We Don't Need Men. So Why Are We Still Waiting for One to Save Us?

Andzhela Angelova

6 hours ago

4 min read

On the modern knight, the fantasy of being rescued, and what happens when a woman finally becomes her own.

Like many modern women, I grew up with stories of knights on white horses. The hero who would arrive at exactly the right moment to save me. My knight in shining armour, my salvation. And like many women, I had unintentionally, subconsciously outsourced something far more important than I realised: my autonomy, my sovereignty, to a fantasy.

Knight. How beautiful it sounds, noble even. How can you not fall for that fantasy? It sounds so good and comforting to be taken care of, to be protected. To have someone who will stand between you and the world, someone who will shield you from everything that might hurt you in a world that is not always favourable towards women. So we begin searching for our knight very early.

We learn to recognise the signs: confidence, strength and certainty. The promise that he will protect us, the words that sound reassuring. The gestures that make us believe that, finally, someone has arrived who will make us feel safe. And sometimes he even looks the part. He carries his armour, makes his declarations, mimics devotion and good intentions. He can even act the part, occasionally, when it suits him.

Until, eventually, life begins to reveal something the fairytales never prepared us for. The armour can be worn by anyone, the words can be spoken by anyone, the performance can be learned, and sometimes the person behind the armour is not the person we imagined.

We start to see the truth behind the stories and the carefully curated lie. This realisation rarely happens all at once. It's not the first time a “knight” fails to fulfil his duty or the role we imagined for him. But repeatedly, slowly but surely, the fantasy starts to shatter.

You begin to notice the moments when protection becomes control. When confidence becomes entitlement. When loyalty depends on convenience and when the promise of safety comes with a price. And eventually, after enough life experience and enough encounters with men who looked like knights from a distance, you begin to understand how rare it actually is.

This is where the fantasy begins to become uncomfortable. Because if we strip away the armour, what remains is character, and character cannot be performed forever. Eventually, the mask slips. And when it does, we are left with a choice. We can close our eyes and continue believing in the fantasy, because sometimes the truth is too painful to look at, or we can let the fantasy die.

Perhaps this is why the fantasy survives so stubbornly: because we confuse the costume with the character. The image of the knight has evolved and been romanticised far beyond the historical figure. Historically, a knight was a heavily armoured warrior who served a monarch. But knights also terrorised people, seized land and settled disputes through raw, unchecked violence. They had the power and resources to do so, so protection was selective, it appears. Honesty was a choice, not a principle, and loyalty looked different depending on who gave the order.

Only later did knighthood evolve into a social rank associated with the lower nobility and an honorary title. And now the modern image of the “knight in shining armour” has taken on a new interpretation. He represents something almost impossibly attractive: courage, honour, protection, loyalty, integrity and devotion to everyone, regardless of social status.

But perhaps this is what makes the fantasy so difficult to let go of. We are not only searching for a man; we are searching for everything the image promises us. We are waiting for someone to embody an ideal we have never stopped to question.

There comes a moment when you realise that perhaps the greatest danger was never that you would fail to find your knight. It was that you had spent so long waiting for one that you had forgotten you were capable of becoming your own.

But when you stop waiting for the knight, you also have to say goodbye to the girl who believed someone else would eventually come and rescue her. And there is freedom in that too: the freedom of no longer confusing potential with character, of no longer mistaking attention for devotion, possessiveness for protection or promises for integrity.

Sovereignty is the part of the fairytale we were never taught. We were taught that the story ends when the knight arrives; we were rarely taught what happens afterwards. And personal sovereignty is not about stopping ourselves from wanting love, protection or companionship, but about no longer waiting for another person to give us permission to feel safe in our own lives.

And perhaps the most beautiful part: you do not have to stop believing in love. You simply stop believing that love requires the surrender of your sovereignty.

Maybe the knight was never meant to be the person who saves you from the world. Rather he was meant to be the person who walks beside you.