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!!!!!!

Personally, I love fairy tales and there are those (such as Bruno Bettelheim) who insist that you should read them, gore and all, to even the smallest children. That makes this modern mommy queasy, but I do think they’re great for older girls and I still love reading them as an adult. The Disney animators’ brushes have painted the heroines as passive and the prince as the savior, but in fact, that’s not how many of the story goes. There are some great tales of female feistiness, cleverness and heroics. Most are waaaaay to bloody for girls (some that aren’t are on my resources page). But for those of you over, say, twelve, I’d suggest starting with the following, which you can find online, along with many others, at SurLaLune Fairy Tales:

Fitcher’s Bird

The Girl Without Hands

The Robber Bridegroom

Bluebeard

All-Kinds-of-Fur

Tatterhood

Fairy and folk tales  of  female bravery can be found in every culture.  Also check out Alison Lurie’s book, Clever Gretchen and Other Forgotten Fairy Tales, some of which can be shared (or altered to share) with little girls.

My favorite physical version of the Grimms’ stories is Maria Tatar’s The Annotated Brothers Grimm. You can’t beat it. Great on discussing women’s roles as well. I’d also suggest Jane Yolen’s Not One Damsel in Distress, The Serpent Slayer, and Lady of Ten Thousand Names. Each has some stories within that are appropriate for little ones.

Start with those, then just keep on going! Enjoy!

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 out, took this pic of the old Mulan:

And NOW look at her:

Pinker, pouffier, sparklier (Rebecca thought of the headline on this post, too). I’d like to remind the Disney people of the song that THEY put in Mulan II and is still one of my favorites:

Meanwhile, Rebecca took photos of the other dolls as well, noting that they’d all had sparklified remakes. They did resist putting Pocahontas in a ball gown (though the’ve tried before); she does, however, have inexplicably high-heeled feet. And sparkles. And rounder eyes. AND LIGHTER SKIN. Especially as the mom of a brown girl, I’m with Rebecca on this one—TOTALLY uncool, Dudes.

Anyway, bear with me  here as I free associate. Because I was thinking about all of this while reading an article in HuffPo about a study by MIT Economist Esther Dufflo. Dufflo traveled to 495 villages in India to determine  whether there was a gap in parents’ expectations of their female and male children. Here’s what she found:  in villages that never had female political leaders parents were 45% less likely to expect their daughters to go to high school. The girls themselves were 32% less likely than boys to believe they’d continue their education. In villages where female leaders  routinely served in local government, however,—such as in the state of West Bengal, where for two decades a third of local posts were specifically reserved for women—parents had the same educational expectations for their daughters as for their sons. The girls themselves had higher expectations s as well. Given the importance of girls’ education to ameliorating global poverty, this is vital information. The study’s author attributes her findings to “the role-model effect.” “Perceptions and giving hope,” Dufflo said, “can have an impact on reality.”

I know we’re not India, but when all our little girls see are princesses and divas–and they see very few women in leadership in business, politics, STEM or the arts–what is our role model effect? Ponder this, for example: according to the latest Celluloid Ceiling report, women account for just 5% of directors working in Hollywood, down from 10% in 1998, when the number peaked. Meanwhile, only 14% of Hollywood writers, 18% of executive producers, 25% of producers, 20% of editors and 4% of cinematographers are female.

Don’t believe this under-representation has an impact on how and whether women and girls are portrayed on-screen? Check out the new material in the paperback of Cinderella Ate My Daughter, or take a look at the magnificent Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media.

And finally, for those of you who’ve read this far, I want to thank  you for making Cinderella Ate My Daughter a success. The paperback doesn’t come out until  Tuesday, but they’ve already gone back to press! The pre-orders have been through the roof. I’m so grateful and thrilled that the book’s message of broadening images and opportunities for BOTH boys and girls is getting heard! Please check my events page (if you haven’t already) and come out and say hi if I’ll be in your town.

Also: I’ve updated the resources page on how to “fight fun with fun!”

I have to admit I’m not a “My Little Pony” aficianado—my daughter was never  into them and I recalled the old show as being inane, and largely about  selling toys (the fact that the ponies were revived for the Hub, a TV station owned by Hasbro, and are skinnier and “prettier” in their new incarnation only reinforced those impressions). Creator Lauren Faust writes  on the Ms. Magazine blog that she was not initially a fan, either:

[Shows based on girls’ toys] did not reflect the way I played…I assigned my ponies and my Strawberry Shortcake dolls distinctive personalities and sent them on epic adventures to save the world. On TV, though, I couldn’t tell one girl character from another and they just had endless tea parties, giggled over nothing and defeated villains by either sharing with them or crying–which miraculously inspired the villain to turn nice.

With her new MLP, Faust claims she wanted to challenge “the perception that ‘girly’ equals lame or  “for girls” equals crappy,” to show:

there are lots of different ways to be a girl. You can be sweet and shy, or bold and physical. You can be silly and friendly, or reserved and studious. You can be strong and hard working, or artistic and beautiful. This show is wonderfully free of “token girl” syndrome, so there is no pressure to shove all the ideals of what we want our daughters to be into one package. There is a diversity of personalities, ambitions, talents, strengths and even flaws in our characters–it’s not an army of cookie-cutter nice-girls or cookie-cutter beauty queens like you see in most shows for girls.

 

Whether you agree or not, I wonder  how Faust feels how her attempt  was distorted on the way to the toy shelves, turned into the very thing she once despised. Consider Talking Princess Celestia, whom you’ll notice in the link is advertised as a toy that will “encourage your child’s imagination.” On the show Celestia is a white horse who rules the ponies wisely and well. But–uh-oh!–in the toy store she’s turned pink! And what does pink usually mean? Well, Rebecca pressed Celestia’s “cutie” button (gag gag) to find out:

Let’s recap: FIVE of Celesita’s  twelve comments are about appearance (“I love when you comb my hair!” “Oh, my hair looks beautiful.” “My wings are so pretty!” “My barrettes look so pretty!” “You’re beautiful”); two are about princesses; two are about friendship; two relate to activity (“Let’s fly to the castle!” “I will light the way!”) and one is the word “Spectacular!”

As Rebecca points out, that means when a child plays with this Princess Celestia toy, he or she will be bombarded with self-absorbed, pretty princess vanity, the kind, she says, the show is, happily, free of.

Why’d Hasbro do it? The same reason Nick makes the bizarrely-named Magic Hair Fairytale Princess Dora doll: they think they’ll make a buck. only we parents can prove them wrong.

Incidentally, Celestia was originally supposed to be a QUEEN, not a princess, but according to Faust:

I was told [by Hasbro] that because of Disney movies, girls assume that Queens are evil (although I only remember 1 evil queen) and Princesses are good. I was also told that the perceived youth of a Princess is preferable to consumers.

She does not have parents that outrank her. I brought the weirdness of that situation to my bosses, but it did not seem to be a continuity concern to them, so I’m letting it alone. I always wanted her to be the highest authority, and so she remains so. And I certainly don’t want marriage to be what would escalate her. (Bad messages to girls and what not.)

[...]  I put up a bit of a fight when her title changed, but you win some, you loose some.

Indeed.

Rebecca suggests a few substitutions for the doll’s script. How about:

I’m a princess! I rule my country with wisdom.
I love teaching my students. Do you love school?
You’re so smart!
You remind me of Twilight Sparkle, my best student.
You’re beautiful outside and in
Together, we can do anything!

A propos of that last phrase:  if you’re interested in letting Hasbro know we want our girls to think, play and be something beyond pretty, pink princess, here’s Rebecca’s petition at change.org.

I’ll write more about real stuff soon (busy time) but just wanted to post this. I’m such a proud Mama…..

Oh, and it’s in stores Jan 31. If you live in one of the cities I’m visiting, please come say hi!

The Tinkertoys package explicitly states, “For boys and girls.” And note the girl happily building a ranch on the cover of the  Lincoln Logs!

Their son’s response: “I didn’t know these were for girls, too!” Point made (my point, that is).

FYI, you can still get gender-neutral Lincoln Logs (with pictures of cabins on the box, no kids shown). But there is also this set:

Again, necessary? Why? How does it affect the potential for boys and girls to interact? Play together? Is it relegating girls to pink and pretty or just meeting them half-way?

You can also get  a girls’ version of “classic”  Tinker Toys.

It allows them to construct, “a flower garden, a butterfly a microphone and more!”

Among other things I wonder: what’s the microphone got to do with it?

At the time, execs also told me that Princess was  not I repeat not only about the dresses, makeup, bling and Kardashian-sized materialism. Or the $4 billion annually Princess pulls in for the company. No.  Disney Princesses were  about kindness and compassion and values.

Hey, guess what they’re saying about Sofia? She will, according to a Disney Jr. exec, have “plenty of pretty dresses and sparkly shoes,” but her REALY purpose is to teach  viewers that “what makes a real princess is what’s inside, not what’s outside.” Unlike, say, what the other princesses have been teaching viewers for all these years?

So I wonder, does that mean Disney won’t be selling any of Sofia dresses, crowns, ways or other merch, so they can reinforce the idea that she’s all about the inside?

Not hardly.Disney is nothing if not cynical. And greedy.

Obviously Sofia is all about the dresses and the shoes. If not, they could have made her an astronaut or, I know….an explorer!!! Oh, wait, we have that already.I wonder whether Dora would have been possible in today’s princess-obsessed culture. Especially given that Dora herself has both gone princess and undergone a makeover.

Maybe if Disney (or Nick, or Sesame Street Workshop or, gosh, anyone)  had 10 other “age appropriate” female characters who were not princesses; maybe if they had a female character whose appeal did not depend on her prettiness (because make no mistake—Sofia is very pretty and weirdly coy and, not for nothing, totally white and that is part of the package); maybe if they didn’t continually reinforce to girls at ever-younger ages that how you look is who you are while claiming to do just the opposite (witness the Tangled Escape From the Tower Lip & Nail Set! and the Princess with a Loving Heart Make-Up Kit.); maybe if they didn’t prime them for premature sexualization while claiming to protect them from it; maybe if they didn’t exploit little girls’ fantasies and turn imagination into something to be scripted and sold; maybe if they didn’t provide the first entrée for so many of the issues I write about on this blog (and in Cinderella Ate My Daughter); maybe then I would feel less disgusted by this latest move. Instead, it just feels like the latest predatory example of Disney reaching for the crib.

Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for the company to come out with a Snow White coffin. They’re missing a major womb-to-tomb  branding opportunity.

o

Wait! Wait! One more thing–you want a great princess story? I’ll give you one. Just in time for the holidays. The Princess and the Pig. It looks hysterical–and right on. And you can bet it won’t be used to sell your 3-year-old lip gloss!

…the packaging here strikes me as selling the need for beauty product more emphatically than any underlying scientific explanations of how they work. Does a ten-year-old need an oatmeal mask? (If so, why only ten-year-old girls? Do not ten-year-old boys have pores and sebaceous glands?)

…Maybe the Barbie-licious artwork is intended to convey that even very “girly” girls can find some element of science that is important to their concerns, but it seems also to convey that being overtly feminine is a concern that all girls have (or ought to have) — and, that such “girly” girls couldn’t possibly take an interest in science except as a way to cultivate their femininity

There are so many of these kits on the market today. This one, for instance:

And this one:

And this one:

The company Wild Science is kind enough to break their products down on “boys” and “girls” pages, just for those of us who may not be able to determine who is supposed to get the “perfume science” kit and who is supposed to get the (I kid you not) “physics and chemistry” kit.  Please. Click on the links. You have got to check them out. Go ahead. Compare and contrast. I’ll wait.

Are you back? Are your teeth still in your head? I especially love that boys get “chemistry and physics” and girls get “perfect perfume lab.”

Oh, wait–Wild Science ALSO has a whole section called “cosmetic science” featuring a “Pampering Boutique” for girls ages 8+ that “puts all the ‘good’ ingredients back in the skin after a tiresome day at school.” Bonus points for reinforcing alienation from education (and that “pretty” and “smart” are incompatible!!)

Other “cosmetic science” products? Clay Mask Lab; Cleansing Boutqiue; Cosmetic Cream Lab; Enhancing Boutique (perhaps experiments involving botox?); Purifying Boutique and Shampoo Factory.

It’s not just science kits, either. Craft kits, which once promoted art or, I don’t know, at least CRAFT have also become focused solely on appearance. Faber-Castell, a venerable, 250 year old art supply company, owns Creativity for Kids whose craft kits for girls include the following:

There are so many of these cosmetic-fashion-jewelry craft kits I could go on forever. Look ‘em up.

So imagine, for a moment: you’re in third grade and you wake up on Christmas morning or light the Channukah candles on consecutive nights and as a budding scientist you get a perfume science kit. And then you open the next gift and because you’re interested in art you get a fashion angels project runway kit. And then because you do love dolls you get Frankie Stein from Monster High. What is the larger message those gifts are giving? According to Stemwedel:

The message seems to be, “Look, there’s a bit of science that will interest even you. (And go put on some lipstick!)” Heaven knows, we couldn’t even get girls interested in building Rube Goldberg machines, or launching water-rockets, or studying the growth of plants or the behaviors of animals, or blowing stuff up … except, these are just the sort of things that the girls I know would want to do, even the pretty pink princesses.

She suggests if your little girl–or boy–is into science, you should check out the kids pages on the American Chemical Society site. There you will find hand-on activities (using stuff you probably have around the house) such as nine fun experiments with soap and detergent. And here’s a list of books and books and books full of science experiments that any child would love.

Merry Merry.

Obviously, this particular incidence of age compression was so far over the line that parents flipped out, the media got on board, and the product was pulled. So the story ended similarly to the Abercrombie push-up bikini episode or the J.C. Penney’s “I’m to pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me” t-shirt debacle or the KIA kiddie-porn ad.

But you can bet there will be more of these scandals. They pop up nearly weekly, whether it’s lingerie for 10-year-olds, the hyper-sexualized rendering of Dakota Fanning in a perfume ad, Botox for baby beauty queens or Walmart’s makeup line for 8-12 year olds (don’t worry, Mom, it’s non-toxic!). When they do pop up, much hand-wringing and righteousindignation ensues and I’m all for that. But I’d urge you to remember these do not and can not happen in a vacuum. There is a continuum of  products and images marketed to girls and their parents that made these obviously over-the-line items POSSIBLE. The risk of focusing on the Big Bad is that we become desensitized to the every day.

Consider, for example, this outfit from the current GAP “North Star” girls’ collection.

Under the amusing headline, “Gap Kids Recommends Little Girls Eschew Pants This Winter” a Jezebel blogger writes:

I’m not sure what’s more WTF about it — the weird insistence on “sexiness” or its stunning lack of practicality. What’s a kid supposed to do with an outfit like this? Not go sledding, snow angeling, or ice skating, that’s for damn sure. The implied sweater-wearing also means that more high energy indoor activities, like discoing or, uh, present opening would render the wearer sweaty. This is just a recipe for un-fun times.

I suppose this is what happens when five-year-olds are allowed to dress themselves using only Bratz clothing.

Does this  fall into the CTP category? No. But it does fall into the nearly 25% of clothing for girls aged 6-12 that contains elements that are both childlike and sexualized. As I’ve written before, citing a study released last summer, only 4% of girls’ clothing is fully, overtly sexualized (the CTP being a case in point). I don’t know who, beyond Mickie Wood, is buying that stuff. And nearly 2/3 of girls’ clothing is considered entirely childlike. It’s this 25% (more in stores like Abercrombie Kids and Justice) that mixes the message that I consider most toxic. Those are the things, to my mind, we REALLY need to examine and protest–and the mash-up is what makes that so hard to do.

Must go. Dog is chewing my desk. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!