Warning, warning, warning: personal opinion ahead!
A recent piece in Slate by David Auerbach made me very angry:
When my 4-year-old told me the other day that she was “ready for princesses,” part of me died. Not just because the day had finally arrived when that virulent meme had infected her, but also because of how utterly powerless I was to contain it. Let me be clear: These weren’t progressive princesses … This kind of princess forced my programmer wife and me to do what we swore we’d never do to our child, which is deny our daughter a book….
Just what we need: another sanctimonious parent teaching another girl that her own feelings are worthless, that femininity is incompatible with ambition, and girls are inferior to boys.
To understand what I mean, imagine a parent uttering the following:
When my 4-year-old told me the other day that he was “ready for firetrucks,” part of me died. Not just because the day had finally arrived when that virulent meme had infected him, but also because of how utterly powerless I was to contain it. Let me be clear: These weren’t progressive fire prevention technologists; they weren’t white collar professionals who invent flame retardant fabrics or teach materials engineering at MIT. These are blue collar firemen, lacking a college education, and downwardly mobile compared to my programmer wife and me, and that forced us to do what we swore we’d never do to our child, which is deny our son a book.
When you picked yourself off the floor where you’d fallen from laughing so hard, you’d probably point out a few facts of life to me: 1. a four year old’s interest in firemen does not mean that he will become a fireman as an adult (not that there’s anything wrong with that). It does not mean that he is imbibing the message that a college education is not needed to get a good job. It does not mean that he is learning to value physical strength over intellectual achievement.
It means nothing. Lots of little boys are fascinated with firemen, claim to want to be firemen when they grow up, and it never amounts to anything, because 4 year olds grow and change, learn a great deal more about the world and themselves, and generally leave childhood ambitions behind.
What’s the difference between the little boy who loves firemen and the little girl who loves princesses? The little boy’s preferences are masculine and that’s A-ok; the little girl’s preferences are feminine and that’s disappointing and must be stopped. Perhaps even more importantly, the little boy’s preferences are seen as authentic, but the little girl can’t be trusted to know her own little four year old mind. His desires are trustworthy; hers are the product of a “virulent meme.”
Why do so many progressives insist that women and girls are disproportionately afflicted with false consciousness? Why are they teaching women and girls not to trust their own desires, to suppress their wishes and to reject their femininity as incompatible with approved accomplishments like being a programmer (nothing against programmers; my eldest son and my daughter-in-law are both programmers)?
I have news for progressive parents: There’s nothing wrong with princesses. There’s nothing wrong with dresses. There’s nothing wrong with pink. It’s an age appropriate phase for 4 year old girls. If you hadn’t noticed, they’re different from 4 year old boys, NOT inferior, different, and those differences should be respected, NOT dismissed as the product of indoctrination, or, worse, inferior to the preferences of 4 year old boys.
Why is that most 4 year old sons of programmers who yearn to be firemen don’t end up as firemen? Because they imbibe the values of their parents that higher education is admired by their parents and considered necessary for a fullfilling life and a renumerative career. The fireman ambition was just a phase, not a trajectory.
The same thing applies to 4 year old girls and princesses. They too imbibe the values of their parents about education, about the respect that should be accorded to women, about the relative roles of husband and wife within their family, about their parents’ views on the limits or lack of limits on a girl’s ambition. The princess ambition is just a phase, not a trajectory.
The prospects facing women in industrialized countries are better than they have been in the past, but are still limited by less pay for equal work, gender discrimation and harrassment, lack of access to reproductive control options and other systemic failures. None of it is in any way related to 4 year old girls who love princesses.
We should be teaching our daughters that femininity is perfectly compatible with ambition and achievement. Banning princesses teaches the opposite, that femininity should be a source of shame, that they can’t trust their own feelings, and that making daddy and mommy look good to their progressive peers is more important than following your dreams wherever they may take you.
