift. And this is wonderful. But we still have a backlog of stories of helpless princesses, evil witches, and a cultural backlash against feminine age and wisdom that we must unpick and evolve. 

Growing up hearing story after story where your entire sex is relegated to a few stereotypical roles can stunt some of our growth . . .  

. . . By causing us to feel our options for how to show up in the world as a woman are limited and have consequences, because we will be judged by how we look or the role we play rather than who we are.  

Our worthiness can be set up in terms of how much we sacrifice or give to others rather than what we accomplish of our own right (or simply the fact that we are human). 

The strands of the archetypal stories of centuries whisper through the threads of our culture, affecting the fabric of what is allowed for women, but beyond even that, shaping what we allow for ourselves. 

Stories over and over again cut women off from their power or judge them for being powerful. 

The fates, who weave the destiny of mankind, are other, and unknowable. 

The inner witch must be kept in check by the townspeople, which we can internalize on some level as keeping our male-centric culture happy by keeping our gifts quiet to appease the inner and outer critics. 

The siren, or mermaid, is viewed as dangerous when she sings her song.  

 

In all of these cases, the stories centering on the female archetype typically take the power away from the women, or seek to keep others “safe” from her, implying that female power is harmful. 

But is female power really harmful simply for being powerful? 

I don’t believe it is. 

I believe female power has been labelled as dangerous in our culture because it is different than male power.  

But our conflict here is that: 

When women push themselves to become more powerful and advance their careers (or want to grow within their lives) by embracing masculine power virtues and divorcing themselves from their divine feminine natures, they are living the myths out all over again, and shutting off from the parts of their own power that could be their greatest and most transformative strengths.

So what do we do? 

We’ve had our stories taken from us. 

We haven’t had control of our own narrative. 

But what happens when women do deep archetypal work around owning their story? If we as women shifted not only how we relate to these archetypes, but also evolved the myths as they run through our energy and stepped in as the central characters? 

We’ll explore that next time. 

For today, I invite you to think about the feminine virtues that are set forward in our historical myths, and how they shape female power.  

When the siren is cast as dangerous and we’re told humans should avoid her, is that archetype, about the importance of avoiding the female voice, serving us?  

When the princess is virtuous if she is innocent, inexperienced, and most desireable if she waits for a man to give her validation, is that archetype supporting our self-growth? 

When the insight of the oracle is considered wild magic without a place in mainstream culture and conversation, are we honoring female insight? 

Some things to think about. I’ll see you next time.  

Rebecca Sederberg Kellogg is an energy mastery mentor and Divine Feminine guide. 

She supports leaders, sensitives, and creatives in caring for their own energy and creating nurturing, transformative spaces for their tribes. She believes when we evolve the stories that hold us back into something more sustaining we create more space for ourselves and our planet to thrive.