the other pink mafia

The princess-industrial complex

Is there a way to help our daughters identify and embrace their gender without forcing them to take on society's prescribed gender roles, without having to equate their value with their looks and their sexuality? We can start by not showing them frogging princess movies, by closely monitoring all of their media consumption, and by constantly encouraging them to embrace not only gender neutral toys, colors, and activities, but to participate in traditionally masculine past times, playing with cars and trains, wearing blue, or, as my own mother did, using a .22 to pick off vermin trespassing in the vegetable patch (poor Peter Rabbit).  We need to do this while still celebrating their identity as girls, which is the tricky part, because without sugar, spice, pink tulle and strappy sparkle shoes what is that identity? Whatever she, my daughter or yours, wants it to be. Right now, for my 19 month old, that means literally cheering every time she points to her vagina. Considering what my vagina went through 19 months ago, what the organ is capable of, I think cheering is appropriate.

While I hope to empower my daughter as my mother empowered me, there is no way to shield her completely from the toad load of gender stereotyping out there. She will go to a slumber party, she will watch Sleeping Beauty, she will spend the subsequent vacation upstate wandering around the woods trying to sing to squirrels. She will internalize The Message that girls must conform to specific characteristics to be considered successful as women, ie feminine, sexy but also pure. These princesses glorify, in the most psychologically manipulative way so that little girls' imaginations latch onto them, a way of life, not just a way of being.  These movies promote the idea that the only way to be happy, let me say that again, the only way to be happy is to find love (aka a man). So a woman must have a man, not just to be complete as a woman, but to feel complete. Many of these girls, sitting quietly in darkened theaters thinking, someone has made a movie just for me and Now I Understand, are children of divorced parents. These girls may decided that married life is happier and easier than single life. This message will then be reenforced by every John Hughes movie they will ever see. "It will all make sense once you have love, it will all get easier once you have love." It is this mantra that can lead them down knotted sheets out their bedroom windows, into borrowed cars and to all night chapels that also sell glowsticks and malt liquor.

This is not new information. I have no illusions about that. I want to some day, when I let her watch media, show my daughter movies that feature smart, strong women achieving goals that have nothing to do with romantic love. Though it is okay if they sing to animals.

This is my kind of princess:

It was this book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, that got my tiara in a twist.

natalie get your gun

Over the last decade there has been an increasingly popular trend among celebrities: the shot gun wedding.  Now as a disclaimer, let me say there is nothing wrong with an unplanned pregnancy. There is also nothing wrong with having children out of wedlock. Here is what I don't get: I do not understand being six months into a relationship, getting pregnant and then, as if it is a logical next step, getting engaged. There are dozens of celebrities that have taken this path, the most well know couple is probably Katie Holms and Tom Cruise, the most recent is Natalie Portman and her Black Swan costar. To this I say, Et Tu, Natalie? Now her Harvard education doesn't preclude her from making some stupid choices. A Harvard degree, contrary to what the institution would have you believe, does not guarantee intelligence (or sanity, just ask the Unabomber). 

This strange trend raises a few questions. Do movie stars lack decent education on birth control? Do they see parenthood as a way to create drama (not knowing that the second the kid is born they are no longer the stars of their own lives)? Have they been brainwashed by the romantic comedies they preform, believing that having a baby is romantic and the ultimate symbol of commitment? It is the ultimate commitment, but it is not a symbol. It is not a shiny ring that you can put into a draw when you start developing a rash on your finger. Having a baby with someone is the ultimate adventure that two people can have, the kind of adventure that tests your love for one another, and yes, it certainly brings you closer. Fighting in a war with someone brings you closer. 

I don't mean to sound cynical; there are so many moments of peace and sublime sweetness between parents and children. My focus here is on the pressure that having a baby can put on your relationship. Even the strongest unions struggle under the weight of a newborn, why would someone want to take that challenge on with a person they hardly know. PBT believes that you shouldn't marry someone you've known for less then ten years. I'm a bit more flexible than that. Maybe three years? But why are these stars choosing to marry so quickly? Is the stigma around an unmarried couple with children still so powerful? Why not just live together and see how it goes, why make it . . . not official, you have a kid, that's frogging official, why make it legally binding? If you want a kid so badly why not just follow Padma Lakshmi's example, get pregnant and do it on your own terms. Or pull a Brad and Angelina and create a new definition of family that works for you. Maybe the prospect of doing it alone is just too scary. Maybe the prospect of being that vulnerable with someone with no legal safety net in place is terrifying. 

Maybe as a culture we can't get away from our 1950's image of what a family is supposed to look like. Messing with accepted and anticipated order of events may be as subversive an act as we can manage right now. I supposed that is better than blindly accepting the status quo, but it doesn't feel like enough. It feels like smart girls getting knock up and relinquishing their power, sacrificing it on the alter of some stupid image of their future that was manufactured by Disney to sell plastic sparkle wands and pink sequined princess shoes. Of course, it's easy for me to say all this when my gender identity is exactly where Miss Manners would want it, I'm a stay at home mom with a husband who works full time to support his two ladies. My glass house is very sparkly.