I am surprised that I have not written about the passenger princess culture before. In case you have not heard of this term before, the stereotype involves a woman looking pretty as she is a passenger in her boyfriend’s car. I hate how ingrained this stereotype is in American society because I do want to change my car-free lifestyle to follow the stereotype of a man driving as his girlfriend is a passenger.
Thankfully, not every woman wants to follow the stereotype or be part of the passenger princess culture. As a feminist, I believe that women should be encouraged to have an equal and healthy role in transportation and navigating. I like the example below because it shows Arnold Schwarzenegger and Heather Milligan biking as equals using a healthy mode of transportation. Neither is a passenger. They have equal roles in the transportation process.
I also enjoyed seeing the below comment on Instagram. I realize the commenter is from New York City, which makes living a car-free lifestyle easier than other cities in the US. What do you think it will take for more people in American society to consider ending the passenger princess culture?
I appreciate Kathy for sharing the Instagram post with me. Since the post’s author is a comedian, do not take the post too seriously. I will admit that I took the post too seriously because I have difficulty understanding sarcasm. I relate to Sheldon Cooper’s difficulty with understanding sarcasm. Sheldon Cooper is a character in The Big Bang Theory.
Can we at least shift our thinking to riding the bus?
Due to being a feminist, I am still concerned about the use of passenger princess. I think this term focuses too much on a woman’s appearance, which can create unhealthy body image issues. Since I doubt American culture will not shift away from using passenger princess anytime soon, I want to at least encourage a shift from viewing women as needing to depend on a boyfriend for transportation and directions to being able to confidently navigate transportation independently.
One way that this independent transportation shift could happen is through transit. I have never seen passenger princess be used with a post about transit before. I like how Foursquare ITP is encouraging people to shift how they think about a passenger princess. I wish more American companies would join in this shift to normalize how women can be independent and smart enough to ride transit, especially during Ride Transit Month. Yes, June is Ride Transit Month. Are you celebrating by riding transit?
Future Blog Post
I welcome feedback from my readers. While I may be focusing too much on my dating struggles, I feel that I originally created my blog in 2014 to discuss my perspective on car-free living. As I have learned the hard way, car-free living is a big dealbreaker for many women in the US. I will try to expand to other topics in the future. What would you like me to write about next?
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