A few years ago, Mary Finucane started noticing changes in the way her 3-year-old daughter played. The toddler had stopped running and jumping, and insisted on wearing only dresses. She sat on the front step quietly ”“ waiting, she said, for her prince. She seemed less imaginative, less spunky, less interested in the world.
Ms. Finucane believes the shift began when Caoimhe (pronounced Keeva) discovered the Disney Princesses, that omnipresent, pastel packaged franchise of slender-waisted fairy-tale heroines. When Finucane mentioned her suspicions to other parents, they mostly shrugged.
“Everyone seemed to think it was inevitable,” Finucane says. “You know, it was Disney Princesses from [ages] 2 to 5, then Hannah Montana, then ‘High School Musical.’ I thought it was so strange that these were the new trajectories of female childhood.”
I believe this is a substantive issue, but I couldn’t quite get past “Caoimhe (pronounced Keeva)”.
We don’t encourage the whole “Princess” thing as much as possible with my 2 year old daughter. In fact, we don’t even use the word. If my daughter has something with a princess on it, we call it “ballerina.”
It is a truly fascinating cultural phenomenon though. You can find *no* training pull-up diapers for girls that do not have princesses on them. No brand offers them without princesses. You can’t even find neutral colors like white or pink.
#1, that’s the beauty of other languages. In Gaelic, mh and bh are sound like our v. As for vowels, ’tis a mystery!
In Welsh, “dd” is “th,” “yn” is “un,” and “Pwllheli” is “Poolthlely.” All tongue twisters.
i found the article to be lacking in substantive connection between fairytale princesses and sexualization of young girls. there is nothing wrong with girls being feminine! sexualization in society is a completely different thing and has nothing to do with the other.
actually i’m noticing more and more of the feminist influence in America. if you look in magazines, the use of generic ‘her’ has replaced ‘him’ in articles. action movies are now full of masculine females who save the day, they can’t even make a classic without women doing something equal to men-i.e. the latest incarnation of ‘Robin Hood’. in commercials minorities are generally more intelligent and women are more intelligent than males of any colour.
females in charge who never want to lose themselves to a relationship… these ideals are not realistic! they will wake up at 39 unmarried with no prospects and no children and say ‘what happened’?? i’ve seen it with my friends and it will only get worse if this bunch has their way.
sorry for the rant, it’s my thing.