Girlie-girls are made of sugar and spice and everything – pink. Isn’t that nice? Not so fast, says author Peggy Orenstein. There’s a dark side to the hyper-feminine, highly commercialized pretty bows and sparkly tutus. Think 6-year old girls in lipstick and sexualized influences pushing our daughters into thinking that how they look on the outside is more important than who they are on the inside. Perhaps it’s an innocuous phase, but corporations like Disney are focusing their marketing machines on this crinolined, tiara sporting demographic and finding fertile turf in these princesses parent’s wallets – to the tune of $4 billion in the sales of Princess products in 2009. In her new book, “Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches From the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture,” Orenstein chronicles her firsthand journey through the heart of pre-teen princess obsession. Is all this pink really necessary? Is it possible to skip the princess phase or just hope they grow out of it? Why don’t boys fall prey to similar stuff?
Guest:
Peggy Orenstein, author of Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches From the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture