sugar and spice and totally unrealistic Ideals... that's what disney princesses are made of23/10/2019 I’m a mother of girls. Two fabulous, complicated, complex, wonderful and interesting girls. My joy at having little people to whom I can really, honestly relate as they grow is immeasurable… but this has been met by equal levels of worry about supporting their self-belief and self-esteem as I raise them in a world saturated by media that feeds them unhealthy, unkind and unsustainable messages. Much of pop culture is fabulous fun (I’ve only just begun to investigate the world of online learning communities which connect people to every kind of popular interest you could imagine!), and yet I remain skeptical of the popular messages that are fed to our girls across any number of media platforms - common themes being that the ‘prettier’ and sexier they are, the better. These messages pervade television, magazines (what are they?!), gaming and social media. I wrote recently about selfie culture and whether it’s harmful, and in the process was drawn to an article I remember reading earlier this year about the extremes of editing that some young people went to before considering their photos ‘social media ready’. The pressure on young women to look a certain way is significant - and starts early. As I went through the photos from that article using the slide feature to see the ‘before' and ‘after’ of their images, I was struck by how almost cartoonish their edited images appeared. Large eyes, small chins, lots of makeup, very… Disney. Yes, the multi-billion dollar marketing industry that is ‘Disney Princesses’ is a giant in the arena of popular culture. And not everyone is happy with the message they send. Despite getting a better rap in recent years due to the more feminist-friendly princesses to have graced our screens in Frozen (sort of), Brave and Moana, the latent popularity of old-school favourites like Cinderella and The Little Mermaid means that these hyper-feminine and stereotyped characters continue to exert significant influence. While studies have struggled to lay the blame for poor-self esteem squarely at the feet of our Disney princesses (hey, childhood is complicated and longitudinal studies which can isolate the measure of a single influence are hard to come by!), theories of gender development do suggest that one of the ways in which we learn about gender roles and society’s expectations is through modelling. Without time to go into the details of gender stereotypes here, I’m going to stick to body image. Disney has a habit of exaggerating the more feminine traits of its female characters (and masculine of its male) to give us doe-eyed, made-up, long-lashed, small-chinned, (sound familiar?) young women who incidentally always seem to get the guy in the end. The beauty-ideal is established early. And while we can't point the finger singularly at Cinderella, we do know that girls' body confidence is affected by images they see in the media, and that even though they may know that these images are unrealistic or unattainable, they still experience dissatisfaction with their own bodies by comparison. When my eldest daughter started showing interest in movies I was resolute. No Disney! Ha! Fat chance. Trying to avoid Disney is like hoping you won’t see sunlight when you step outside in the morning… it’s everywhere. And these guys are good. All three billion's worth of them. My tree-climbing, dirt-finding, fun-loving six year old has hundreds of wonderful books on her shelves, and I’ll be honest and say that a little part of me dies inside each time she chooses Cinderella as her favourite. Because it doesn’t stop there. This fabulous kid also bats her eyelashes at the camera and tells me she loves Cinderella because she’s so ‘pretty’. Ugh. “What else do you like about her?” I ask through gritted teeth with my fingers crossed behind my back… “Uhm, she has blonde hair”… “And?”… “And she’s kind”. At least we got a personality trait. But hey, here’s some good news. A study by (Coyne, Linder, Rasmussen, Nelson & Birkbeck (2016) found that while watching Disney films might reinforce gender-stereotypical behaviour in girls, it can actually work to increase more stereotypically feminine behaviour in boys and this might work towards dampening hyper-masculinity and encouraging a more androgynous self-view, and this can be beneficial for boys' development. Hooray!
In conclusion... Me to my six year old daughter: “No you can’t watch Cinderella (again)”. Also me to my four year old son: “Hey, have you seen this great movie about a princess?!”
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About meI'm a teacher, student and advocate for better education through ongoing questioning, thinking and learning.
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