Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. – 1 Corinthians 13:1
The moon is a woman. Metaphorically speaking, she represents eternal cycles, fertility, and the phases of our human condition on Earth. The moon sign in astrology symbolizes the soul, corresponding to an individual’s versatility, sensitivity and reflective capacity. Maybe because of her mysterious constancy, people have a tendency to explore or personify the moon.
The universe of Avatar: The Last Airbender conceives of the moon as Princess Yue: A young woman who sacrifices herself to become the moon and save her culture from eternal imbalance. As a Water Tribe princess, when her city is attacked by the fire nation, who seek world domination and drown the spirit of the moon, Princess Yue understands that it is her duty to place her people before herself. She pays the ultimate price, sacrificing her life to become the new moon spirit. Though this means her death on Earth, she is encouraged and praised by her friends and family for it. Her death is admirably selfless.
The self sacrificing woman is a narrative trope embodied by supporting characters, like Princess Yue, who the society views as expendable and fit to be sacrificed. The self sacrificing woman is designed to place the wellbeing and desires of others before her own, due to her innate maternal instincts. Psychologically, the self sacrificing schema is socialized by a fear developed through childhood of disappointing others.
In Avatar, the Water Tribe is conceived as an expansive global culture, but self sacrificing women in the real world often operate on a smaller scale, one of family or community. Like many immigrant families, mine exists as a result of generations of self sacrificing women.
My Colombian grandmother told me that a mother’s love for her child is the only truly selfless love in this world. She was raised to consider the dedication that this love requires not as a sacrifice, but as the source of real satisfaction and fulfillment for a mother. Her words expressed the most fundamental reason for migration, “A mother wants for her child to always have more opportunities and education than she had.” My grandmother calls this mentality self-abnegation, not sacrifice, perhaps alluding to the moral virtue ascribed by society to motherhood. Her mindset represents a societal tendency to relegate women to the obligations of the household.
As a young woman and daughter of immigrants, self sacrifice as a moral virtue is at odds with my fulfillment as a person. If society qualifies successful people by traditionally male and self-centered achievements (i.e. career promotions and wealth), how can I be both a successful woman and a successful person? Succeeding at being a woman involves successful motherhood, homekeeping, and absence from public life. So long as we are asked to erase ourselves from mainstream society we cannot compete in it. Until we deconstruct our expectations of womanhood, women will always be struggling between prioritizing themselves or their families or—like Princess Yue—themselves or their culture.
(Image: Princess Yue, Avatar: The Last Airbender)
