Bound to Fit in.
Glass slippers. Many girls have them but not every woman will allow herself to wear them. Fairy godmothers have fashioned them for us out of nothing. They serve as accessories to dreams of satin gowns, golden carriages and royal balls. They are transparent and extremely fragile. One must walk most carefully in them. They readily slip off when a woman moves too rapidly or when she travels in unfamiliar places.
Men seem to be attracted to women who fit into and wear glass slippers willingly. Girls who dream of princes and hope to escape their destined limited life of drudgery are especially willing to wear them.
Cinderella shows us that, at the end of the day (midnight), such dreams fall apart…leaving her back in her own mundane world waiting to be found by a prince. Cinderella had been keeping the matching slipper and had been open to wearing glass slippers. But royal balls come to an end and without the fancy gown and cosmetics, Prince Charming doesn’t even recognize the natural beauty of the belle who fled from the ball. He is searching for a woman who can fit into the glass shoe perfectly. Whoever fits in the glass slipper is the woman who fits his expectations and dreams.
The awakened Cinderella watches her step sisters resort to self mutilation to make the shoe fit. But she will have none to it. Fairy tales written by men and even revised by Disney will not be her creed to live by. Today’s Cinderella has dreams of her own. The glass slipper is the promise of the prince and a fairy tale life. She must shatter the slipper she holds dear in order to choose her own walk in life. By rejecting glass slippers, she can take bold steady steps toward freedom. There will be many glass surfaces to shatter on the way; but freed from glass slippers, she can run in any direction and enter any arena. And yes, even political ones!
Painted Ponderings 