Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture is a book written by Peggy Orenstein in the year 2011. This book explores the princess culture trend and predominantly how this culture is promoted to young growing girls. The Cinderella Ate My Daughter book is stemmed from an article in The New York Times Magazine wrote in 2006 by Orenstein entitled What’s Wrong with Cinderella? In the article, Orenstein explains how the Disney Princesses originated and how the princess-themed merchandise and advertising has increased. Orenstein’s book Cinderella Ate my Daughter explores beyond the theme that is incorporated in her article. This book offers an imperative exploration of the burgeoning girlie –girlie culture and how the princess culture might affect our daughters identity in the future.
Cinderella Ate my Daughter my daughter book incorporates American Girl stores, child beauty pageants and a Miley Cyrus concert which explores the princess phenomenon. The author concerns herself with sexualization of girlhood and the self-esteem of young girls when they are deeply associated with the princess culture. Cinderella Ate my Daughter my daughter reveals the other side of pink and pretty as many young girls love pink and being called princesses. Orenstein warns the reader that the rise of girlie-girl culture is not innocent and it is affecting out daughters identity and their future. Being a princess is just a make believe, it is not true and the young girls will ultimately grow out of it. The Cinderella Ate my Daughter my daughter book is a cultural critic of the pink and pretty girlie-girl culture that has become all-consuming for the modern girl.
Cinderella Ate my Daughter my daughter book is laid down to discover the genesis and implications of the princess culture shift on young girls. The author ventures in her search for answers by visiting Disney land, American Girl Place, visits the toy industries largest show and a Miley Cyrus show just to know more about the princess phenomenon and witness it all. Everything turned out bigger than she expected as the potential negative effects of this new girlie-girl trend is undeniable. She discovers that when parents are armed with awareness and recognition, they can successfully counterbalance the princess culture influence on their daughters. She focuses on talking to young children, historians, neuroscientists, parents, marketers and psychologists about this trend and how it affects young girls. Orenstein looks at how the consumer culture and hyper sexuality affects young girls because of the princess phenomenon. In the process of exploring this princess trend that was growing too fast, she is caught in her own uncertainty of nurturing a girl child as a woman and mother. The author has played a very vital role in giving voice to girls and women about the princess culture and the frustrations with the current girl-culture which has negative impact on the girl child. In the end, the reader is able to comprehend what she means by speaking on behalf of women and their daughters.
In her topic Pinked, Orenstein explores how the color pink has risen to define girls yet earlier it was associated with boys and blue with girls. Peggy Orenstein argues that pink is not just a color but a lifestyle of young girls who are celebrating their girlhood and see themselves as princesses. Moreover, the pink color blends girlhood to an enthrallment with appearance and this highly affects our young girls while growing up. Orenstein is shocked by the princess culture which has affected many young girls since they value material objects and looking prettier than how they value their own personality.
One of the strengths about Orenstein’s book is that she makes great points content-wise. She explores a lot of issues and questions about the girlie-girl culture and its impacts on young girls’ identity and future and how it is marketed worldwide. The author explains clearly how the gender –based marketing products affects our children. It affects their body image, how they dress and make them worry about lots of things especially their appearance yet they are still extraordinarily young. She explains how young girls tend to believe that they have to look like a princess thus they have to look perfect in order to be successful yet it is not true. The Cinderella Ate my Daughter my daughter is very informative and an eye opener for parents who are entrenched in a daily battle with their young girls in purchasing princess objects and pink colored dresses and dolls. Orenstein argues that parents have to rethink about the princess culture even though it helps their daughters in socializing and playing games with their peers.
Moreover, through her open conversation with her daughter in the book, the reader is inspired to engage her daughter with the same conversations. The conversations are able to guide the reader on spending choices and the limits they should set in their homes. Additionally, the parents are able to take control of the princess-themed merchandisers and advertising corporations and tell them what they think is best for their daughters. Parents are able to become the bosses of these corporations and with these, they will be able to advertise and manufacture what is best for young girls and not what will spoil them. The Cinderella Ate my Daughter book teaches parents on the topics of gender stereotypes, early childhood development, sexualization, commoditization, and children’s marketing. The parents are able to know what is harmful to their child development and what they must and must not do to their daughters. The book is an inspiration to parents on how to raise their young girls and they are able to know that their young girls deserve better than what is being advertised and sold in the markets.
Orenstein breaks down majority of the most absurd things present in girlhood that makes parents think twice about them before buying their daughters. She says that prior to the pink trend and Disney Princess, children products became a marketing story for young girls around the world, neither of them had an important role in girlhood (Orenstein 65). Young girls were brought up very well without all these things by their parents and now they are bringing issues in the development in girlhood. Peggy Orenstein discusses her topics openly and this highly helps mothers in talking and having informative conversations with their daughters on what is important and what is not.
Peggy Orenstein writes her book not as a perfectionist but as learner who has to go through what all parents with young girls go through. She has a daughter who she feels is being affected by the princess culture and that is why she has several conversations with her. As she navigates the challenges facing raising a girl child in the modern world, she also expresses her confusion and thoughts and the conflicting signals she gives her daughter. This explains that mothers are not perfect and should just try all they can in order to protect their daughters from drowning in this culture. Orenstein states that, nowadays young girls are obsessed with their parents buying them Disney princess accessories and dresses and there is need to protect them from all these.
The Cinderella Ate my Daughter book is well written and crafted as it is very interesting. This book is informative as the author leaves no stone unturned with her persistent venture to explore fully the princess culture and in analyzing the effects it might be having on young girls and their sense of self-esteem and confidence. Orenstein points out that, parents are "bombarded with zillions of little decisions, made consciously or not, that will shape our daughter's ideas and understanding of her femininity, her sexuality, herself" (Orenstein 186). Little do they know that with these decisions, their effects are not always clear and they might be going overboard thinking that they are giving their children the best.
One of the main weaknesses of the Cinderella Ate my Daughter book is that Orenstein remains in a state of confusion right up to the end. When one reads the book, it is hard to believe in an author who is not even sure of what she is writing and what is right. Even though the book is informative, it still confuses the reader just as the author is confused about certain issues. She at first argues that parents can control what is marketed and advertised to their children and at the same time argues that parents have limited control over images and products their children are exposed to. This can be seen through her statements “our role is not to keep the world at bay but to prepare our daughters so they can thrive within it” (Orenstein 260). She is not sure of whether parents can control what their children are exposed to or not and therefore encourages parents to teach their children how to value their self-worth and ensure that their own values plays an equal role in their children’s upbringing and not the princess culture. Furthermore, Orenstein admits that she is not perfect among other parents but tries her best to control the likes of her daughter in the princess culture.
Another weakness observed in Orenstein’s book is that even though she examines everything in the Disney world about the princess culture that affects our young girls, she does not give a solution, her focus remains analytical rather than proactive. The book contains a lot of complains with no clear solution which is unfair to the readers. The arguments in the book are a platform of discussion where one airs out their problems because they do not have a perfect solution for the issues they are facing. However, I do not think answers are important in this book, what is important is that the facts have been exposed to parents about issues affecting their children. In addition, in her first chapter she names it "Why I Hoped for a Boy (Orenstein 9).” This is gender bias because all children are equal and it the parents role to nurture their children’s behavior other than complaining about their gender. That is being unfair to the girl child and it might even make them feel inferior and not wanted because of the princess culture.
I do not agree with everything that Peggy Orenstein implicates in her book Cinderella Ate my Daughter but I highly appreciate her relentless endeavor to analyze girlhood issues, her study and research and how she lays it out in the open for parents to ponder about it. When parents are conscious of the products and the marketing tactics used to advertise products that could be affecting their children and their role as parents to be able to stop it, it will make a difference in the growth and development of our young girls and a number of decisions parents make for their daughters on daily basis. A parent cannot protect their children from what is being advertised and the current trend, it is inevitable that at the end of the day, they will still be exposed to bad and good influences of the modern world. Parents should let their children embrace the current trend and all they can do is to instill good morals, confidence and self-worth in their children. Parents should not constrict what their children want but expand their views of the world.
Conversely, I agree with Peggy Ornstein’s idea of the princess culture ruining our children’s self-esteem and future. This is because, most young girls always want everything they see in the Cinderella movies and this will highly affect they development. Furthermore as she discusses about young teenagers on social sites like face book striving to look like Cinderella’s, they might end up being ridiculed by their peers and this will affect them both emotionally and academic wise. The princess culture is causing more harm than good to our girls.
The controversial problem addressed in the book is discussed at length and this helps parents be aware of the effects of the princess culture to their children. However, the topic becomes a bit controversial as some parents would love to shower their daughters with accessories, dresses and objects that make them feel like princesses. So at one point, the book causes controversy because not all parents have the same feelings about the princess culture and to make it worse, the author is not even sure and is confused about the problem because she is just sharing what she has gone through with her daughter. She is not sure of everything, she walks herself through the challenges she faces with her daughter because of the princess culture and offers no solution. Moreover, there are instances where Orenstein questions the way she has chosen to raise her daughter. One can find it annoying and this shows that she cannot stick on one thing, she wavers.
The Cinderella Ate my Daughter my daughter book is a must read book for every mother raising a daughter especially those below 12 years. Orenstein’s book is an eye opener to the parents who are yet to have young girls in their homes and who are yet to navigate these waters but most importantly it is the best in advising parents raising girls now. It has a lot of empowerment on girlhood and it gives the reader an amazing awareness on the growth and development of a girl child and what is really going on with girlhood and who is in control. Furthermore, when a parent reads this book, they are able to know what goes on in the lives of their daughters and what they can do to be in control and not let the merchandisers and advertisers of the Disney world take control.
Orenstein has done her best in explaining how our girls can be protected from the princess culture or else their future and identity could end up being ruined by the princess phenomenon. This can be seen with her stirring words to parents that “The good news is the choices we make for our toddlers and can influence how they navigate as teens. I’m not saying we can, or will, do everything “right”, only that there is power – magic- in awareness. If we start with that, with wanting girls to see themselves from the inside out rather than the outside in, we will go a long way toward helping them find their true happily-ever-after” (Orenstein 116). The princess-industrial complex with Disney and their relentless princess products merchandizing to our young girls might end up ruining our daughters’ identity and future. Parents should be in control of what is manufactured and sold to their kids.
Work Cited
Orenstein, Peggy. Cinderella Ate My Daughter Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New
Girlie-Girl Culture. New York: Harper Paperbacks, 2012. Print.
