The concept of "Princess Culture" focuses on the age between a young girl being able to walk and her "rebellious" phase entering what we refer to as the pre-teen or "tween" years. It is an abnormal normality among young girls participating in this phase to adorn themselves in all matters of pink and shiny things, along with epitomizing every gender role associated with femininity that we have, from cooking, cleaning, playing house, etc. Now, don't take my tone for disdain, because I am a firm believer that every person should take their own path through this life, but the fact that this culture is glamorized causes a myriad of issues for girls and women alike and in many facets of their lives.
The pigeonholing of young girls as "princesses" allows people to make many harmful assumptions about their state of mind and their desires in life at a stage where they may not know that themselves, hence their indoctrination. It instills femininity, adherence to gender roles, and beauty as paramount ideals that must be held in order for a girl to have value in this society. We gawk and gush over how adorable it is, but are we doing more harm than good? By raising the importance of these personality traits early, we downplay the importance of others, like intelligence or ambition. We tell them that they are "princesses," but do we really know what we are saying when we call them that? When we constantly bombard them with positive reinforcement over something as shallow as the clothes they wear? It is not bad parenting to want your young daughter to wear a dress or to be cute, but it is bad parenting if that's the only thing that you communicate to her. This creates a very shallow and unfulfilled foundation, and the worse is yet to come.
As she gets older, still believing that she is the princess she has been raised to be, she begins learning about the world. Maybe she didn't really like pink to begin with, but her first day at school starts and suddenly, everyone else is dressed from head to toe like a princess. Now she is faced with a moral quandary, to fit in with the crowd or stand on her own. The teasing begins and her decision is made for her via peer pressure. Maybe that entire scenario is garbage and your daughter is the one doing the teasing? She's not a bad kid, but she's been raised and conditioned to know what a little girl is and isn't supposed to do, and takes it upon herself to tell others that don't adhere to that belief so. Of course there are princesses that want to be princesses, even when shown other options, and none of this is addressed to them, but thinking of all of the girls that didn't know any better, or didn't know they had a choice is enough to make me worry.
The biggest problem with the Princess Culture that is so prevalent today is that, much like an actual monarchy, it does get passed down from generation to generation. When a girl that grew up as a princess has a child, she will likely raise that child the same way, with the same narrow views, the same naivete, watching the same movies/t.v. shows that her mom watched, listening to the same stories of magical assistance that never comes or Prince Charming types that never show up, and sharing the same inability to choose what she wants in life. The tiara and scepter are passed down, and the cycle begins anew. I've said it before, because I don't want to appear militant or one-dimensional, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the tiara and scepter, I'm concerned that this is often the only acceptable path, she is never shown the sword, the tome, the furnace, or any of the other paths that existed in the time of the stories that she is told about the princess. There were brave knights, adept wizards, master smiths, artisan chefs, and brilliant alchemists, all possible paths, not literally of course because this is 2014, but figuratively, she is capable of being anything from the next general to lead her troops to victory when all hope was lost, to the creator of the cure for cancer, the president of the United States of America, or even a housewife with 2 kids, a husband, and a white picket fence. There are entirely too many ways her life can go to start her out on such a narrow path. Princess Culture has denied so many of these paths because of its rigidity and virulence, and that is why its dark reign must end, to free girls and women of all ages from its never-ending cycle.
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