It drives me bonkers that there’s such a widespread idea within the fandom regarding Arya “not knowing how to properly appreciate feminine girls and their strengths uwu” when there’s literally no instance in Arya’s pov chapters where she ever shows contempt towards women who perform compulsory feminity (no, that stupid ass show quote of “other girls are idiots” doesn’t freaking counts). Quite the contrary, Arya is painfully aware of how important it is for a woman to be able to fit within that patriarchy approved image of womanhood, problem is, just like in Brienne’s case, she simply can’t. Not only that, but she is actively degraded and berated for her performance not being good enough.
So what happens when she’s constantly made to feel inferior simply for being herself and for struggling with certain aspects of feminity? Well obviously she rejects those aspects, but notice that she only rejects them for herself. She doesn’t think women who can sew are less than her, she actually thinks of herself as inferior to them, as an outcast. What she’s trying to find is something she might be good at and celebrated for it; she’s a 9 year old child wanting to find something for herself, and that is not a crime. That is why she shows affinity to women like princess Nymeria; women who were able to operate outside of the restrictions of a very narrow, patriarchal idea of feminity (restrictions that affect even those women who are able to fit inside those restrictions because not even them are able to fit perfectly, we get to see in the story) without being punished for it like Arya has been all her life.
Funnily enough, none of the women that have made Arya feel inferior simply for being who she is are ever accused of having ~internalized misogyny~ or ~needing to learn to appreciate women different than themselves~, like Sansa, Jeyne, Septa Mordane and Catelyn; not that I think Sansa and Jeyne are misogynistic... they are just little girls, yet Arya is even younger than them and held at wildly different standards for some reason. At the same time, we cannot deny that all these women contributed one way or another in Arya’s low self-esteem, weather it was out of childish disregard (Sansa and Jeyne), careless malice (Septa Mordane), of genuine concern for her future (Catelyn), and that can never be Arya’s fault.
Arya is not some violent misogynist with male privilege. In her very first POV, she boldly tells her brother that the woman is important too, and she lives up to that statement; when she saves a child in the middle of a war-zone while being a child herself, avenging the r*pe of a young girl who she had never even met, and never judging women no matter what their background might be: whether they’re high ladies or low prostitutes, what matters to Arya is what’s in their hearts.
Arya Stark is not a misogynist. Stop treating her like one.
