The Princess Debate

"Marketers can claim 'princess' has the capacity to empower girls all they want; but at the end of the day, in the marketplace, princess culture always reduces girls’ interests to being pretty and finding romance," observed Rebecca Hain in her article "Anti-princess branding beyond the bandwagon" in Christian Science Monitor.

"As a result, the ubiquity of princesses actually limits young girls’ imaginations.  They aren’t seeing many other versions of girlhood promoted to them.  Although Melissa Wardy of Pigtail Pals Ballcap Buddies is always reminding people that there are many ways to be a girl, pop culture is showing girls too many minor variations on the princess theme and calling these similar items 'choices' — selling girls short in the process.

"The upshot is that today’s girls are like the sailors in Coleridge’s famous, poem 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.'  They’re adrift in a sea of princesses, and their imaginations are parched.  Being sold princesses everywhere they go — from toy stores to grocery stores to hardware stores — makes our girls’ worlds shrink."

In her article, Hain goes on to discuss the "princess pushback" and how some of the anti-princess branding has limitations of its own.

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