Fearless Girl

I have been trying to put my finger on what it is about the Fearless Girl statue that bothers me so.  The idea of a fearless girl certainly does not.  So, what does?  I think I have identified what it is that troubles me.

The Fearless Girl statue is a response to the Wall Street Bull, the Charging Bull.  She is a response.  She needs the masculine bull as her reason for being.  Fearless she may be, but fully dependent on the male.  If there is going to be a statue to symbolize women and their fearlessness I would rather see one that represents a woman who has the courage to be fully herself, not a creation that is a response to and therefore governed by the male.  For, I believe that women do indeed have the power, the ability, the courage, the creativity to be themselves, to design themselves to reflect fully who they are, not as simply a response to something created by someone else.  This Fearless Girl statue gives all that power to that very male symbol, the bull.

The Fearless Girl perhaps reflects the anger of so many women.  But let’s examine some of that anger.  Yes, women sometimes face barriers that men do not.  But the success or failure of a woman is not dependent on anyone but herself.  A woman, like any human being, may become angry when she feels that things are not fair.  But she still has the ability to fashion herself as she finds herself, to become whom it is that she wants to be.  If she cannot achieve some of that which she desires because of unfair barriers, then she can work to change those barriers or to find a way around them.  That takes work, not just anger, and certainly not just anger at a whole class of people.   

Today’s women’s movement seems to be a selfish display of anger and blame.  But in approaching the world in that way women are losing the self-reflection that is necessary to become the person that each individually is and hopes to be.  They are letting others define for them their hopes, dreams, and who they are.  They are responding to someone else, rather than themselves.  They are subjecting themselves to the very powers against which they protest.  And, so, I guess that the Fearless Girl statue, whose whole reason for being is determined by another, by a male bull, is very appropriate for this women’s movement.  Sadly, though, it does not represent who women truly are, and what they really have the potential to become.