If bossy is for little girls beginning to experience their power, bitter is for women who have realized theirs. Bossy. It’s a word preferred and often reserved for women and little girls—especially little girls. While all kids can be bratty, selfish, and get angry, bossy has an insidious gendered quality to it. So much so, […]
I realize that my answers to these questions could shape my daughter’s entire attitude toward her own body and self-image because I am, essentially, her living role model. I knew the day would come. The dreaded moment when my daughter would question the things I do in the bathroom, in front of the mirror, or […]
Show her support, not shame. When I asked for a bra in third grade, my mom shot me down. “You don’t need one!” she said, motioning toward my chest. And she was right. I was, anatomically, still the same on the top as my best buddy (who happened to be a boy), but I wanted one anyway. […]
I think she looks fabulous, but people sure have a lot of opinions about it. My 9-year-old daughter has never been shy about her preferences and opinions. Right before she began kindergarten, she asked if she could cut her hair short. Since then, it has varied in style, but has stayed pretty short. Over the […]
Women are vastly under-represented in children’s media. But while we wait for new books and movies to come out with strong female protagonists, what should we do? There is no question that we are in desperate need of more children’s books that feature female protagonists. The same is true for film and television. The statistics […]
Sexism is so normalized that we don’t even notice that this iconic female character doesn’t have a mouth—the body part that would allow her to speak her mind. I remember walking into the Sanrio store as a little girl and thinking I had landed in heaven. No other store in our suburban mall carried what […]
This originally appeared on The Princess Free Zone. Republished here with permission. Asking girls to always be clean, proper, and pretty sets up an unrealistic expectation that hurts their ability to play side-by-side with the boys. Here’s a news bulletin: Little girls sweat. Oh, and sometimes they even stink. Yep, they play hard and get […]
He wanted to show his daughter that he’d “go to the ends of the earth to make her wishes come true.” I am sure that Jeremiah Heaton was trying to be a good dad when this past winter his daughter asked him if she could be a “real princess.” Like many 6-year-old girls, Emily was […]
