Catskin
an English tale
So she grew up a bonny girl, though her father never set eyes on her till she was fifteen years old and was ready to be married. But her father said, ‘Let her marry the first that comes for her.’ And when this was known, who should be first but a nasty rough old man. So she didn’t know what to do, and went to the hen-wife and asked her advice. The hen-wife said, ‘Say you will not take him unless they give you a coat of silver cloth.’ Well, they gave her a coat of silver cloth, but she wouldn’t take him for all that, but went again to the hen-wife, who said, ‘Say you will not take him unless they give you a coat of beaten gold.’ Well, they gave her a coat of beaten gold, but still she would not take him, but went to the hen-wife, who said, ‘Say you will not take him unless they give you a coat made of the feathers of all the birds of the air.’ So they sent a man with a great heap of pease; and the man cried to all the birds of the air, ‘Each bird take a pea, and put down a feather.’ So each bird took a pea and put down one of its feathers: and they took all the feathers and made a coat of them and gave it to her; but still she would not, but asked the henwife once again, who said, ‘Say they must first make you a coat of catskin.’ So they made her a coat of catskin; and she put it on, and tied up her other coats, and ran away into the woods.
In this English tale, categorized to be of similar structure as Cinderella, our heroine is married off to an old bachelor. They attempt to trade her for larger and larger dowries until she seizes agency and runs off into the woods. When she finds a castle that takes her in as a scullion, they cruelly call her “Catskin” for what she wears. She manages to slip into the ball and wins the heart of the prince. Cleverly, I think these stories play on the reality of the time for many women, which is that catching the male gaze and standing out to members of elevated classes were the only possibility of upwards mobility. In the film Deux Ex Machina (dir. Alex Garland, 2014), the female android who is being tested in the lab actively seduces the human man who is evaluating her to take over the systems of the high-technology house and escape into the wild. The concept of exploiting the helpless lover in order to attain one’s desires, especially when it comes to female characters. It weaponizes the failure of the Bechdel Test. In Game of Thrones, Daenerys Targaryen also takes on a string of male lovers, only to subsume their authority and become the ruler they could not be.
The question to ask, though, is if the woman is ultimately happy in what she wanted in the first place. When the android woman in Deux Ex Machina enters the wild and stands in the intersection of a crowded city street, people in multicolored suits and clothes blurring past her and electric lights raining down upon her, a shadow of doubt crosses her face as she examines her own limbs. Similarly, a woman who is suddenly thrust into the lap of luxury after having to fight for her life might experience a similar shock. In a position of power, Daenerys’s loved ones are thrown into danger, and it is her very femininity that causes the other rules to consistently doubt her potential, which leads to rifts and failures. Her vulnerability drives her to unquenchable madness and grief.