Cinderella Ate My Grandniece:
A Post-Christmas Story of Synchronicity
Santa brought my smart four-year-old grandniece a Rapunzel’s Tower for Christmas. She served me coffee in the tiny cups, breakfast on the tiny plates, and had me assist her as she painted the wallpaper with a magic brush and water, which revealed birds and other images amidst the tree branches. (We had a lot of fun.)
This gift is the latest in a series of toys and dolls she’s received that celebrate the world of princess fairy tales. For lack of a better term, she’s kinda princess-crazy. I found out that her cousins had even dressed her up as a princess on Christmas Eve. Goodness!
This morning, the princess craze came up during a meeting I had with fellow librarians and the fine folks at Sonic, America’s Drive-In. Adrienne and I from the Oklahoma Department of Libraries, Emily from the Metropolitan Library System, and Nancy and Becky with Sonic were discussing plans for the 2012 Statewide Summer Reading Program. (Sonic has been a corporate partner for the program since way back in 1998. They’re the best!) When Nancy mentioned that Sonic provides toys with an educational component in their Wacky Pack children’s meals, as opposed to the Ariels and Sleeping Beauties found in other restaurant kid meals, I said that was great, and I admitted that I was having a problem with the whole princess thing. Just what kind of message are we sending to our young girls, anyway?
Becky noted the recent marketing strategy of making more toys and products in pink—including fishing tackle boxes and camouflage clothing!—to attract girls and women. She also mentioned a YouTube video of a young girl commenting on gender marketing. (See below.)
Once our meeting was over, I headed down to my car, started the engine, and turned on the radio, which was tuned to KGOU, an NPR station. Right then, on the Dianne Rehm Show, a woman was talking about pink toys! (Really, you can’t make this kind of stuff up.) Turns out the guest was Peggy Orenstein, who has much to say about gender marketing and its possible impact on girls in her book Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture. From the book description:
Pink and pretty or predatory and hardened, sexualized girlhood influences our daughters from infancy onward, telling them that how a girl looks matters more than who she is. Somewhere between the exhilarating rise of Girl Power in the 1990s and today, the pursuit of physical perfection has been recast as a source—the source—of female empowerment. And commercialization has spread the message faster and farther, reaching girls at ever-younger ages.”
You know when there are reality shows featuring toddlers in tiaras that there’s a problem. Still, like Orenstein, I tend to believe that girls will be girls, and boys will be boys. Why fight nature? But that doesn’t mean we need to harden the gender differences within our culture. More than anything, I think I share a belief with the author that children should be children. The author investigates her concerns like a master sleuth. More from the book description:
She visited Disneyland and the international toy fair, trolled American Girl Place and Pottery Barn Kids, and met beauty pageant parents with preschoolers tricked out like Vegas showgirls. She dissected the science, created an online avatar, and parsed the original fairy tales. The stakes turn out to be higher than she—or we—ever imagined: nothing less than the health, development, and futures of our girls.”
This is definitely a book I want to check out.
In another part of the forest, my smart eight-year-old grandnephew received a BB gun for Christmas. But that’s another story…
I adore my little niece and nephew. They are sweet, kind, intelligent children and they have loving parents who offer them unconditional love and who do a good job of teaching them right from wrong. It’s just that their “Great and Powerful Uncle Bill” (that’s how I sign my name in their gift books and greeting cards) tends to worry.
And before I leave you, here’s that YouTube video of young Riley ranting about pink toys.
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Comments
I think it’s all a tempest in a tiny teacup. My toybox featured cowboys and lassos (my mom went to a fortune teller who said I was going to be a boy). I adored Barbi but I had lots of cars, trucks and airplanes in my sandbox. Barbi didn’t keep me from growing up a feminist, nor did wearing pink outfits.
It’s only a color.
Dear Great & Powerful Uncle Bill:
Riley is absolutely adorable. Having been a baby boomer “tomboy”(no big surprise there, hmmm?), I agree with Riley right down the line on every point she so eloquently made.
Thanks for the comments, ladies!
Becky, I know I wouldn’t take a pink gun seriously. (Just imagine Pawnee Bill with a pink gun!)
Kitty, I hope you’re right and it really is all just a tempest in a teapot. I think the lesson is to have boys and girls exposed to each others’ style of play. That’s much easier for girls to do in our culture.
And no, vehoae, I’m not surprised you were a tomboy! LOL Riley is certainly adorable and articulate. There were some comments on the YouTube video that questioned whether or not this was really her opinion or if she had been coached. Another comment said if it was not her opinion, she still deserves an award for her performance. I agree.
So I asked my Facebook Friends if I should be worried about this princess craze. As usual, they came through for me:
Facebook friend Leslie said: “Great blog topic. I gave my three year old granddaughter, among other things, a (toy) gun for Christmas so she could play with the boys. Which she did…while carrying her princess doll.”
That’s such a hoot! Bang! Bang! Oh, now I have to fix my hair…
Friend Recilla said: “My granddaughter does like pink, but so does her 10 yr. old sports loving, hunting, fishing brother. And she is cheerleading with their church basketball league but so is her 8 yr old brother who also plays basketball. Of course, she let the loudest belch out lunch today and often is the aggressive child in her kindergarten class. We are attempting to mix those stereotypes. The princess thing is really a big issue with their Aunt Talaura, my oldest daughter. So I think we need to read this book also.”
Recilla’s granddaughter sounds like my grandniece–alpha girls!
From friend Cokie: “I was totally princess-obsessed when I was little–so yes, you should be worried! Look how I turned out.”
Hee hee! (Cokie’s comment made me feel much better.)
Friend Annette said there could be “lots worse things she could want to be.”
Well, that’s true for sure.
Thanks, Facebook Friends!
Facebook Friend Mary says: “YB, do not worry about her. Tiff wanted everything pink and she is a strong adult able to do whatever and can compete with the best. Sus can climb roofs and move through the insurnace world just fine with confidence. Your grandniece will cherish memories of your love years from now as she climbs and breaks all sorts of ceilings. My hope is she won’t have to struggle as those of us before her.”
Gosh, I’m feeling better and better.
You know Bill, I went over to a local outdoor and hunting establishment recently to purchase a small pellet gun so I could tell Mr. Skunk in my backyard to PLEASE GO AWAY. When I found the small pellet guns I was amazed to see pink guns in the area. I wondered if Mr. Skunk saw me come at him with a pink pellet gun complete with pink pellets would think I was serious about him leaving. I opted to go with a nice small black pellet gun and I purchased some orange pellets. I knew Mr. Skunk would know I meant business because I had an OSU looking gun and that would certainly scare him off without even having to fire a shot. Fortunately, I found out how Mr. Skunk was getting into my yard and was able to secure the small four inch square hole in my fence and Mr. Skunk has not been seen since. I never had to fire that small pellet gun but I hope if I ever did have to pull it out it would scare off anything or anyone. I’m not sure a pink camo device would have done the trick. Interesting marketing ploys indeed.