This piece on Peggy Orenstein’s new book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, made me genuinely anxious about the prospect of having girls one day.  From what I can tell from this post (and without having read the book yet), it sound like some of this isn’t new.  The way culture socializes kids to fit into appropriate gender roles has been a long-debated issue, after all.  But what I haven’t heard as much about is how the princess-culture being sold to girls translates into adulthood.

Interestingly, “Orenstein’s book traces how the real life Disney stars/ girl princesses (i.e. Lindsay Lohan, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, Hilary Duff, Miley Cyrus etc) attempt to make their transitions from girl-princesses into adult ones; or more crassly, from virgin to whore.” 

It seems that teaching girls to be desirable and emphasize appearance over all else creates a culture of women who are “performing” a role:

“How does this emphasis on dressing up and attention for appearance affect kids as they grow? Stephen Hinshaw, quoted from his book The Triple Bind, explains, ‘Girls pushed to be sexy too soon can’t really understand what they’re doing…they may never learn to connect their performance to erotic feelings or intimacy. They learn how to act desirable, but not to desire, undermining, rather than promoting, healthy sexuality.'”

Oh god.  How can a culture of young women learning about being desirable from this princess culture and young men increasingly learning about sex from online porn be without some turmoil?

Read the whole post here:

-Nicole