Tags: age compression, fighting back, girlie girl culture, pink princess culture camd, premature sexualization
Posted May 3rd, 2012, in Recommendations, Recommendations Girls, Recommendations Grown-ups, Why I Wrote CAMD | 4 Comments
When we called people “plastic” back when I was a teenager, it was an insult. These days, apparently, not so much. Joe Kelly, over at The Dadman (an expert on how to father girls, as well as husband to Nancy Gruver, founder of New Moon Girls online community/magazine) sent me a press release discussing the 71% rise in chin implants in 2011, in large part driven by teen girls asking to have the procedure done…for prom. That’s right, 20, 680 surgical procedures at $3,500-$7,000 a pop were performed last year. There has also been a spike in “ear-pinning,” (for those up-dos) which Darrick Antell, a spokesman for the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, informally called “Clark Gable Wings.” Antell told the Sunday Times: At proms in the past, teens would line up for photographs and face the camera. But the rise of more informal images, captured during video chats or by smartphones when they are [...]
Tags: fighting back
Posted May 2nd, 2012, in Recommendations, Recommendations Grown-ups, Why I Wrote CAMD | 30 Comments
Sarah McMane, a high school English teacher in Upstate New York , accomplished poet and mom of a 2-year-old girl. She also founded an annual coffeehouse-style annual performance of original student poetry. Each year, as a model for her kids, she contributes an original poem of her own. She sent me this year’s piece, which I loved so much I thought I’d post it here. Enjoy. Clementine Paddleford, incidentally, was an American journalist, food writer and activist. _________________________________ For My Daughter “Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be.” –Clementine Paddleford Never play the princess when you can be the queen: rule the kingdom, swing a scepter, wear a crown of gold. Don’t dance in glass slippers, crystal carving up your toes— be a barefoot Amazon instead, for those shoes will surely shatter on your feet. Never wear only pink when you can strut in crimson red, sweat [...]
Tags: CAMD, Disney, girlie girl culture, pink princess culture camd, princess culture
Posted April 24th, 2012, in Creepy Marketing, Princesses, Why I Wrote CAMD | 25 Comments
The garden used to be a wholesome place where you could wrest your child away from the tentacles of licensed products, right? No more. the ever-brilliant Rebecca Hains has made me aware of Burpee’s new Disney Princess seeds (oh yes, that’s what I wrote). Needless to say, the ladies only grace flower packets—Mickey, Donald and the rest get vegetables because, as Rebecca notes, “princesses are meant to be gazed on; they are delicate beauties…” Too bad for boys who will now doubtless be expected to reject the flower patch. Meanwhile, Rebecca points out that while regular seeds cost about a buck a pack, The DP ones weigh in at $1.99. That’s quite the royalty tax Disney’s levying ! Then there’s the mark-up accompanying Disney Princess plant labels which cost a whopping $2.97 for 6 while the regular labels are a mere $1.99 for twenty. Rebecca concludes so beautifully [...]
Tags: fight fun with fun, fighting back, girlie girl culture, pink princess culture camd, premature sexualization, princess culture
Posted April 5th, 2012, in Boys and Girls, Creepy Marketing, Equal Parenting, Princesses, Why I Wrote CAMD | 29 Comments
I can’t get this new study on preschoolers and outdoor play out of my mind. Initially brought to my attention by KJ Dell’Antonia at Motherlode, it found that roughly half of parents of preschoolers did not take their children outside to play regularly–suggesting that those children are not getting the level of physical activity they need (see KJ’s post for important caveats). But here’s the kicker: parents were 16% more likely to take preschool boys outside than preschool girls. Why? Researchers theorized it was ingrained (and probably unconscious) stereotypes about how much exercise girls need. This sets the stage for sedentariness in adolescence and beyond. Which, I’m guessing, plays into distorted body image and unhealthy dieting. Great for the 60.9 billion dollar diet industry (with its 95% failure rate); not so great for girls. So you know I’m going to loop this back to the Princess Industrial Complex, right? Girls don’t seem to [...]
Tags: fighting back, girlie girl culture
Posted March 21st, 2012, in Creepy Marketing, Recommendations Girls, Recommendations Grown-ups, Why I Wrote CAMD | 4 Comments
Ah, the ironies of our media culture. First the film version of “The Lorax” commercialized anti-consumerism by pimping out its namesake to seventy corporate sponsors (including IHOP pancakes and Mazda cars). Now comes the deluge of “Hunger Games”-inspired products that are so contrary to the books’ message that they seem like a parody. Take the press release I received today: SAVING FACE in The Hunger Games – Best Beauty Solutions to Shed the ‘Tribute Tomboy’ Hi Peggy, Hope you’re doing well! In just two days the world will be watching as Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and the rest of their star-studded cast take center stage in The Hunger Games… so with all the hype surrounding the premiere, I figured you might enjoy this fun story idea! Fighting to the death doesn’t always end pretty (case in point, Glimmer’s notorious tracker jacker scene), but Katniss Everdeen made it look so easy, [...]
Tags: age compression, Barbie, girlie girl culture, pink princess culture camd, premature sexualization, princess culture
Posted March 18th, 2012, in Barbie, Creepy Marketing, Princesses, The Weight of Weight, Why I Wrote CAMD | 17 Comments
Yesterday I posted a link on my facebook page to an article on CNN.com called “Fat is the New Ugly on the Playground,” which featured a few nice quotes by yours truly. In response to the post were comments including the following: Excuse me in my experience fat has always equalled ugly on the playground, ain’t nuthin new here, take it from a former fat kid. ‘Fat’ has always been ugly on the playground, or any where else for that matter! I’m not sure why this is all of a sudden breaking news. Absolutely true. Fat kids—boys as well as girls—have long been tormented, demonized and excluded by their schoolmates. In CAMD I talk about the history of American attitudes towards fat—the reasons it came to be seen as a moral issue, a character flaw; how it became particularly taboo for women whose avoirdupois was once considered sexy. Check out an [...]
Tags: Disney, fighting back, pink princess culture camd
Posted February 27th, 2012, in Princesses, The Weight of Weight, Why I Wrote CAMD | 4 Comments
Call it another triumph for parent-power (and the power of all those who love kids). The protests that erupted in the wake of Disney’s Feb 3 launch of “Habit Heroes,” an exhibit at Epcot purportedly designed to combat childhood obesity, resulted yesterday in the exhibit’s (and web site’s) reportedly indefinite closure. Here’s what happened: “Habit Heroes,” developed in partnership with Blue Cross and Blue Shield (who should’ve known better) was an interactive series of games in which kids teamed up with animated “heroes”–Will Power and Callie Stenics (get it??)–to defeat “villains” such as And Stink Bomb who is not only fat but has bad hygiene! Lordy, lordy. Let’s pause for a minute and talk about why shaming fat kids is not just mean but ineffective as a weight-loss strategy (just in case you don’t already know): In a letter addressed to blogger Shannon Russell the director of the National [...]
Tags: fighting back, girlie girl culture, Let kids be kids
Posted February 23rd, 2012, in Equal Parenting, Recommendations, Recommendations Girls, Recommendations Grown-ups, Why I Wrote CAMD | 1 Comment
A reader named Leslie, whose daughter, Callie’s eloquent letter about Lego’s new “Friends” line was summarily dismissed by that company, just sent me this photo: Callie and her cousins made this Lego “birthday cake” for their grandmother, who is unable to eat the real deal. Here’s the family of girls and women preparing to blow out the candles. I bet they wished for creative, open-ended toys that didn’t stereotype and hyper-segment children. And guess what, Lego? THIS IS WHAT BEAUTIFUL LOOKS LIKE!!!!!!
Tags: age compression, CAMD, girlie girl culture, pink princess culture camd, premature sexualization, princess culture
Posted February 13th, 2012, in Creepy Marketing, Princesses, Why I Wrote CAMD | 13 Comments
Last week my publisher ran a contest on my facebook author page in which readers posted examples of the “princess industrial complex” run amok. I could not POSSIBLY choose only three from the bounty posted. So I wheedled an extra couple of books out of my publisher. I wish I could put a winner’s wreath (NOT a crown!) on everyone because each entry illustrated the reach and impact of princess/diva culture on younger and younger girls. You can see all entries by scrolling down the facebook page and hitting “older posts.” Meanwhile, would the winners please email your addresses to my publisher at: Erica.Barmash AT harpercollins.com to claim your prizes!Now, drum roll:GRAND PRIZE (signed copy of CAMD; a copy of Girls Like Us and a Harpercollins book tote): For Illustrating How Bombardment By Princess Products has Undermined Little Girls’ Imaginations and Flattened their Individuality: Beth Tischler Becker. When the children in [...]
Tags: Disney, girlie girl culture, pink princess culture camd
Posted January 29th, 2012, in Creepy Marketing, Princesses, Why I Wrote CAMD | 9 Comments
Oh my God, Cinderella’s ball gown ate Mulan!!! No!!!!!!! The one Disney “princess” (though she is no princess and never marries a prince) I loved, the one I gave my daughter to stave off the others, the one I scoured ebay to find has been made pink and pouffy! Poor Mulan, this against everything the character stands for! It was bad enough that the old Mulan doll came wearing a hanfu, which, if you’ve seen the movie (as I have, approximately forty million three hundred and seven times) she despised. The hanfu (a Chinese kimono) was how they served her up hoping she’d bring “honor to us all” by being pretty and marrying well. But Mulan didn’t want to do that, even before she snuck off to join the military. She always wanted to be her own person. Anyway, Rebecca Hains, whose book Growing Up With Girl Power just came [...]
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