For centuries the fable of the knight in shining armour sweeping in and saving the princess has been passed down. Although that narrative is a wistful childhood memory for many, it has become tired as the witches and dragons have been replaced by today’s scarier problems. Both “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Stetson and Lila Abu-Lughod on “Attitudes Toward Muslim Women” in the West address problems that face women today. The call to support and help women can be misconstrued and cause even more problems, as these two writings demonstrate. Unfortunately for the knight, his work has become irrelevant to today’s problems and it is time to retire his bad habits and old ways.

   In a similar style to Rapunzel, the main character in “The Yellow Wallpaper” seems stuck in her room upstairs. She struggles with mental illness and abuse, which she documents in a journal. But unlike Rapunzel, the “prince” who is claiming to try to save her is the one who is keeping her there. He exhibits many abusive tendencies including isolating her from family and friends, controlling her everyday activities, and telling her that her personal comfort is not as important as his opinion. By isolating her, he only makes her illness worse until she feels trapped in her own wallpaper. Domestic abuse is a huge problem in today’s society, one that is often overlooked by those who do not understand it. If the woman in this story had had someone to listen to and help her, then she may have been able to escape her husband and the pressures that were adding to her illness. She even writes down, “The fact is that I am getting a little afraid of John.” In this story, the knight only made everything worse, proving that society needs to take steps to helping women properly free themselves from these situations.

   Another example of “saving” gone wrong is addressed by Lila Abu-Loghod. She points out a great irony that Western feminists feel the need to save Muslim women. She eloquently poses the question, “What do they need to be saved from and why do these feminists feel qualified to save them?” The superiority felt by some Westerners is out of place and the context is often absurd. For example, when looking at the veiling, many women fail to see that to veil is a choice and needs to be respected. She states, “I like the phrase (portable seclusion) because it makes me see burqas as symbolic ‘mobile homes’ that free women to move about in public and among strange men…” and rather than trying to “save” women from this, try to understand it from a different point of view. This article also urges people to listen to the actual needs of Muslim women rather than making assumptions about their lives.

   In daily life, there is no magical fix for everything and one person cannot fix such monumental problems. These pieces understand that and urge readers to look at problems such as mental illness, abuse, oppression, feminism, and world relations with new perspectives. Lila Abu-Lughod writes, “What I think we need to do is to work hard to respect and recognize differences- as products of different histories, as expressions of different circumstances…” which perfectly synthesizes the themes of the two texts and urges readers to open their minds. Each person is different and has their own unique struggles, which needs to be more generally understood by people and leaders today. These two writers proved that the pen is far mightier than the sword, which is too bad for the knight as he finally fades of importance to the strong, bold, and troubled women of today.