I've been reading the book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, off and on during my work travels. My daughter recently turned 2.5, and at the moment, she seems very far away from identifying with the girlie/pink/princess phenomenon that seems to claim everyone's daughters (more or less) by the time they turn three. In fact, she's inordinately obsessed with PURPLE. So, I await the coming transformation with trepidation. I am eternally grateful that this book exists, because like the author (Peggy Orenstein), I wasn't raised on Pretty Pink Princess bullshit because it didn't exist until the 1990s. My sister, who is nearly 10 years my junior, came into being during the height of the PPP bullshit, however, so I feel like I lived through it, even if it wasn't my childhood. I remember watching The Little Mermaid with her until we both had the lines memorized; ditto Beauty and the Beast. But even back then, you didn't walk into a store and have all of the 'girl' stuff so readily segregated by color.
I reject and resent the pink fascism that pervades today, but because I don't want my daughter to become obsessed with it because of my rejection, I try to be neutral about the whole thing. At the local yogurt shop, they have a choice--green or pink spoons--and our little girl has picked the GREEN SPOON countless times, which I am secretly proud of. She even carries it around with her like some sort of totemic object, and rejects the pink spoons out of hand. GREEN SPOON is in the fist on the way to daycare, with her all day long, and then in the bath and bed with her at night. The pink spoons? They live a largely cloistered life inside of her PINK kitchen set (a gift from my PPP mother).
Do little girls really prefer pink or is it now stuffed down their throats? I'm afraid all evidence points to the latter, my friends. Pink as a color was originally more identified with infant boys because of its close link to red, a dominant color. However even in our modern, open-minded times, the color-coded messages and behaviors associated to your gender are ever-restrictive in the aisles of Target: blue is for boys, pink is for girls. End of discussion.
By accident of birth and circumstance, my angelic daughter has found herself the only girl in her daycare classroom. I read in the book that girls and boys self-segregate around this time, and even when they would play together, teachers don't recognize/promote this behavior, and so it doesn't really develop. But my daughter is the only girl in a class of 4 boys; does this phase her? No. She immediately starts racing cars with the boys in the morning, or running races back and forth across the classroom; or instructing them on how to use the potty ("Up?" she said as a fellow playmate stepped up to the potty, referring to the lid).
Will being the only girl in a class of boys stave off the PPP phenomenon for a time? Probably. I think a lot of that shit is actually started by girls' parents, who want their daughters to participate in it. And then other girls pick it up from their PPP classmates...and the cycle continues. I'm not saying my daughter is immune to the PPP, and it may even be good for her to go through a girly phase...but if and when that does occur, it's going to be hard for me to stomach. I just want her to explore whatever she likes, and I don't want her imagination to be quashed by being submitted to too many pre-determined playbooks via stories, movies, etc. I want her to invent her own!
The bigger thing to fear in this day and age, perhaps, is the INTERNET and the social media within and around it. I've been a member of Facebook for many years now, but I was raised and came to adulthood in an environment before Facebook existed. I worry that the artificial construct of the psyche that Facebook creates in all of us is going to be the downfall of polite society, period. Or, if handled properly, maybe the future will be full of savvy internet types who are able to communicate their hopes and dreams more eloquently than mine ever could...maybe. Here is one quote that stood out for me from the aforementioned book:
"The self...becomes a brand, something to be marketed to others rather than developed from within. Instead of intimates with whom you interact for the sake of the exchange, friends become your consumers, an audience for whom you perform."
Yeah, that shit's scary, and it's happening now, to all of us. Just imagine how it will affect our babies and toddlers in the coming years.
