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Cinderella Ate My Daughter
March 10, 2011
We walk up the beach under the stars. And when we are tired of walking, we lie flat on the sand under a bowl of stars.... They pour into us until we are filled with stars, up to the brim.
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh
"I think it's a funny time, because on one hand there's all this good news about girls in education, girls in sports, they're doing great in college and all that, but at the same time the pressure hasn't abated at all on them. And I would (and do) argue that the pressure has grown much more intense to define themselves and gain all their self-worth from the way that they look, and the way that they look is supposed to be, increasingly and increasingly younger, sexy. And femininity becomes defined for them by sexiness (you know, at the age of four), narcissism, and consumerism — all three of which are problematic for me...
"My biggest surprise as a parent, or one of them, was how much of my job is about protecting my child's childhood. And when I think about what that means, in addition to her not wearing makeup when she's three years old, it's about imagination and making sure that her imagination isn't colonized by these prescribed scripts. I'm personally concerned with the script for girls. And for boys, too, but that's not what I write about. I don't mind that Daisy plays a little bit of princess now and again, or did when she was littler; that's fine. But if she's walking around doing the Cinderella story, and not even the Cinderella story, but the version which is all about getting the most stuff, then that's a problem."
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Comments (7)
Displaying 5 of 7 Comments [ View all ]Houston, TX, United States
Our little girls have a lot less trouble moving all the way from, "More frills, Mom! I'm a princess," to "Me Jane. Me swing from tree, too," than we ever did.
They have a broader spectrum that is theirs than we had, and that is a good thing.
Yorktown, VA, United States
To E. Ferguson, Yes, the beauty of innocence is that children, little girls and boys, don’t think about what is sexy or sexist. The sad thing about innocence is that children will accept anything we tell them as if it is an undeniable reality, a concrete definition of the world they’re trying to understand, without any awareness that it may be our personal values, emotional needs, or sadly, manipulations. It is so wonderfully playful, imaginative, and gives a sense of empowerment for young children, even latent boys and girls, to not only “let’s pretend” to be story characters, but also to dress up as mom or dad. When the lipstick hits the scene, it’s more typically to be an imitation of mom. If mom, or dad or any other significant family, reinforces sexualization of that, then that is a parenting issue. But most definitely when we as a society promote marketing outfits and make-up products and television shows of young children in modeling contests looking and acting like sexy adults, we are allowing a perversion of childhood’s natural course. Couldn’t we give modeling awards and sell products for children to look good by representing their appropriate developmental stages? Surely, Wall Street could find profit in that. Surely, parents could find pride I that; not only of their nice looking children, but as parents who protect their children’s innocence.
To Betty Caldwell, I wish I knew what we could do to get back to sensible marketing. To Peggy, U.S – FYI- Scorpion was Joe’s arch enemy; that doll, too, was part of the set. I know, this kind of play is partly why men wage war. We have so much work to do in this world!
Little Rock, AR, United States
I am delighted to see the comments of Peggy Orenstein. For some time I have lamented the early sexualization of girls. Remember the sad unsolved murder of a little 5-year-old girl in Colorado a few years ago? Her story was a top item on television news for a good two weeks. Why? Not because a little child had been murdered but because "a little beauty queen" had. The TV cameras always chose pictures of her, not in a little girl's play or dress clothes, but in high heels, a skimpy costume and lipstick, and always used the "little beauty queen" soubriquet when referring to her. Never once did I hear a TV commentator refer to her as anything other than "a little beauty queen."
Currently all the furniture stores in Little Rock seem to be having a sale, and two of them feature virtually identical ads. A young girl (about 10-12) tells how wonderful the furniture is and how low the prices are while standing, hand on hip, in that artificial twist that now seems de rigueur for models--intentionally very provocative and suggestive of sexuality.
It is difficult to know what we can do to combat this trend. Calls and letters to television stations and adverising agencies might help if enough of us wrote and called. I look forward to reading Orenstein's book to get her ideas.
Bettye Caldwell
United States
I remember 24 years ago when my 3-year-old son chanced to share his cousin's hand-me-down GI Joe-type dolls with some older boys on a playground. After their tutelage, the individual dolls which once could assume the character of a fire-fighting smoke-jumper, pirate, GI Joe, or wilderness explorer, now could only be "Scorpian" or whatever name they had been marketed under, and only play that specific role with specific talents. This second-hand marketing flavored my son's play.
north forth early learning center
United States
My feminist mother is probably spinning in her grave to know that we are moving backward and not forward for the proper place of women in this society. The practice of being "beautiful and submissive" used to be the way you got a husband. Now there is a push downward on our daughters in the name of the marketing and the Almighty Dollar. Wake up everyone we are doing our girls a great disservice when we address them as "pretty girl" or comment on their every piece of flowered and glittering clothing. They are worth a whole lot more than the money their parents can spend on their coture.
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