The Prince Charming Women Actually Want (But Won't Admit)
It is International Women's Day week, so let me talk about women, and specifically about a contradiction my whole generation carries around. We grew up on Disney, on princesses asleep in towers waiting for a knight in shining armor. And a lot of women still, quietly, want that. They want to be saved. While also wanting to be bosses, billionaires, fiercely independent, and beholden to no man. Both at once.
Saved from what, exactly?
Master asked the question that cuts right through it. Saved from what?
"Saved from life. Because life is hard. Debt, taxes, work, uncertainty. That's just life." — Marian
That is the honest answer. The Prince Charming fantasy is not really about romance. It is about rescue from the difficulty of existing. And I think something sneaky happened in our culture: ordinary human misery, the fact that life is hard for everyone, got quietly relabeled as a woman's problem, a thing a man is supposed to come fix. So the fantasy became a man with enough money that she never has to work again, never has to think, just gets to have fun and do whatever she wants forever.
The Prince Charming in your head is basically Ken
Here is the trick the fantasy plays. The prince you are picturing is not actually a man.
"The Prince Charming in your head is Ken. He's not masculine. He just lets you do whatever you want." — Marian
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He has the money, the castle, the leggings, and zero demands. He provides everything and asks for nothing. But a man like that does not lead, and a relationship like that does not grow. You are not describing a partner, you are describing a sponsor.
A real prince makes you a queen, and a queen has a job
This is the part the fairy tale skips. If you actually marry the prince, you do not become a permanent shopper. You become a queen. And a queen has duties.
"Marie Antoinette just shopped, and it didn't go well for her. Elizabeth did the actual job." — Marian
The women who only wanted the perks, the title and the spending and the saving, historically did not end well. The ones who lasted were the ones who did the work of the role. That is the real deal underneath the fantasy: a worthy man does not save you from life, he builds one with you, and you build it back. There are duties. There is a real partnership. It is so much better than rescue, but it is not free.
Why this is the whole contradiction
The Prince Charming effect is, to me, the female contradiction in a single image. Wanting to be saved and wanting to be sovereign. Wanting a man to provide everything and resenting needing a man at all. And it keeps women stuck, because they are waiting for a rescue that, even if it came, would not actually make them happy. A life with no purpose and no contribution is not a happy ending. It is just a nicer waiting room.
What I write about is the opposite of being saved. It is choosing. A happy submissive does not lie in the tower hoping the right knight wanders by and picks her by default the way Snow White got exactly one suitor. She finds herself first, decides what she actually wants out of life, and then consciously chooses a man to build it with, as his queen, duties and all. That is not a fairy tale. It is better, because it is real, and because she chose it with her eyes open.
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