“Playing princess is not the issue. The issue is 25,000 Princess products. When one thing is so dominant, then it’s no longer a choice: it’s a mandate, cannibalizing all other forms of play. There’s the illusion of more choices out there for girls, but if you look around, you’ll see their choices are steadily narrowing.”
— Lyn Mikel Brown, co-author, with Sharon Lamb, of Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters From Marketers? Schemes,quoted in a excellent article in the New York Times by Peggy Orenstein on how playing princess (and dressing in pink) has become the dominant fantasy of girls 4-8 years old–and what that implies about feminism and gender in our culture today.
“Playing princess is not the issue. The issue is 25,000 Princess products. When one thing is so dominant, then it’s no longer a choice: it’s a mandate, cannibalizing all other forms of play. There’s the illusion of more choices out there for girls, but if you look around, you’ll see their choices are steadily narrowing.”
— Lyn Mikel Brown, co-author, with Sharon Lamb, of Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters From Marketers? Schemes,quoted in a excellent article in the New York Times by Peggy Orenstein on how playing princess (and dressing in pink) has become the dominant fantasy of girls 4-8 years old–and what that implies about feminism and gender in our culture today.