Once Upon A Pedestal

I think this is one thing I’ll never get used to, however long I live: the ease and propensity with which females of all ages without (mostly) any irony refer to themselves and others—especially of their female friends and relatives—as princesses.

Look, I understand: nature and nature’s God has granted the female the rather immense power of being the sole viaduct by which all members of the human race enter the world and until someone clever comes up with both invitro-fertilization and invitro-gestation, that’s how things will stay. Men, as a rule, are a dying breed especially in the West. If not in fact and practice then certainly not for want: the female is on the ascendancy. Even the facts of Biology seem to point to that ascendancy: for every one, precious, egg, the male produces billions of useless spermatozoa. And most of that is spilled wantonly with every other millisecond of worldwide Internet usage.

Yes, but that still doesn’t prepare me for when the specter of female ascendancy aggressively materializes: I’m a princess, if not in actual fact, then certainly with respect to what kind of treatment I want, need, and deserve. The male equivalent of this vocalization is mostly a joke, even when it’s serious. In my experience, I’ve never met a man refer to himself as a prince or any other kind of pseudo-royalty. Actual princes are even less likely to throw their princely weight around, especially in this day and age.

But without batting the proverbial eyelash, a woman will refer to herself as a princess. And it begins very early indeed.

The only problem with this: princesses rarely marry commoners.