Sweet and sassy or predatory and hardened, sexualized girlhood influences our daughters from infancy onward, telling them that how a girl looks matters more than who she is. Somewhere between the exhilarating rise of Girl Power in the 1990s and today, the pursuit of physical perfection has been recast asthe source of female empowerment. And commercialization has spread the message faster and farther, reaching girls at ever-younger ages. But how dangerous is pink and pretty, anyway? Being a princess is just make-believe; eventually they grow out of it . . . or do they?
In search of answers, Peggy Orenstein visited Disneyland, trolled American Girl Place, and met parents of beauty-pageant preschoolers tricked out like Vegas showgirls. The stakes turn out to be higher than she ever imagined. From premature sexualization to the risk of depression to rising rates of narcissism, the potential negative impact of this new girlie-girl culture is undeniable—yet armed with awareness and recognition, parents can effectively counterbalance its influence in their daughters' lives.
I liked this more than I thought I would. Here's why: When I read the book jacket, I thought "a book about preschoolers--how interesting could that possibly be?" But what you realize once you start to read the book, is that all age groups are connected. The experiences we have as toddlers shape us perhaps more than any other time in our lives--they determine to a great extent who we will become as adolescents and adults. Although the idea of writing about "Toddlers and Tiaras" is pretty overdone, Orenstein came at it from a different angle, one I found engaging to read. She talked about it from the perspective of the parents who choose to enter their young girls in pageants--not entirely justifying their choice, but also showing us the extenuating circumstances they experience that might make us more sympathetic to them than the "monsters" they are portrayed as on TLC shows.
As someone with a great interest in studying the effect of new media and technology on teenagers, I found the chapter about Facebook to be the most interesting. As I've gotten older and seen more and more of Facebook, I've come to realize on my own the conclusion that she came to: Facebook culture creates a dynamic where each child has to sell him or herself as a "brand" who likes certain products.
What this book, and Back to Our Future, taught me more than anything else is how pervasive an influence advertising is--and how deliberately this type of advertising is done with the single-minded purpose of profit in mind. Advertisers are not concerned with the psychological effects their ad campaigns are having on children, who are at an impressionable age. This is where journalists need to come in and make parents aware of what's going on behind the scenes and the consequences of advertising for children's health and well-being.
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