Wow! It’s Wednesday! The Beautiful Feminist
So Halloween has been interesting for me this year, because though there are a ton of cute and appropriate costumes for the infant-toddler set, somewhere around six-years-old it all seems to become either princess or (IMO highly-inappropriate) kid version of the sexy [name your profession here] costumes often peddled to adult women.
Mind you I’m the one who at the age of 12 wore a plastic She-Ra costume to her super-popular cousin’s basement Halloween Party (I’m fairly sure I was only invited b/c her mom made her). Back then it was either that or you had to make your own. Everyone else either wore street clothes or made their own, while my sister and I sweated the night out in our matching plastic costumes. I stopped getting dressed up for Halloween after that, so I wasn’t quite aware of how “far” costumes had come.
Pushing the sexy girl costumes aside — those won’t even be considered — I find the princess look equally disturbing. Has Disney taken over our costumes? And if so, why aren’t we encouraging more girls to be more creative than princess? For instance, I think Betty would be adorable as the cowgirl from Toy Story or a pirate from Pirates of the Caribbean or even the Porsche 911 from Cars. Vroom! Vroom!
Outside of pop culture, I would love to see more girls dressing up as lawyers or librarians or scientists or doctors. There’s nothing wrong with a princess or two, but at the last Halloween party I went to, it seemed like the vast majority of girls had chosen princess. Though there were two charming homemade exceptions of pig (this was obviously her ballet leotard and tights with a tail attached, a pig ear headband, and a nose) and Caroline Kennedy (her parents were JFK and Jackie O!) — both were completely adorbs. And it looks like there’s still little real alternative outside of creating your own costume.
This all has me thinking about how I should handle beauty with Betty. Having recently thrown myself into a Mommy Makeover, I get more than ever that beauty can and should be FUN. I love shopping for lip gloss and new eye color and trying new looks and saying things like, “That dress could change my life!” However, living in LA, I see the dark side of how obsessed women can become with beauty, thinking it’s the only thing of value that they have and feeling it must be preserved at all costs.
More than anything, I want Betty to value mind over matter, and personal content over surface. And so my instinct would be to praise her academic achievements rather than her outside ones.
However, so many smart beautiful women that I know, do not believe themselves to be beautiful for the simple reason that they were never told they were when they were children. I include myself among these ranks. And I have to wonder if much like the liberal white parents who ended up with children who believed the white race to be superior because they never talked about race, some mothers unwittingly give their children a complex by NOT talking about their beauty. In the absence of compliments and/or discussion, maybe these girls write their own story and in it they’re the opposite of pretty.
So maybe the answer to raising a beautiful feminist is compromise. I’ll praise Betty for ALL of her good qualitys: academic achievement, beauty, her wonderful smile, and anything else I’ve yet to discover.
And if she asks to be a princess for Halloween, I’ll agree only if she can pick a special talent for her princess. Like the Princess Detective or the Princess Scientist or the Princess Adventurer.
After all, who am I to judge? She-Ra was a Princess Fighter.
I am with you on the princess thing. Although, I have to say I identify with Snow White–mostly because I have a gaggle of gays (& not dwarves) in tow at all times. ; ) My fave costume was in 4th grade when my mom made me a papier mache head & I wore a boy's suit & handed out peanuts during the town's Halloween parade. I was Jimmy Carter. It was my idea. Maybe you can dress Betty as Michelle Obama. Totally! Give her a little sleeveless dress with a J Crew emblem on it! CUTE! And PS – Disney hasn't just taken over costumes. They've taken over. Period.
And it sounds as though you have a good balance of what you are going to teach your daughter about beauty. It's something, and mostly about how you feel…but it's not everything.
I love that you were Jimmy Carter! And the peanuts … nice touch!
I am with you on the princess thing. Although, I have to say I identify with Snow White–mostly because I have a gaggle of gays (& not dwarves) in tow at all times. ; ) My fave costume was in 4th grade when my mom made me a papier mache head & I wore a boy's suit & handed out peanuts during the town's Halloween parade. I was Jimmy Carter. It was my idea. Maybe you can dress Betty as Michelle Obama. Totally! Give her a little sleeveless dress with a J Crew emblem on it! CUTE! And PS – Disney hasn't just taken over costumes. They've taken over. Period.
And it sounds as though you have a good balance of what you are going to teach your daughter about beauty. It's something, and mostly about how you feel…but it's not everything.
I love that you were Jimmy Carter! And the peanuts … nice touch!
I think you hit the nail on the head. The answer is to praise your child for all of her good qualitys. Telling her she is beautiful as much as you are telling her she is smart. And then let the chips fall where they may. I will tell you though my mom was the queen of telling me I was smart and beautiful and yet I still grew up with quite a complex about how I looked. I did not get truly comfortable in my own skin until well into college and gradate school. So my thought is all you can do is lay the right foundation (e.g., praising all around) and empower her to do the rest. But knowing you, I am far from worried about Betty. She will be a wellrounded rock star just like her mom!
Yes, I'm scared that it's impossible to raise a girl in this country w/o her getting a complex no matter how you encourage her. I hate that commercials and magazines are allowed to prey on women the way they are. It's hard to be cool with growing older, when every other ad is trying to sell you wrinkle cream. Ugh!
I think you hit the nail on the head. The answer is to praise your child for all of her good qualitys. Telling her she is beautiful as much as you are telling her she is smart. And then let the chips fall where they may. I will tell you though my mom was the queen of telling me I was smart and beautiful and yet I still grew up with quite a complex about how I looked. I did not get truly comfortable in my own skin until well into college and gradate school. So my thought is all you can do is lay the right foundation (e.g., praising all around) and empower her to do the rest. But knowing you, I am far from worried about Betty. She will be a wellrounded rock star just like her mom!
Yes, I'm scared that it's impossible to raise a girl in this country w/o her getting a complex no matter how you encourage her. I hate that commercials and magazines are allowed to prey on women the way they are. It's hard to be cool with growing older, when every other ad is trying to sell you wrinkle cream. Ugh!