Princess Leia’s Feminist Agenda: Yeah, She Had One

Princess Leia’s Feminist Agenda: Yeah, She Had One


Reprinted with permission from The Broad Side



In 1977, the year Princess Leia hit the big screen in the original Star Wars movie, the National Women’s Conference was held in Houston with a galactic agenda that included the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), reproductive rights, the nuclear family, child-care funding, sexual orientation and the rights of disabled, minority and aging women. Many female luminaries attended, including then-First Lady Rosalynn Carter and former First Ladies Betty Ford and Lady Bird Johnson, activists Coretta Scott King, Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan, Barbara Jordan and Maya Angelou.

While these women discussed issues that still linger at today’s political front lines, little girls were fighting on the playground to be the best Princess Leia they could be. For Generation X women like me, Leia was one of the first feminists we knew in the movies. She was smart. She went toe-to-toe with Han Solo. She didn’t stand by helplessly waiting for anyone to save her. In fact, if that had been her in the Mos Eisley cantina instead of Han, she definitely would have shot before Greedo said more than five words.

With The Force Awakens-mania hitting fever pitch this week and Carrie Fisher returning as Leia, who now commands the military rank of general, here are some of Leia’s most kickass feminist moves in the original trilogy:
— Within minutes of the opening scenes of Star Wars, Princess Leia meets Darth Vader’s stormtroopers before Han or Luke. The stormtroopers attack her ship, Tantive IV, and an unidentified stormtrooper spots Leia who has hidden herself in an alcove. He aims at Leia, but she draws her blaster and shoots him dead. We know immediately she is a feisty force. Score one for the princess who doesn’t give up without a fight.

— Alas, Leia is captured by Darth Vader and taken to the Death Star. Enter Han and Luke, who rescue Leia from Cell 2187. I would argue that she would have eventually figured out a way out of there, but who doesn’t love a damsel in distress on the big screen? “You’re a little short for a Stormtrooper, aren’t you?” she sasses Luke as he rescues her from that cell. Not exactly a thank you, is it? Trouble quickly ensues, and the trio finds themselves in dire straits with stormtroopers. But it’s Leia who devises the escape plan by blasting a hole into a vent that leads to a garbage chute. Go Leia!

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http://msmagazine.com/blog/2015/12/17/princess-leias-feminist-agenda-yeah-she-had-one/