Girls, stop romanticising the helpless-girl narrative

Throughout my long and sensitive adolescence, I secretly waited for someone to come and save me.

Perhaps it was because, in fairy tales, a princess could always count on a prince to rescue her. In films and romance novels, women with happy endings were always firmly chosen, deeply loved and carefully protected. In many traditional East Asian narratives, women were also portrayed as delicate beings who needed to be looked after.

For a long time, I accepted this as the natural order of life.

It shaped more than my expectations of romantic relationships. In my career and major life decisions, I also unconsciously placed myself in the position of someone waiting to be chosen.

I imagined that the important things in life would simply arrive one day.

Perhaps a manager would suddenly recognise my talent and offer me a meaningful opportunity. Perhaps a life-changing chance would fall into my lap, and my value would finally be seen.

But living inside this helpless-girl narrative never pulled me out when I felt trapped.

Instead, it slowly weakened my will, limited my ability to act and left me waiting passively for whatever life decided to give me.

I still remember my first day at university.

After being assigned to our classes, we went to collect our new textbooks. A few male classmates were handing them out beneath a tent.

I was excited as I carried a tall pile of books back towards my dormitory. When I turned around, I tripped over one of the tent ropes, fell to the ground and dropped the books everywhere.

It was a very small incident. I could simply have stood up and gathered the books myself.

Yet in that moment, a faintly resentful thought flashed through my mind:

“Why aren’t any of the boys in my class helping me?”

Looking back, it was such an immature way of thinking.

Why was I waiting for someone else to help when I was perfectly capable of standing up and collecting the books myself?

This habit of making myself weaker was no different from handing control of my life to someone else.

I waited for someone to rescue me, someone to recognise me and someone else to define my value.

But no one will ever take greater responsibility for your life than you.

When Virginia Woolf wrote that a woman needs a room of her own, she was not speaking only about physical space.

She was also writing about intellectual and emotional agency: the ability to think independently, make your own judgements and accept the consequences of your decisions.

When you continually place yourself in a weaker position, avoid difficulty and use vulnerability to gain sympathy or protection, that mindset gradually becomes a habit.

It may begin by shaping small decisions in daily life, but eventually it spreads into work, study and every major turning point.

You can become a child who never fully grows up, someone who loses the ability to solve problems independently and gives away opportunities to develop.

When an opportunity appears, your first instinct is to retreat.

When you are given an important task, you want to avoid it rather than recognise it as a chance to grow.

Even when life places you in the spotlight, your instinct may be to think:

“I can’t do this.”

“I’m an impostor.”

In that state, even when life chooses you, you may still miss the opportunity.

The voices that repeatedly whisper “I can’t” and “I’m not capable” eventually take on a life of their own. They grow roots inside your identity until you begin to believe them.

When I first started working after completing my master’s degree, my boss once told me during a one-on-one meeting:

“Don’t say, ‘I’ll try.’ Say, ‘I can.’”

Since then, I have tried to stop responding to challenges with immediate fear or anxiety about failure.

Instead of waiting passively, I try to meet them directly.

Whenever you bravely pursue something, the process reshapes you, regardless of the final result.

It gives you a powerful sense of ownership over your life.

Once you develop that sense of agency, it becomes difficult to return to complete passivity.

Even when you fail, you can accept the experience with greater peace because it came from a path you chose for yourself.

The muscles of self-worth and self-belief grow in exactly this way: through repeated effort, stretching, strain and pain.

Over time, they become stronger.

Beyond passive waiting, another deeply rooted part of the helpless-girl mindset is the habit of diminishing yourself.

When you meet someone more accomplished, you instinctively place yourself beneath them.

When you enter an important room, you quietly wonder whether you deserve to be there.

When speaking in a group, you lower your voice so you will not attract too much attention.

You may believe this is humility.

But often, it is simply the habit of making yourself smaller.

Over time, you may sit in a team meeting with an original idea and remain silent because you assume your words do not matter.

At social gatherings, you may hear others talk about their lives and achievements and begin to feel inferior because your own life seems ordinary.

Habitual self-diminishment slowly teaches you to deny your own value.

It wears down your confidence and makes you increasingly hesitant and apologetic.

Recently, I have often seen a sentence that says:

“Never feel inferior in any room. If you were able to enter it, you have already earned your place there.”

You can admire other people and learn from those who are more experienced than you.

But you do not need to place yourself beneath them.

The fact that you received the invitation, the opportunity or the seat at the table means you have every right to be there.

So, girls, stop romanticising the helpless-girl narrative.

You can be gentle and sensitive without giving up the courage to pursue the life you want.

You can be a patient listener and still express yourself firmly.

You can desire love and intimacy while continuing to build a centre of gravity that belongs entirely to you.

Because the person ultimately responsible for your life will always be you.