It troubles me that the powers that be are pushing this "princess" idea on little girls, without any analysis of what a princess actually is or means or does. My eight-year-old daughter told me that she loves princesses and "princess stuff". I asked her whether she thought it was a good plan that some people had more power and prestige than other people merely because of the family they were born in. She thought about this for a while and hasn't talked about princess stuff since.

Sorry, but I don't see how child beauty pageants are comparable to little girls who just like to dress up as fairy princesses (as I did, when I wasn't playing outside in the mud or with my chemistry set), perhaps in imitation of their favorite fairy tales. The fantasy genre and the Ren Faire subculture, which I think most of us would agree are generally positive things for women, are full of costumes like this.

I just have to say: the little girls who are all holding up handfuls of high-denomination bills in the first link is somehow quite hilarious to me, apart from the soul-crushing idiocy of their parents. I think a tiara-wearing 5-year-old with fanned-out Benjamins should be our national symbol.

I'm not saying the princess thing is great, but the two don't really compare because, IMHO, the "competition" is the worst part. Plus, the girls in the second link at least still look like *girls*, whereas the ones in the first link look like young teenagers.

If my daughter really wanted to do the princess makeover, I would probably let her. I don't think it's something that should be pushed on girls, but it doesn't seem intrinsically harmful. However, I would never let her be in the beauty contest.

The row of smiles on the first link are really disconcerting. They look like they've been cut out of adult beauty magazines and pasted on collage-style. Weirdy weird.

The beauty pagent thing just makes me postal. The Disney princess thing somewhat less. There is an oversaturated push at girls with things that are just a bit too much fluff and a glaring lack of anything else out there. TV, toys, games there is so little that is not fluff. It all seems to be extremes.

What I find sad is that my daughter who is 8, is totally obsessed with math and science. She excels at both and those are the only subjects she wants to talk about from school. Yet when she leaves school everything on TV and most of the toys available (in stores) push the pink fluffy girly sterotype.

...and erm, "Daisy Does America". Wholesome. Is that the paedo-sequel to "Debbie Does Dallas"?

I agree with a couple of the posters above. I see the 2nd pic more as dress up which typically occurs very ocassionally, usually only done in front of family or close friends(see Halloween) and is based upon fantasy stories.

The whole pageant thing for little girls I find incredibly offensive and twisted. It's too hard core in how the little girls are made to look and act like adults. The last thing I want to see is a little girl parading around in a bikini in heels on a stage with a crowd full of adults watching. Now...if she wants to be a pageant queen when she's older (16+), she's old enough then to decide and, in most cases, looks enough like an adult to not be completely creepy when she plays dress up. Not my cup of tea but some gals apparently aspire to that stuff and I won't deny them that when they're older.

Ever seen Little Miss Sunshine? Wonderful little movie about pageant scene.

Wow, small world. I helped a little bit on the site for the woman who runs the first link several months ago while working for a (ultimately very shady) computer support company. I had to hold my tongue the entire time I was working with her, nice though she was. More on-topic: the Disney thing seems a lot more innocent than a beauty pageant. Like someone above said, it's not about competition, just fairytale fantasy. Still... there's a parallel that is indicative of something less than wholesome.

I clicked around on the first link, and it's just a big money-making scheme. You can win a "state title" from them by sending a picture and your address -- along with $195 registration -- and you get sent back a certificate and silly crown. You then can qualify to enter their big pagaent...

This grosses me out.

Eh.

I considered myself a feminist since the age of 3. As a child, I used to get into debates with my uncle over the abilities of women vs. men, some of which I won, despite being 8 and him being 20. I expected to be a lawyer, doctor or scientist; I ended up going into IT as a business analyst, a profession I'd never heard of as a child. Since the age of about 16 or so I have only ever worn dresses when pregnant or attending a special function or business meeting. My usual clothing consists of sweatpants and sneakers. I'm dressed up if I bothered to brush my hair. I have a monstrous ego centered around my intellectual and writing skills, and never considered it important to be attractive.

And I would totally have dressed up as a fairy princess when I was 8. Some things are indoctrination into sexist thinking and some things are just relatively harmless. I think this would be a better world if little boys were allowed an outlet for dressing up and looking pretty when they are 8; it's tragic to *me* that any sign of a sense of aesthetics in clothing choice has to be ruthlessly squashed out of young boys, and that my 10-year-old son won't even wear a neon green shirt, because apparently any color that isn't white or a very dark solid is girly. As long as the girls have something in their lives *besides* being fairy princesses, I don't think it's a problem.

The beauty pageant, now, is another story.

The first link is parents exploiting their kids by encouraging them to compete for the validation of adult strangers by wearing so much makeup that they look (as another poster eloquently put it) like their smiles were cut-and-pasted from Playboy. The second link is little girls playing dress-up for fun.

I think the child beauty pageant culture is warped, but little girls will keep dressing up as princesses for at least as long as little boys keep playing with toy guns.

Love the first post in the thread, though... That's a great way to respond to the princess thing. My father, who was not perfect, had a similarly potent comeback when I was 7 or 8 and idolized ninjas. "Yes, Tommy, they were very effective killers." Whoosh. Never really idolized ninjas after that.

Cheers,

TH

While I agree that child beauty pageants have a heinousness that can't be matched, I thought it was interesting that the two are still somewhat comparable.

The Disney princesses (as young as 3) are done up with make-up, nail polish, faux hair and tiaras with a finishing photo session. So are child beauty queens. Do I think that allowing your daughter to get the royal treatment is seriously wrong or traumatizing, opposed to entering her in an actual child beauty contest and allow her to be sexualized like these pageants do? Hell no. But do I think it's of a bit concern to market gender roles and beauty standards to 5-year-olds? Yes.

The Disney salon also makes me think not only of the consumer-driven mania of "everything princess" (after all, the salon packages go up to $175 a pop), but also of the already mentioned question which asks to what degree we should compromise our politics to allow our children what they want. I like Marnanel's approach.

Maybe we've talked about this already in another post but, uh, where's the other half of this coin?

I mean where are the princes? Does disney have a program where little boys can go and get made up to slay dragons (poor dragons) and *save* these princess'? I know it's going along the lines of sexist thinking but really, if these parents are so into their little girls being a princess then would they have their sons be a prince? Little boys watch Disney films too.

Or, better yet, they could have a Pirates of the Carribean type of program where little boys are made up in Jack Sparrow type of garb. Wait, that might not work with the sexual ambiguity of Jack and the whole raping and pillaging history of pirates (not to mention the rampant homosexality).

Crap! And here I thought I was onto something. Never mind. I haven't eaten breakfast yet.

UltraMagnus, I suspect very very strongly that the pretty little princesses would prefer to save themselves. In my experience, little girls will totally buy into beauty myths, and dress up as frilly as they can, but the moment they hit the part of the myth where they're supposed to be helpless and dependent on icky boys, they just ignore it.

It takes actually experiencing sexual desire for men for girls to internalize the notion of wanting to be rescued by guys; the kind of girls who want to be frilly princesses are also the kind of girls who either hate boys or want to play with them as equal (ie, 6-10-year-olds). I mean, boys play with *worms* and tell insulting jokes. What little girl would trust one of those poopyheads to rescue her? She'd better be ready to rescue *him*. But only if he stops taking her Barbies' heads off. At the same time, I don't think young boys *want* to rescue girls. Girls are icky, mostly.

Seriously, I would like to see dress-up available to young boys as well. But the parts of the myths where boys rescue girls would basically be totally ignored by the age group, where neither boys nor girls have much use for the other. "dress like a pirate prince" does sound like an untapped marketing opportunity on Disney's part, though.

I think the difference is that girls are encouraged to play dress-up; boys are encouraged to simply PLAY. They can do it dressed as Jack Sparrow, or Freddie Krueger, or as themselves. The point is that boys DO and girls DRESS.

And that's obviously a huge problem.

Oh, I'll note also -- when my siblings and I were very young children, all three of us (including my brother) used to dress up in my mom's nightgowns. Then we would put on silly plays for my parents, using the nightgowns as costumes.

My brother eventually grew out of this, since dressing up is for girls and he didn't want his boy friends making fun of him. ("Boy friend" here is my term, not his -- since of course there are latent homosexual undertones to "boy friend" and heaven forbid a man do or say anything with latent homosexual undertones, even though we speak of our "girl friends" all the time).

TLF, I didn't mean to suggest that the two were equivalent; just that this whole problem is wrapped up in rote gender roles. Personally, I think the world would be a better place if boys played dress up instead of pretending to gruesomely murder each other all day, but that's just me.

Cheers,

TH

Hello,
Here's my problem with the excess of the Princess thing (having read the NYTimes Magazine article a few weeks ago, 'What's Wrong With Cindarella?')...It's the combination of any all encompassing toy-theme, particularly one that so informs girlhood combined with the rise of the big box store and the loss of choice. As more and more people go to places like Target or Wal-Mart, the specialty stores close down. Obviously, this applies to toys as well and as Princess stuff sells big, the other toys, become less and less available. I've combed the toy aisles at Target (for fun, as I don't have kids) and there aren't a whole lot of creative-type toys- mostly the princessy or Bratz type stuff and then cars and action figures. On a similar note, last time I went to Toys R Us, it was entirely seperated by brands, not types of toys. And the freakin' Barbie section is half the store. If there's a wider variety of toys and options of play and the girl picks the Princess stuff, that's fine. But if that becomes all that's available, she's shoved in a particular direction and the Princess World becomes the ONLY world for a girl.

I could be wrong.

Yeah. My daughter's into the whole 'princess' thing in a big way. Also fairies. Figured there are battles to fight and battles not to fight. So far though, we've managed to avoid instilling in her a hierarchical view of humanity.

BTW: Ultramagus? You really should read some of the more scholarly lit about pirates. They were a very varied lot. Corsairs, buccaneers, privateers, priates; each had their own peculiarities, but their societies largely reflected the values of the 'lower classes' of their day. 'Rampant homosexuality' wasn't among their characteristic traits. In fact, in many versions of the 'Pirate Code' it was severely punished.

It happened of course. But the really 'rampant' thing about pirate lifestyles was drugs and drinking. Oh. And they were not a pleasant lot. The things they did to the folk they robbed pale in comparison to the things they did to one another.

But I digress. And my daughter can croak 'Arrrr!', and 'Yo-ho-ho!' with the best of 'em.

Bowleserised, Daisy Does America was actually a documentary/ comedy by a British comedian called Daisy Donavan. She basically took a trip across North America taking the piss out of herself and people she came across. The way she talked to the people she met is not uncommon in comic documentaries- it's not the first I've seen in Britain. Some people see her as exploiting the people she comes across. I doubt her take on Universal Royalty was entirely straight forward.

IMDB entry here- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0488353/

Thanks nervous_aesthete – my goof. Yes Brits (I'm British) do a lot of those programmes and have done so for ages (neither Ali G nor Borat were the first). Louis Theroux is another.

I remember when I was into princess stuff... *Nostalgic sigh*

Of course, being the little psycho that I was, I made up my own endings, where, say, Sleeping Beauty went to live with Maleficent and they hung out together.

A brief delving into Disney politics; Anybody notice how Belle from Beauty and the Beast is considered a 'Princess?' That upsets me, because in my opinion she was always one of those accidental Disney feminists that crept in. I mean, she wasn't trying to get the prince. She was saving her father...she liked to read, and for most of the movie she just wore something comfy instead of frilly.

I also find it interesting that the same guys who did Beauty and the Beast did The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which was arguably the most adult Disney film, oh, EVER. (Those who've seen it, one word: Hellfire.) Esmerelda was kick-ass too, but now she's a little Princess as well...

Ah, but Disney DOES have something for little pirates. I recently saw this on a DVD my mom ordered from DisneyWorld: Pirate and Princess Party! That's right, you can show up to be EITHER a pirate or a princess. How handy for gender stereotyping!

All that being said, I hate this anti-Princess-turning-our-daughters-into-drones thing. Like the NY Times article - in the end, her daughter was dressed as a princess telling her she still wanted to be a firefighter and yet the author was STILL fretting over it. That smacks of mothers with way too much time for obsessing to me.

On the Pirate/Princess Party- Okay, but check out the picture; there's a girl wearing a dress AND an eye patch with a skull on it. And where would Keira Knightley's character fit in? She's way more pirate than princess, especially in the second movie. A lot like Princess Leia (despite the title)...and Orlando Bloom is a lot like Skywalker and Depp is very Han which is partly why Knightley has way more chemistry with Depp than she does with Bloom...

But I digress.

erin, the chemistry is simply because it's Johnny Depp versus Orlando Bloom. ANY heterosexual woman (or homosexual man -- or, hell, just about anyone, anyway) would have great chemistry with him.

In a chemistry fight between Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom, Johnny will win every damn time. Mmmmmmm Johnny Depp...

God I love that man.

I remember that when I used to watch the Aladdin spin-off tv show in the morning before school (Jasmine was my idol), my favorite episode was when she got to go save him instead.

I bet it was all those times my mother forced me to watch Mulan* instead of some other frilly princess movie finally paying off.

*how come no one's mentioned her yet? I know she's not really a "princess", but she was a kickass Disney Girl.

****Why

(how come. Really.)

I have played Disney characters for the past two years at little girls'/boy's parties.

The idea of "princess" is very strong in little girls' minds, especially the notion of dresses and "girly" colors. I have been to many households where gender identity is being severely dictated by the parents.
An example: I do face-painting and many times, for the little girls, it is made to look like "make-up" although is is wax-like and comes off easily. Most girls have fun with the colors: orange eyeshadow, brown and black lips, etc... (cheeks usually get a design). And there have been occasions where mommy comes over and says "Ew, no Anna, blue is a BOY'S color--choose pink or red for the lips."
I'll usually, kindly, point out that little Anna (all of 3 or 4) looks smashing in any color, but there is only so much I can do.
I do think Disney provides a safer way for girls to explore these whimsical and dreamy scenarios, however (and even though I make good money doing what I do) I think there is a clear message in both Princess and Pageant concepts: strict beauty standards.
The looks are such a priority in these movies/stories. While most push for an "inner" beauty, they accompany phrases like "most beautiful in all the kingdom" and the characters themselves appear to be cartoon versions of what looks like Barbie (which is also a very prevalent icon for children) and thus a standard is set. You cannot market "kindness and giving" to children. But you can sell them lacy pink costumes and jewelry and wands and platic glitter heels. This builds over time to help enforce this standard.

I'll never forget a party I did one time where the mother had ordered I do "real make-up" and not the face painting. I brought in my stuff and as I am explaining to the little girls the colors and such we have for eyes, cheeks, and lips, up comes a hand from the front row-a curly-head brunette, 3 (perhaps 4, a young 4) and she says to me "Sleeping Beauty, pink is not my color." I say "Well that's okay, we can do whatever color for blush."

She says: "Oh, I usually dont do blush."

On Depp: Very true.

On Mulan/Pocahantas (I can't spell): Apparently they're not really included in the Princess line because their outfits aren't princessy enough.

Pretty dresses, crowns, makeup and a wad of cash to flash around... what a message that is :(

On the disney side of things, I dunno. I think it is *almost* a lost cause. Most parents don't dare be gender nuetral towards their children because it would make them 'different'. Why can't they see that thier little girl can do something more than being 'girly'? Because they don't want to. Objectification from a young age and we wonder why girls growing up are so stressed about thier looks.

Personally, I happily built Barbie a 'dream house' out of lincoln logs, tinker toys and legos. ;)

I live in Minnesota so am often at the Mall of America. A store was put in maybe a year ago which I believe takes these two things and puts them together and then sexualizes it even more. I don't remember the name but from what I get from it you bring your daughter there with her friends on perhaps her birthday and the workers dress your daughters up and "pop stars" (tight flashy clothes, belly baring top, hair done, sparkles, excess makeup, and shoes I believe). Basically they come out looking like prostitutes (I hate using the other common term). I know the girls are having fun, but I just look at the parents and what to scream at them asking them if they know what their daughters look like. I don't know if they have places like this in other malls, but this is worse, I think, then the princess dressup, becuase it is sexualizes these girls to such a degree. These are one step lower then pagents in my mind becuase girls don't have to compete.

http://www.mallofamerica.com/adults_tenant_profile_objectname_Club_Libby_Lu_N238.aspx

Heres the link to the store. Its called Club Libby Lu.

By the way, I have never seen a girl dressed as a "princess", just the rock star and I think drama queen, but who knows what thats suppose to look like

Ah, the dark world of child pageants. A moneymaking scam for everybody but the parents. A few years ago I stumbled on a website that sells hairpieces and falls (that's a fake ponytail to you 'n' me) for pageant kidz, which linked to pageant photo retouching sites, because, you know, children are nasty looking in their natural state.

These, for example, illustrate how to transform your hideous little troll into a lovely porcelain doll:

http://www.naturalbeautiescontest.homestead.com/retouch4a.html
http://www.naturalbeautiescontest.homestead.com/retouch2.html

Just - no.

I had to laugh at the ironic website name.

Growing up, my mother and grandmother pushed Barbies and dolls on me (despite the fact that dolls terrified me, and the only time I played with the Barbies was when I was tearing off their heads). My mother made efforts up untol I was 11 to get me to wear pink, wear dresses, have a girly room, etc. And I would have nothing to do with it. I could comprehend stereotypes and gender roles, and I didn't like them. So I aspired not to be that way. Besides, it just never felt right having a pink frill room and wearing dresses. I couldn't climb up things and hang upside down in dresses. But I'd have done it anyway if I wouldn't have gotten in trouble.

It pisses me off to see parents forcing these preconcieved notions of "feminine" and "masculine" on their kids. I know people are allowed to raise their kids how they want, but there's a point where it can become psychologically damaging. Why is it so hard for parents to let their kids be who/what their kids DECIDE to be? Or is society really that vehemently averse to being different? Actually, I know it is. I've lived my life with an Austism spectrum disorder called Asperger's Syndrome. Most people meet such difference with aggression, violence, abuse or maybe they'll just treat me like I'm retarded or be condescending as hell.

When I reached the "age of reason" (about 3) I would not let my mom put me in the frilly, lacy, pink stuff anymore. I had a total of 3 barbies and 1 ken over my lifetime, and about 15 gi joes. the only "girly" thing I liked was my little ponies, and I only had 5 of those.
In grade-school, me and the one other girl on the team got upset at soccer practice because we couldn't take our shirts off and run with the boys (it was HOT!!) In short, I was born a "tom-boy".
I have three children, and have let them decide for themselves what they want to play with. So far, they have fallen right in line with what society says is right. My son loves tractors, guns, and wears dark colors (although, to be fair, he does look better in dark colors), and my daughter loves pink and frilly. My son decided he wanted to wear my daughter's play make-up one day, and we had no problem "dolling" him up. He hasn't done it since, but I am very proud that he tried it.
If my daughter decided one day to enter these (cough-cough) beauty contests, then I would support her. I would not let her do it until she hit puberty at least, but I would go and cheer, just like a mom is supposed to do.
I have always hated the gender stereotypes, yet I have been blessed with these wonderful kids that insist on conforming to the hilt! I love them to death and would not have them any other way!
I do not like, however, people seeing me (or those like me) and assuming that I have pushed any of this on my children. Be careful not to judge too quickly or harshly. I agree that there is not a lot of choice out in the stores, as I look for toys that my kids can share as often as possible (it saves money, and "MINE!!!" headaches), but just because you see someone with a boy all decked out in camoflauge, and the girl is in a pink frilly dress, do not assume the kids did not decide to "conform" all on their own.
By the way, I have a third that isn't old enough to choose yet, but things are looking promising, as her favorite color (as much as I can tell) is Orange: Bright-Friggin'-Orange!

Most kids like things that sparkle and glitter.

I used to help out at a church day care center, where you could find a princess tiara and tulle skirt in the dress up box. I've seen many happy kids, but the look on the three year old boy's face when he got to be a sparkly princess was priceless.

cycles, that retouching website is creepy as hell!!!
Check out the "expression change":
http://www.naturalbeautiescontest.homestead.com/retouch1aaaaa.html

(Sorry, I don't know how to make links)

cycles - Those retouch links just plain creeped me out--they don't even look human anymore. *shudder* The eyes are the worst...
Does this mean "ideal beauty" has come to mean "made of plastic"? Good preparation for a future of multiple cosmetic surgeries, I suppose.

Re: Princesses
Mulan was always my favorite of the various Disney movies b/c it flies in the face of gender stereotypes (the whole thing's about crossdressing) but I always wondered if that's why she doesn't get included in the "Princess" category.

Re: Johnny Depp
I concur. I personally think the greater chemistry has more to do with both foreshadowing the next movie, and Keira Knightley's character discovering she'd really rather be a pirate than a housewife (which is a nice way of validating nontraditional choices/roles for young women, btw) than it does her picking which man she should be with. But if I'm wrong it's kind of sad, because once again a Disney female will be shown as competent and independent, yet not "complete" until she pairs off with a man...sigh. I'd personally pick Johnny Depp, too--but I've always admired his acting ability and willingness to accept roles that don't necessarily portray him in a stereotypically "macho" way, so it's not all about the inherent yummyness. ;)

Re: Pushing kids toward gender-specific toys and clothing
I'm sort of a weird case, I guess--I had an older brother, and my mother apparently found it cheaper or more convenient to dress me in his hand-me-downs when I was very young. My hair grew in slowly (and also very blond) so it was short and fine when I was in the 1-4 age range--combine these things, and to the casual observer I looked more like a little boy. As I got older I rebelled and started insisting on wearing dresses everydamnwhere, because I got sick of being mistaken for a boy all the time. So in my case it wasn't a particular fondness for frilly things that made me wear dresses, as much as a desire to be recognized as female by strangers at first glance. Why that was important to me is a whole other question. On the other hand, I always hated pink anything, and while I owned a few dolls, but I never knew quite what I was supposed to do with them. I tended to prefer playing with toy animals or outdoors. So I guess I was a tomboy, but one who wanted to be acknowledged specifically as a tomboy (as opposed to just a boy)? Given my preferences otherwise I wonder, had it not been for my mother erring in the opposite direction with my early clothing, would I have insisted on the "girly" features of long hair and dresses as much later on? I'm honestly not sure. My personality's always been sort of an odd combination of gender stereotypes, overall, so it's hard to guess. But I agree that it's best to let the child determine what they want rather than pressuring them to "choose" toys or clothing that are "appropriate" for their gender.

Re: Beauty Pageants
Evil.