Advice for heroines – fictionish

Advice for heroines

There comes a point, usually rather late in the story, where saving the man from the patriarchy may look like a job with your name on it.

At this point, the odds are he’ll be blaming a woman and not the system for what’s happened to him. It is his mother’s fault for eating forbidden fruit. It is because of the faerie queen who wants to use his body as a sacrifice. They all have stories in which it isn’t their fault, and it most certainly isn’t the system.

You are allowed to walk away. What follows is messy, may not work and will cost you dearly. It is up to you to decide is he is worth the work of trying to save him.

Some of them have grown extra skins to protect themselves. Armour. Defences. Essential. They will not feel safe about shedding the layers designed to keep you and the rest of the world from touching what is soft and delicate inside them. It may cost you skin. You might wash it all away with your tears. You will hear all the stories about Queens, Witches, Stepmothers, Unfaithful Lovers and the rest who made them like this. They never speak of Kings, Wizards, Bad Fathers, Treacherous Brothers as though this system is only half of the people in it.

Sometimes you will have to hold them as they shapeshift through all the forms forced upon them. Man as animal, devoid of self control. Man the predator, the crusher, the devourer. All the uses this system has for their bodies. The pressure to feel no tender things, to deny the gentle, generous parts. They are made for the corporate machine and you may find a red hot bar of iron in your hands before you are done.

At the end, if you endure, there will be a naked man. He may be afraid and confused. He may regret the changes. He may think himself diminished and blame you. Or, he might come to your arms as the person he always meant to be, and stand with you as a friend and ally. Whatever else you are to each other is your own business. It is an old story that if you save them, you must wed them. No need to go through all of that just to trip over the punchline.