Sansa Stark, victim blaming and the lie of being “A Good Girl”
I’m a feminist and I love Sansa Stark. To some, these are contradictory. To me, Sansa Stark is a shining example of a woman who played by the rules that were given to her, saw the rules fail her, and was victim-blamed by much of a fandom. This is the same pattern that we see reflected daily all around us.
In the cast of characters, Sansa easily fits into the category of The Ingenue, aka The Good Girl. According to tvtropes, the ingenue is described as, “kind, sweet-natured, polite and optimistic, and on the sliding scale of idealism vs. cynicism, she falls very much on the idealistic side. Her innocent will often inspire protective feelings in heroic characters, and she is frequently one of the more beautiful characters…Unfortunately, her innocent also often makes her woefully naive, making her a prime target for a villain seeking to take advantage of her.”
Sansa Stark is a product of her upbringing: an upbringing that includes being taught the rules of society. Rules that dictate what she should do (sew, sing, marry well and have babies), who she should speak to and how (Courtesy is a lady’s armor), and how she should be (innocent, polite, kind, loyal). All of these qualities and expectations define the Westorosi ideal of The Good Girl.
Throughout A Game of Thrones, Sansa does her best to follow the rules that she has learned from her parents and her septa. Yes, Sansa is unkind to her sister and to Jon (she’s a teenage girl, not a saint), I would argue that her bias is tied to what she has been taught is acceptable behavior. She repeatedly states that Arya is bad–because Arya acts in a way that her septa and family has told her is unbecoming for her. Her behavior towards Jon is a reflection of what she observes from her mother. Arya and Jon go against the rules that she has been taught, and so they are deemed bad and unseemly. It should be noted that others in the story also seem to share this opinion towards Arya and Jon, though many people only fault Sansa for holding it.
However, when Sansa comes to King’s Landing, her loyalties are conflicted and her courtesies do nothing to help her in the face of people far more skilled at manipulation than she. Joffrey is her betrothed; does her loyalty lie with him or her family? She believes Cersei to be not only beautiful, but also kind. She has never been shown the evils of the world, and so she cannot see them when they are right in front of her face. The rules she has been taught until this point in her life don’t help her in the face of conflict, leaving her at the mercy of the Lannisters and (later) Littlefinger.
“She has the traitor’s blood, not me. I’m good, ask Septa Mordane, she’ll tell you. I only want to be Joffrey’s loyal and loving wife.”
All her life, Sansa Stark was taught what to do and how to do it (politely, one must never cause offense). She was taught that if she followed the rules and was a good girl, her life would be filled with beauty and pain would be far away. When she is dragged before the court in AGOT, she tries to make them understand that she is good. If she is good, nothing bad can happen to her.
This is the same struggle that we ask women and girls to face daily. We, modern and supposedly enlightened people, teach our daughters to be Good Girls (polite, loyal, kind, pure) as if this will keep them safe. Look at the way women apologize more than men. Look at the way women ask for promotions vs. how men ask for promotions. We, like Sansa Stark, are (by and large) taught that we should be kind and courteous to others. But when we follow those rules and they fail us, society is quick to blame us for it–just like some critics do of Sansa Stark. Literally, in this day and age being polite gets women killed.
When women are firm in negotiating salaries and workload (going against that idea of being polite), we’re known as a ball buster (and not in a positive way), but if we’re too polite or “soft,” we’re told that we should have negotiated harder and it is our own fault that we aren’t paid more.
Women should be sexy enough to appeal to men, but not too sexy–then you’re a slut. And if you’re attacked while wearing a sexy outfit? Well, you were probably leading him on.
Women learn to turn unwanted attention away politely because if we hurt his feelings, he might physically hurt us. But if he does, we’re asked why weren’t firmer in turning him away.
We do our daughters a grave disservice by teaching them how to be a Good Girl and then blame them when Good Girl rules let them down. The contempt that Sansa Stark receives from other characters in the ASOIAF universe and from fans is victim blaming. She followed the Good Girl rules; they failed her; it’s clearly her fault. Nevermind that the rules were shit and the whole thing was rigged from the get-go.
My point is this: Sansa Stark endured. Sansa Stark survived. Sansa Stark is a badass.
Ladies of the world, we are too.
izzy806
ellievsbear
discoholicmusic
jbbartram-illu
snowghoul
blakekathryn
tangentwithtanner
