Snow White died from indigestion. Cinderella let three ugly bitches boss her around when she could have easily chucked up a deuce, walked out the door to the nearest mansion, and get paid to clean house. Sleeping beauty was overcome by a freaking sewing machine.

I don’t want to wake up thirty years from now and find myself beside a handsome, dashing man and realize that I missed out on the adventure.

Women in epic tales either get to be Eomer or Eowyn (LOTR, anyone?) We can kill the wraith and settle for the second best man, or lie around on a couch for the whole story and marry the hero in the end.

When did landing the protagonist become the prize for doing nothing?

In stories, you either get to be beautiful and have it all, or powerful, and get the consolation package. ‘The Little Mermaid’ would have been a much better story if it involved Ariel using Titan’s trident to lead a revolt against Ursula, commanding troops of porpoises and merpeople to defeat the sea queen, and then turning Prince Eric into a sexy, shirtless merman who swam around with her ruling their underwater kingdom.

But instead she went on a quest to sell her soul to the devil, lose her voice, and physically change who she was to become… a wife.

This is the message we are sending to little girls? Is the only great adventure for women the pursuit of a suitor?

My question to Prince Charming, as we gallop away from danger into the sunset, is, ‘Thanks, but now what?’

Someone should make a ‘Where are they now?’ series about those princesses, all sitting around with their reward for being beautiful and helpless: an empty castle with boorish, pretentious friends and a husband who sweeps in once a month from the foreign wars for a romantic kiss and some unsatisfying sex.

I want to meet my match in the middle. I want to find myself fighting side by side with someone as equally powerful, as daring, and as fabulous as me. I want to swagger up to the bar together after slaying the dragon, look over at him from behind my bourbon and say, ‘That was fun. We should do this again.’

Mulan was the only Disney princess I had any respect for. She fought alongside her man as an equal, saved his life once or twice, and rescued the entire country. She understood that the only partner worth having is one you can take into battle with you.

At the end of the day, I want a man who can look at me and say, ‘I don’t need you to be with me, but I want you here.’ And I want a person to whom I can say the same thing.

Mulan wound up with the hero. She got the respect of a nation and the love of a worthy companion. Her happy ending was a lot more exciting and interesting than those other pretty princesses, and that’s the way I want to finish my story.