#Cause you have this marginalized women who for one reason or another don't fit the beauty standards feeling resentment

[supercool-here]

Watching the episode (94th) where the cuartel prompts Berta to get the surgical procedure to have a hot bod and it's Betty and Inesita the only ones having reasonable and smart takes as to why she shouldn't do it (and get the car her husband told her to get instead) but in the end she does get the procedure because insecurities and ego and vanity and coaxing and whatnot. And then they tell Betty how she's ingenuous for believing a man can love you no matter your looks. And then it's BETTY who ends up looking prettier without having undergone any surgeries, but most importantly, Armando, the womanizer who was always surrounded by models and who only chased the most beautiful women, falls in love with her, out of all the ordinary and even undeniably unattractive women he must have met in his lifetime.

[zvezdacito]

I feel like the reason the "women needing help/saving" has become considered a trope that should never be written forever and weakness in women is just confirming to traditional gender roles or something is because people look and react to these tropes in a very shallow and superficial way, and not examining the core reason that makes these tropes harmful. They also usually don't want to make the work to fully represent as much people within these groups, they just want a token character guideline to follow and then be done with it.

The damsel trope is usually harmful because the story usually uses it to frame the damsel as a prize to be won to add to the savior's status and usually ends her entire character there. This type of damsel does not allow the woman to be her own individual person with personality, beliefs, motivations, feelings, and thoughts.

Here she's become an object to advance the plot or the hero's status instead of a real person like the rest of the characters who just happens to need some help because she's human and not invinsible. She's basically in a weak spot for other characters development, but never actually her own.

It also becomes a problem when the toxic aspects about this character, which is needing to be passive/saved for the sake of letting others who are usually men to shine is made to be the standard women should follow to be "proper people" in society.

But like the people above said representation isn't a "one size fits all" thing and replacing one fixed unfluid gender standard with another but hiding it behind feminism this time doesn't really help anyone. Especially for women who can't help but need help (such as disabled women), or women who are usually not given the chance to feel beautiful, vulnerable, safe or worthy of the dedication of saving (such as black/darker skinned women and trans women).

So the damsel in a story being good or bad rep for women really just depends on the framing of it and good character writing. If you don't conform to the ableist and misogynstic framings the trope is usually utilized for, then you're not really conforming to anything harmful, you'd even be representing more marginalized groups and affirming to people that whatever vulnerabilities they may have does not lessen their wholeness and dignity as a human person, and that they're not holding anyone back for needing help.

A lot of people also don't talk about how making the "no weaknesses girlboss" character sometimes becomes another way toxic masculinity manifests, which is weird cause we encourage men to move past that but fsr we now love forcing it onto ourselves for the sake of being "progressive women"

Also men have been weaponizing the girlboss to act dense on purpose and basically not even try to help women face the systematic barriers created by the patriarchy, since she's "so strong and independent. And therefore responsible for making sure she doesn't get harmed by circumstances out of her individual control. Therefore we don't need to do a thing because wouldn't you just call us anti-feminist if we do that😁"

There's never such a thing as "enough representation" for opressed groups, create as much different kinds of representation as possible to represent as many different kinds of people as possible. Creating a fixed model for representation for it to be "safe" and palatable is just a disservice to many people in those groups.

Like before, if you did that you wouldn't be representing people, you'd be back to representing ideals.

When I was younger and more abled, I was so fucking on board with the fantasy genre’s subversion of traditional femininity. We weren’t just fainting maidens locked up in towers; we could do anything men could do, be as strong or as physical or as violent. I got into western martial arts and learned to fight with a rapier, fell in love with the longsword.

But since I’ve gotten too disabled to fight anymore, I… find myself coming back to that maiden in a tower. It’s that funny thing, where subverting femininity is powerful for the people who have always been forced into it… but for the people who have always been excluded, the powerful thing can be embracing it.

As I’m disabled, as I say to groups of friends, “I can’t walk that far,” as I’m in too much pain to keep partying, I find myself worrying: I’m boring, too quiet, too stationary, irrelevant. The message sent to the disabled is: You’re out of the narrative, you’re secondary, you’re a burden.

The remarkable thing about the maiden in her tower is not her immobility; it’s common for disabled people to be abandoned, set adrift, waiting at bus stops or watching out the windows, forgotten in institutions or stranded in our houses. The remarkable thing is that she’s like a beacon, turning her tower into a lighthouse; people want to come to her, she’s important, she inspires through her appearance and words and craftwork.  In medieval romances she gives gifts, write letters, sends messengers, and summons lovers; she plays chess, commissions ballads, composes music, commands knights. She is her household’s moral centre in a castle under siege. She is a castle unto herself, and the integrity of her body matters.

That can be so revolutionary to those of us stuck in our towers who fall prey to thinking: Nobody would want to visit; nobody would want to listen; nobody would want to stay.

[ladysophiebeckett]

#It's giving fairy tale and I love it#Cause you have this marginalized women who for one reason or another don't fit the beauty standards feeling resentment#But not going against the canon belief that to be valuable and loved you gotta be pretty and to win in life you need beauty#The same damning rule they are accepting of!#And then there is other women who do fit the beauty standards like Marcela or Patricia but they're mean and proud and rude and etc#And they are alone (at the end of the telenovela but I do love redemption)#And then there's Betty#The most marginalized and the most hurt of all the “ugly” women and men shown in the soap#And she is not perfect yes#But she is the one that never relied on her beauty or Social stratum for love or self accomplishment#Yes she believed herself ugly and yes she marginalized herself too and yes she believed that those with beauty and money belonged#To a totally different world she could never live in#But she never played by those rules#And she never believed it fair#And for as hard as it was she always believed love should not depend on the looks of people#And when she had the beauty (and the money or at least the social recognition) she did not rely on them#She didn't become proud and didn't start despising her friends

Watching the episode (94th) where the cuartel prompts Berta to get the surgical procedure to have a hot bod and it's Betty and Inesita the only ones having reasonable and smart takes as to why she shouldn't do it (and get the car her husband told her to get instead) but in the end she does get the procedure because insecurities and ego and vanity and coaxing and whatnot. And then they tell Betty how she's ingenuous for believing a man can love you no matter your looks. And then it's BETTY who ends up looking prettier without having undergone any surgeries, but most importantly, Armando, the womanizer who was always surrounded by models and who only chased the most beautiful women, falls in love with her, out of all the ordinary and even undeniably unattractive women he must have met in his lifetime.