The Femme and Homme Fatale are dangers to themselves.

I have been mulling on the idea of the Femme Fatale and the Homme Fatale for a few days now, because something about their mystique does not seem quite right. I think Angela was right in saying, on the first day of our class discussion on this topic, that the Femme Fatale has no real power. What power she has comes from the attention men give her.

More and more I am finding descriptions of one that I think could also be applied to the other. In Professor Douthwaite's translation of "Who are the New Femmes fatales?" the author describes "Tinkerbell women" as having strong and weak self-esteem simultaneously and being emotionally immature. I am fairly certain that I have used almost the exact same words to describe some of my male counterparts in college (some, not all). It is interesting to me then, that these women, the modern femmes fatales, are equivalent in some ways to young men, certainly still maturing, most of whom I would not describe as hommes fatales. Indeed because I saw similar behavior, covering up a low self-esteem with the appearance of a high self-esteem in one of my close male friends this past summer. I pointed it out to him, concerned that he would also fall into a more permanent pattern of that behavior in college.

But, I found in the final paragraph of the interview one of the most universally applicable solutions to finding personal fulfillment: self-love. She describes how these Tinkerbell women "can learn to love again, when they realize they are worth of it. But it can take a long time. The thing is, when a woman realized that she does not have to compare herself to others, or to an idealized and unattainable self-image, then she can finally relax. She can finally learn to trust her own ideas and to respect herself." Isn't the same thing true for all of us? Even without promiscuous or dominating behavior, surely we will all find more self-confidence and integrity when we learn self-love. Surely young men, who are generally discouraged by our society from expressing emotion need to find a genuine self-love in order to function in the face of that ridiculous expectation. Surely the femme fatale will be cured when she learns to rely on herself before others that she cannot fully trust. But really, who wouldn't be happier and healthier if they did not constantly compare themselves to others in their lives and in magazines? Who wouldn't find more fulfillment when they feel worthy of love and therefore can begin to pursue it genuinely?