Cinderella Ate My Daughter

By Peggy Orenstein

Review by Eileen Joy

I have a confession to make, I was already primed to dislike Barbie dolls and "girlie-girl" culture before I read this book, in fact this book just about jumped off the computer screen into my arms when I saw it, so bad was my desire to obtain a copy. I remember a couple of friends nodding their heads and looking "knowing" and "pityingly" at me when I declared that my daughter would never have a Barbie doll, or a Bratz doll. Their looks took on a "we know better" stance that infuriated me. I am proud to say that to this day, my house is Barbie, Bratz and even Disney Princess free.

So what does Peggy Orenstein have to say about the onslaught of "girl" culture and what is it doing to us and our girls? Orenstein's premise is one that has been around for a while, kids are getting older younger. When "we" played with Barbies we were about 8 to 9 years of age. Now girls are about 3 to 4 years and that's getting younger each year. As each age group progresses they shun the toys of the previous age group and adopt "edgier" and "cooler" toys. The demographic that Barbie used to occupy is now firmly caught by the Moxie and Bratz type dolls that line the pink toy shop walls.

What's wrong with a few princesses? What's wrong with Barbie? Orenstein argues that the now dominant message, the first message that our young girls hear about being a girl from the outside world is "...[n]ot that she [is] competent, strong, creative, or smart but that every girl wants - or should want - to be the Fairest of Them All."

Orenstein does not write from a preachy I-know-better perspective. She has a daughter, she frequently opines about the struggles she has in navigating this culture with her daughter. There is a particularly poignant scene in the book when shopping with her husband and 4 year old daughter, she leaves them for some other shopping to come back and discover that her husband has said that he will buy a Barbie for Daisy. Orenstein demands that the Barbie is put back and the inevitable upset ensues. Her husband tells her that she needs to take a stand on the issue and stick to it, and she realizes that this culture has her and her daughter confused.

She doesn't pretend it's easy to take a stance like this, but she does tell you why she has chosen to do this. She points to boys toys being action toys, varied and generally speaking a lot more colour varied than girls. She points to the sexualized nature of many of the dolls, the unrealistic body shapes, the "whiteness" and homogeneity of all the dolls and, equally importantly, the effect that this has of girls perceptions of themselves and boys perceptions of them. She even points to the "real" Disney princesses, Miley Cyrus, Lindsay Lohan, Hillary Duff and even Britney Spears as salutary lessons about the "princess life."

Overall the book is an eye opener about the tactics of commercialization of childhood and girlhood in particular. She deftly demonstrates how the ubiquity of pink and the princess culture is a mere foot in the door to a culture that defines women (and judges them) based on how they look, and she challenges us to create a better future for our girls.