Down with the Bloody Big Head!

I have met many red queens in my short span of life. Perhaps this is because, deep down, all women have the three sides to them: Alice, the Red Queen, and the White Queen. While in the book the red queen and the white queen are chess pieces and do not have such a relationship as the two in the new Tim Burton movie, I think I prefer to think of red queens as the one that Helena Bonham Carter plays in the 2010 version. She is much more vicious due to every despising her outward appearance, is not to be trifled with because she'll take your head, and ultimately is just a very intimidating, and very "quenn-ie" woman (to not use that dreaded word we are so often called).

Women are much more vicious than men, I believe, and Ms. Carter represents that with her character. We have this side of us that wishes to be the center of attention, and in many circumstances it always seems to take over. While I am not saying that men do not have this side, I do think they can downplay it much more than women; and if they do not, then they're just cocky. Us women, on the other hand, are catty, mean, bitter, and ultimately I'd say we are all red queens at one time or another.



Why do I bring this up? It is my understanding that women tend to have walls up and bring them down and let their true colors show in certain circumstances. This could be when someone's going after her guy, this could be when someone insults her, this could be when someone becomes a close friend, or really it could just be whenever she chooses. Women are impossible to read.

I had an experience with a red queen on Tuesday. She decided that she knew everything about the story I had written, and wished to tell me precisely where my details were wrong, and how it all just read as a college student trying to be an adult. I wanted to fight back and demand her age and how she thinks she's more of an adult than I am, but I kept my comments to myself and just smiled at her. I answered her questioned with congeniality, and promised inwardly that I would give her short story as much unfair treatment as she was giving mine.



Later the same day, I saw a girl in one of my other classes casually flick her friend off for making a joke at her expense. This seemed so peculiar to me. It is a part of my generation, however unfortunate, to use language and gestures that used to be crude and offense (reserved for "enemies" of some kind) that now, somehow, represent that you are very close. I don't understand this at all, and it only made me assume that the young woman who I am referring to, was truly deep down a red queen.

I have no right to make assumptions. For all I know these two women lead very normal lives and are Alices or White Queens 99% of the time. The point is, I didn't witness that. I witnessed the Red Queen side of them. Therefore, that is what I coin them as.

When I realized that I was sticking women in categories, I looked to myself. In class my teacher said an old proverb of some kind that says, "You can see the speck of sawdust in someone else's eye, but cannot see the plank in your own," or something to that extent. It made me want to look at what I put off everyday and hope that it wasn't a Red Queen persona. I came to a standstill, however, since I cannot possibly read what other people are receiving from my end. I try to be a White Queen, or at least the childish side of Alice (meaning I'm curious and yet sometimes quiet in strange situations), but I'm not sure if that's how I come off.

This may sound like a bunch of ramblings, but I assure you I'm making complete sense.

Women are complicated. As much as we wish to make men out to be the complicated ones, the truth of the matter is we're much more complicated. Why? Because we don't know what we want. It seems when a Queen side of us comes out, it's typically us making a decision of something we want-- whether it be positive or negative. Being a Red Queen all the time could just mean the woman knows what she wants, and she thinks she has to have an attitude, and a bad one at that, to get it. Being a White Queen all the time could mean that a woman is making others work for her desires, or that she's being humble enough to receive everything, or that she's going about getting what she wants in an amiable matter. But being Alice? I think being Alice means that you're curious, you let others lead you in certain directions, until you finally figure out precisely who you want to be-- and then you make a grand decision.

So who are you?