The story starts with some sounds from a 4 year old girl's princess themed birthday party, with the reporting interjecting, "If you want to sell something to little girls right now, chances are you'll slap a princess on it. Disney princesses in particular work as the engine of a massive marketing campaign that fuels a $4 billion industry." They then interview Peggy Orenstein, author of a wonderful book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, who shares the following ideas:
"We feel like it retains or reinforces an innocence in little girls in a world that is feeling increasingly threatening and sexualizing of little girls," she says.
But Orenstein argues that the emphasis on beauty in princess culture doesn't protect little girls. Instead, she says, it primes them and puts them "on this sort of trajectory that [goes] from Disney princess at 3 and a full complement of Lip Smackers at 4 and Keeping Up with the Kardashians at 7 and America's Next Top Model at 11."
Orenstein points out that linking girls' development to appearance has been repeatedly shown to put them at risk for mental health issues such as depression and low self-esteem.
To which I find myself nodding in agreement. If we are friends, you know I like to cover myself head to toe in hot pink, and believe that glitter makes everything better. So in theory, I should be in LOVE with princesses, but instead, I cringe when I see a young girl playing with them, for reasons explained by Peggy above. What do you think about princesses? Am I over thinking this? Or they a harmless obsession for young girls or does it limit their imagination and lead to self esteem issues? Or, is the whole issue more gray than black and white?
