In a discussion at this week’s QPA Committee Meeting I referred to some recent material I had read, and the parents suggested that an occasional newsletter about recommended reading might be useful.
A few months ago I read Cinderella Ate My Daughter by the American journalist and author, Peggy Orenstein. It is a very easy read which looks at the intense ‘girl-ification’ of the childhood years which has emerged in the last few decades. One can never safely generalise and thankfully some girls are immune to the external pressures, but the effects of 'pinkification' are real for many girls (and probably the majority). This is a very recent phenomenon. In fact, as she points out, a hundred years ago pink was generally seen as a boy’s colour (a pastel version of manly red) while blue (with its Marian association) was the colour for girls. She posits some of the cultural influences which have driven the modern trend, and describes in biting prose the commercial exploitation which has given it so much power. For example, she interviews the Disney executive who invented the Disney Princesses:
[A]bout a month into his tenure, he had flown to Phoenix to check out a ‘Disney on Ice’ show and found himself surrounded by little girls in princess costumes. Princess costumes that were – horrors! – homemade. How had such a massive branding opportunity been overlooked? The very next day he called together his team and they began working on what would become known as [Disney Princesses]…The first Princess items, released with no marketing plan, no focus groups, no advertising, sold as if blessed by a fairy godmother… By 2009 they were at $4 billion.
One can’t help seeing a connection with the debate about the ‘Pink Tax’ – where the same products are marketed to men and women, with slight differences in packaging or styling but a hefty price difference. I first encountered this concept a few years ago when the infamous campaign for ‘Bic For Her’ ballpoint pens pitched its product to women with the taglines: ‘Elegant design - just for her!’ and ‘Thin barrel to fit a woman's hand’. If you didn’t come across the hilarious reviews of this product at the time, you can enjoy a good laugh at them here.
As amusing as all this can seem, the Pink Tax is real (as in this calculator which costs 25% more when it has a pink button) although it is true that it is often avoidable – but only if women consistently make choices which push back against relentless marketing and ubiquitous gender expectations, something which is sometimes difficult and often simply tiring.
Making the right decisions for our daughters can be similarly wearing. One of the strengths of Orenstein’s book is that it is vividly written from the parent’s perspective, as we constantly wrestle with the tensions involved in these kinds of decisions. When should we push back? When are we over-thinking things? Should we be the grown-up and say no, or should we just lighten up and let our daughters have the toys they want? She describes her daughter’s pleas for a doll in a sexualised style called ‘Oo-LaLa Olivia’:
I took in the Angelina Jolie lips, the heavily shadowed eyelids, the microscopic skirts, the huge hair – and I kept right on walking.
‘No,’ I said.
‘But maybe for my birthday?’ she tried.
‘Not for your birthday, not for Chanukah, not for anything. You will never, ever get one of those dolls!’
‘But why not?’ she pressed.
I wanted to yell, ‘BECAUSE THEY’RE SLUTTY, THAT’S WHY!’ But I didn’t, because Lord knows that I didn’t want to have to explain what ‘slutty’ meant. Instead I relied on the default parenting phrase, a prim ‘Because they’re inappropriate.’
‘But why are they inappropriate?’
Suddenly I was furious. Why should I even have been put in a position where I had to have this conversation with my four-year-old?
There is much to enjoy here. There are good discussions of the girlie-girl culture and its links to the pitfalls that concern most parents (depression, eating disorders, body image); the promotion of shopping ‘as a path to intimacy between mothers and daughters and as an expression of female identity’; the power of positive male and female role models to shape girls’ beliefs and identity; the politics of children’s toys – and so on.
The book is weak in its (brief) examination of single-sex and co-ed schooling. Orenstein clearly has an intuitive preference for co-education, and she refers mostly to ongoing, incomplete studies which are aiming to prove that it is a better model – rather than the existing body of established research. (Single-sex schooling is also far less common in the USA, which may be part of the explanation.) For example, she extrapolates studies about the impact of siblings’ interests to schools – in this case, to argue that girls will be more confident in Maths in a co-ed school. She seems to be unaware of the very clear evidence that girls in single-sex schools are massively more likely to study Maths at higher levels and to pursue STEM subjects and degrees.
I found one observation particularly thought-provoking. The broad societal message to girls today is that they are defined by their looks – hence the intense interest in cosmetic surgery, ‘thinspiration’ and selfies. This is in stark contrast to the emphasis on character a hundred years ago, when ‘becoming a better person meant being less self-involved: helping others, becoming better read, cultivating empathy.’ The point is illustrated by a historian’s study of New Year’s resolutions of girls at the end of the 19th and 20th centuries. From the 19th century:
‘Resolved: to think before speaking. To work seriously. To be self-restrained in conversations and actions. Not to let my thoughts wander. To be dignified. Interest myself more in others.’
And the contemporary girl:
‘I will try to make myself better in any way I possibly can. I will lose weight, get new lenses, already got new haircut, good makeup, new clothes and accessories.’
Orenstein writes:
[It] seems that though the 19th-century girl may have lived in a more repressive era – before women could vote, when girls’ sights were set solely on marriage and motherhood – her sense of self-worth was enviably internal, a matter of deed over dress. Whatever other constraints she felt, her femininity was not defined by the pursuit of physical perfection; it was about character. I wonder why we adult women, with all our economic, political, and personal freedoms, have let this happen to our daughters.’
At various points, Orenstein gives specific advice, which is good and practical. Much of the book, however, is dedicated to drawing out the origins and implications of the conflicting pressures on our girl – and on the parents who love them. There are no simple answers, but it is well worth a read.
Ms Elizabeth Stone
Principal