Fairy Princesses and the Tyranny of Pink

It took me a few weeks to get used to the idea of being pregnant, and then a few weeks more to get used to the idea of having a boy (not because I didn't want a boy, but because the idea that the baby was one or the other made it...him...more real and therefore more imminent). When I started to allow myself to relax into the idea a bit -- to grasp the concept of Myself as Mother -- I was at a mall. I went into a Gap Kids. (What can I say? I was young and foolish....)

What I learned at Gap Kids was in many ways more instructive than the gender theory I was studying at the time as a PhD student. What I learned is that things were actually worse than the academics were letting on. They weren't really up on the front lines of gender issues, fighting what I've come to call The Tyranny of Pink.

The Gap Kids I so naively wandered into was divided into a boy camp and a girl camp. I obediently walked over to the boy camp and there was a shirt with a basketball on it. And there was one with a surfboard. And a skateboard. And there -- camouflage pants in size 12 months. There was a persistent pulse of blue, navy, and olive running through the racks. The girl camp, however, was liberally sprinkled with flowers and hearts and slightly desperate announcements such as "Daddy's Little Sweetheart" and "Too Cute." And pink. Good Christ there was pink everywhere.

Having studied gender theory, I was of course aware of the longstanding differences in how we construct "boy" and "girl," but I wasn't aware of how extreme these constructions were. If, in fact, one were going by the kind of clothing available for children when I was a child (in the mid 70s) versus the kind available now, one could only conclude that gender equality has regressed.

I took the above picture at a massive bookstore chain. It's a shelf display in their children's section, not far from a train table that my children are always quick to find. The shelf is only about 3' off the ground -- a pefect kiddie sight-line. I can think of few better examples of how low -- how ludicrously, horribly low -- we've sunk in the creation and division of gender roles. The four "boy" books are a fireman, policeman, race car driver, and astronaught. The two "girl" books are a princess...and a fairy.

Where does one start?

The boys are employed in dominance-based and/or conquest jobs -- our culture calls these men "firefighters" and crime "fighters," or else competitive racers (either around a track or to the moon). These jobs, however, are at least identifiable jobs. The girls, already diminished by representing only one third of the display, have no employment (unless of course they are costumed singing telegrams, in which case they are worse than unemployed). They have no identifiable function, unless it is decorative. In the inimitable words of John Berger in his book Ways of Seeing, "men act and women appear."

People who believe that feminism has done its thing and is therefore outdated would typically argue that these are only kids' books in a bookstore, not detrimental determinants. Really, how can wearing pink or blue limit a kid's sense of self? The colours, of course, don't exist in a vacuum; they're a shorthand for inclusion in an overarching narrative where girls are princesses and boys are race car drivers.

What researchers are finding is that children's imaginations are grown, limited, diversified and sculpted not only by their parents and experiences but by the kinds of texts they grow up with -- the books, clothes, movies, songs, shows, toys, etc. If girls constantly see representations of girls as princesses and fairies then those representations act as as the fence posts around their own ideas about what is possible for their lives.

Gender Exhibits

I am at a playdate. Two four year old girls have flung open the tickle trunk and it's filled with crinoline and lace and tiaras and sparkly shoes. Within minutes one has dressed the other head-to-toe in the stuff. One watches the other totter around on tiny heels, swishing in her taffeta skirt, and mumurs reverently: "You're much more prettier than me." They both dress up and stay dressed up the whole morning and through lunch, though it limits their mobility considerably. At one point my son is in tears because they tell him that the Dora The Explorer knee pads he's found are only for girls.

I am at the Y. I look through the window of the room where my daughter is playing with others during "Toddler Time" and count up the girls: 6 of them. And they are all wearing pink. Even my daughter, who I typically steer away from the pepto-abysmal, has pink trim on her green top. There are four boys and all of them are wearing mostly blue outfits.

We are at an indoor playground and I've helped my kids build a fort out of accordioned tumbling mats. We're joined by a little girl. My two nestle into corners and exclaim that they are bears in a cave! They're in bear corners! The little girl sits up primly and says "I'm in a princess corner."

I'm picking up my youngest from a drop-in centre and another mother is talking at one of the child-minders: "Can you believe it?! She had her son dressed in a pink shirt! How could any mother do that to her son?!

My son is at his dance class on Hallowe'en. They've all been told they can wear costumes. My son, the only boy, is dressed as a dragon as per his request. The rest of the class -- all 15 girls -- are dressed as princesses.

I'm teaching a communications course to a class of Early Childhood Education students. There are 42 students in the class and only one is male. Later in the day I teach a class to auto mechanics and welding students. There are 28 students and only one is female.

I'm watching a rabble of 3-6 year olds slosh out of the pool and then tiptoe gingerly towards the changeroom. One little girl is wearing a pink bathing suit emblazoned with the three newly-annointed and so-called "Disney Princesses": the red-haired one who gave up her voice so she could use her body to attract a man; the blonde one who had to toil thanklessly and wait passively for her man to find her; and the brunette who, despite brutal domestic violence, stayed with her "beast" because it was her job to rehabilitate him. When girls talk about princesses, these are their princess templates. The Disney Princesses and their stories are superimposed on millions of little girls' bodies around the world.