Women CAN BE Heroines in Their Own Right…

By Carol Morgan, Professor, Wright State University

While growing up, we were socialized to think that heroes were mainly men.

Think about it. We’ve all grown up with many images – from books to movies – of what constitutes a hero. And this cultivates cultural expectations. Let’s look at some of them in a little detail.

First, you have the Disney movies like Cinderella. She was the “underdog.” She was poor, unwanted, and bullied by her Wicked Stepmother and her stepsisters. Her life is going nowhere, and she’s sad and miserable. Until one day, her fairy godmother appears and says that she gets to go to a ball. Then she meets her hero – Prince Charming – and loses her glass slipper. Since Prince Charming has already fallen in love with her, he searches high and low for the girl who fits into the glass slipper. And of course, he finds her and they live happily ever after.

Then we have Snow White. The Wicked Queen was jealous of Snow White’s beauty, and so she orders her innocent stepdaughter to be murdered. Later, she discovers that Snow White is still alive and hiding in a cottage with seven friendly little miners – the dwarves. So she disguises herself as a hag and brings a poisoned apple to Snow White, who falls into a death-like sleep that can only be broken only by a kiss from her hero – the prince.

Do you see a theme here?

The demure, beautiful, submissive female is hated by an older, uglier woman who tries to either punish or kill her. Then, the only way that she is saved is by a hero – the handsome prince who rescues her.

Then, you have the superhero comic books and movies like Superman. These heroes are strong and have super powers. They are always saving innocent people and stopping evil from taking over the world. Most superheroes were men in the beginning. Wonder Woman came along later, but the ratio of men to women in “superhero land” is still unequal. And if you asked the average person to name a female superhero, they probably would have a hard time coming up with any beyond Wonder Woman or Cat Woman. But they could probably name endless male superheroes.

This theme is pretty consistent in our culture – men saving people. Men being the strong ones, being the ones who save the world, being the heroes.

The subconscious mind is powerful. Many times, our beliefs aren’t even part of our conscious awareness. So when we grow up with all of these images and messages, we all believe them at some level.

But that doesn’t mean that women can’t be heroines in their own right. In the last several decades, women have entered the work force and have assumed more and more leadership positions. So even though the images of heroes in our culture are mostly male, we can still see heroines at work every day.

Now let’s look at the differences between a hero and a heroine in real life.

For the rest of Dr. Morgan’s article, Click HERE.

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Dr. Carol Morgan is a professor at Wright State University and a relationship, motivation, and success expert. She is also a keynote speaker, the author of several books, and a regular expert on the TV show, Living Dayton. Her expertise has also appeared on various popular websites such as The Huffington Post, eHow.com, Lifehack.org, and many others where articles have been shared on social media over a million times. This article was republished here with Dr. Morgan’s permission.