Women In The Media: Why We Shouldn’t Accept ‘Damsel In Distress’ Stereotypes

By Faye Minton

We all know the ‘damsel in distress’. The beautiful, fragile young woman who needs a big, strong man to come and save her. We’ve spent our whole lives getting to know her, because no matter where we look, she’s there – on both the big and small screens, in the books we’ve flicked through, in plays we’ve seen. You’re probably already picturing Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane in Spiderman – or maybe even Carrie Fisher in her gold bikini in Return of the Jedi. They’ve become so many peoples’ fantasies, because they looked pretty even in times of danger, and were able to make their male counterparts seem even more courageous and alluring. 

It’s all fun and games until you think more about the message it sends out. The women are desirable when they need a man, when they can’t cope on their own. And if they aren’t desired, they aren’t as relevant; they’re only such a big part of the movie because of the men they associate with. Liz Wallace’s Bechdel test goes some way to proving this - it examines whether a movie or film features a conversation between two named female characters about something other than another men (so far, over half the films added to the database have failed the test). 

Often, even women who are the main character end up being a damsel in distress. Think Cinderella, Ariel, Snow White, girls’ first favourites. We have grown up subliminally being told that women are weak in their own right – they couldn’t even finish their own stories without a man coming to save the day. Because, clearly, men are far more capable. Women are too emotional, gullible, naïve. Right?

Wrong. It’s not true. And encouraging young girls to be satisfied as the side character, the weaker one waiting for a hero, is harmful. It restricts their ambition and self-esteem and sets them up for damaging relationships in the future, where they will always believe that despite any wrong that is done to them, they should stay, because they won’t cope alone. And to make sure they aren’t alone, they have to be beautiful, alluring in that gold bikini, so they start to doubt and change their appearance to fit the ideals that have always been set. Further down the line, other women become the competition, getting in the way of potentially life-saving relationships. That’s how the cycle begins, the one that traps us in a spiral where we can’t tell if we hate ourselves, others, or the system more. 

Clearly, creators are starting to realise that this can’t carry on, and that parents would rather their children watch something like Frozen, which promotes family, sisterhood and strong friendships. But encompassing children in marginally different entertainment media isn’t enough, when the issue has become so deep-rooted that it’s reaching into the news and politics itself. When you start analysing the news that we’re exposed to everyday, it starts feeling like a fairy-tale gone wrong. 

Photo of: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (crainsnewyork.com)

I think one of the best examples of this is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, AOC. She’s a Democratic US Representative with Puerto Rican roots, who’s faced a lot of challenges to get where she is today, but remains one of the strongest, most outspoken politicians in the US. She’s always faced backlash for being who she is. But, lately, it’s become more blatantly problematic. After she spoke about her trauma after the January 6 attacks on the Capitol, people attacked her, calling her overemotional in tweets, with some even claiming to be concerned that she was mentally ill and delusional for being affected. People responded by trending #AOCLied on Twitter, rather than offering support and encouragement. She also came out as a sexual assault survivor in the same Instagram Live, which was a brave example of her seizing her own narrative but unfortunately wasn’t met with a great reaction from everyone. 

I think people are threatened by her power. They aren’t comfortable that she’s showing you can have the ‘feminine’, nurturing, emotional qualities and be strong, successful and influential at the same time. You could even go so far as to say she and other female politicians don’t fit the mould we’ve created for the role – politicians serve society, like ‘heroes’, and we aren’t used to seeing women as the heroes. 

AOC is just my choice of example. You don’t have to agree with her politics necessarily to see how much backlash she gets about her personal life and feelings. Regardless of what you believe, the whole trope influences everything – even young girls who want to become conservative politicians should feel free to do so without being critiqued for irrelevant things. Their gender shouldn’t ever be a barrier.

We’re all slightly more aware of the toxicity that influencers get, and we can see some change happening very gradually. The same can be said of celebrities like Britney Spears recently. ‘Framing Britney Spears’ shows how she was slammed because the whole world a decade ago enjoyed watching her suffer. Being young, they assumed she was the damsel in distress, and were confused when her relationship with Justin Timberlake broke down because she was turning down a chance at having a good ‘hero’. It’s not fair that we’ve all been programmed to see things this way – politicians themselves, the journalists who talk about them, influencers, public figures… we’ve all grown up with these messages being thrown at us, so it’s systemic. And because it’s embedded, it’ll take a long time to change it. The change starts with awareness, and with enough people saying that they’ve had enough.

Hopefully, by challenging people who paint women as the damsel in distress, we can move on from this. Sara Sheridan famously asked, "Where are the women?". Well, we’re here, whether people like it or not – and we aren’t all side characters. No matter your gender, age, ethnicity, race, social class, or education, you’re in control of your own story. That’s something that nobody else can take away.