Not a Disney Princess

I can still remember the typical girls only birthday-parties from primary schol and how everyone was dressed as a princess. Wait....Did I say everyone?

My mother made this costume for me and I was very upset when I grew too tall to still fit it.

Elfling Rica has never been too impressed with sparkly dresses and tiaras and quite some my idols were men.

I was the one who never dressed pretty unless I had to, who always had scratches and bruises from my adventures, who skipped the experimental makeup phase and who always wanted to hang out with the boys.
Practical before pretty and covered in mud all the time.

The first time that I "learnt" that it was not ok to be interested in boy-things was at primary school, when we had a medieval feast and all the girls were supposed to show up as Damsels and the boys as knights. Now I didn't want to be a damsel so I asked my teacher wether I could come as a knight too and she said no because "You are a girl and girls cannot be knights."
Now at first I thought I understood why, for I have had a strong passion for all things medieval from a very young age and I did know that in this time, women were not allowed to obtain the rank of a military leader.
I told my primary teacher that I could dress as a girl who dresses as a man in order to be a knight (like Jeanne d'Arc for instance) and she still said no, pointing out again, that I as a girl was supposed to dress as such and that only boys were allowed to be knights.
Naturally I did not understand the point in this argument and was left very confused.




I was a very un-girly child - it came as far as to my cousin inviting me to gatherings with his male friends, the  kind of thing where they game, play soccer, watch movies about cars and usually don't want girls over.
I still remember being very upset that between the ages of 9 and 15 suddenly no one wanted to let me join their soccer game because I was a girl.


I am somebody who recognizes others as people rather than their gender and the typical expectations that coke with that - and it took me a long time to realize, that others were not doing the same. In fact, some people did not even seem to undetstand that just because I did not fit into their personal box of female, it didn't automatically mean that I myself felt less feminine.

Needless to say I also played men in plays.


It used to bother me a lot - especially in my teenage years - that the majority of people around me would either tell me to try be more feminine, to not sport as much because boys don't like girls with abs or the worst: to not even try, because "there is also boys competing".

Good thing, that although I was bothered, I did not listen to that at all - if anything, it was fueling me.





I have become a lot more what people would say is feminine over the years, but when it comes down to it, I still feel weird (yet pretty) in dresses, prefer armour and will never be a Disney princess - but that is ok, somebody has to save all those damsels in distress *giggles*




I think, if my primary teacher knew how I did end up afterall, she'd scream. And this thought was entertaining me today.