I’m Too Pretty to Do Homework.

Aaah yes, this is the message I want to send our daughters. Reminds me of the “Polite as a Princess” book… only so much worse.

JC Penney CEO Mike Ullman is too pretty to do homework

JC Penney is selling a jersey shirt that reads “I’m too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me.” The description reads “Who has time for homework when there’s a new Justin Bieber album out? She’ll love this tee that’s just as cute and sassy as she is.” I suspect that the item will be yanked from the site within hours***, as news of the offensive shirt is hopping across the internet – mostly thanks to a great catch by Pigtail Pals‘ Melissa Wardy. The sweatshirt, which comes in sizes 7-16, is on sale for only $9.99, so if you act now, you too can own this fabulous piece of evidence of culturally condoned misogyny.

***as of 9:08 AM, 8/31/11, the shirt was no longer showing up for sale on the US version of the site. It was still available in the UK and Ireland and probably elsewhere.

JC Penney can shove it.

If, on the other hand, you’d like to let JC Penney know where it’s at and where they can shove this shirt (see example above), feel free to call 972-431-8200 to speak to a person at  JC Penney’s “Customer Concerns” line. When I called at 8:21 AM PST on 8/31/11, the woman I spoke to stated that the company was aware of the issue with the shirt and was preparing to pull it down off the site. If you’d like to go further up the food chain, I’m encourage you to drop a line on over to CEO and Chairman of the Board Myron E. (Mike) Ullman, III. I called the corporate headquarters and asked for Mike Ullman. I was put through to the customer concerns line again, but I know that the company has now gotten two calls at two different lines to voice my issue. Mike, who has four sons and two daughters and whose significant work with Mercy Ships should make him far more culturally aware than this serious misstep by his company indicates, can be found at:

Mike Ullman, III
Chief Executive Officer
J.C. Penney, Inc.
6501 Legacy Drive
Plano, TX 54024

(972) 431-1000

I'm too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me

Read Full Post »

A Roundup of Recent Articles on Unethical Marketing to Children

The Corporate Babysitter blog has a great round up of recent news stories about unethical marketing to children. If you’d like to get familiar with the problem of childhood branding, this is a great place to start: http://www.parentsforethicalmarketing.org/blog/2011/06/06/concerns-over-unethical-marketing-to-kids-grow/

Read Full Post »

Disney Attacking Maternity Wards

If you’d like more information about why Disney is evil, check out the documentary, Mickey Mouse Monopoly.

For more information on media awareness, look at the resources in the Unbranding section of this blog.

This is for all y’all who might think I’m a potential tinfoil hat society member for my thoughts on protecting my children from marketing ploys. According to this New York Times article, representatives of Disney’s new “DisneyBaby” line have been making the rounds at maternity wards. Here are some choice quotes and snippets:

“This is taking advantage of families at an extremely vulnerable time,” said Jeff McIntyre, director of national policy for the advocacy group Children Now.

“If ever there was an opportunity for a trusted brand to enter a market and provide a better product and experience, it’s this,” said Robert A. Iger, chief executive of Disney. “I’m extremely excited about it.”

How do you spell evil? I say I-G-E-R.

…the company gains access to the maternity hospitals through a company called Our365, a business that sells bedside baby pictures. Our365 pays hospitals for exclusive access, and companies like Disney pay Our365 to promote their own products. Our365 also has Fisher-Price and Procter & Gamble as clients. It is unclear whether mothers know of Our365’s financial ties to these companies.

No – they don’t – I know this for a fact because both times while I’ve been in hospital having babies, this junk has been passed off to me under the premise that it’s related to healthy baby raising.

A representative visits a new mother and offers a free Disney Cuddly Bodysuit, a variation of the classic Onesie. In bedside demonstrations, the bilingual representatives extol the product’s bells and whistles — extra soft! durable! better sizing! — and ask mothers to sign up for e-mail alerts from DisneyBaby (link removed ~ Mamá Leche).

“Apparel is only a beachhead,” said Andy Mooney, chairman of Disney Consumer Products. Also planned are bath items, strollers, baby food and an abundance of other products — all pushed with so much marketing muscle that Disney Baby may actually dent operating margins in Mr. Mooney’s division in the near term. But this is a long-term play, and it could have its greatest value far beyond the crib.

“To get that mom thinking about her family’s first park experience before her baby is even born is a home run,” Mr. Mooney said, adding that a surprisingly large number of families do not become consumers of Disney products until their children reach preschool age, when they start to watch Disney Channel programs like “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.”

Really? A surprisingly large number? We are well into preschool age with our children and have seen hide nor hair of Disney in our house. Sadly, even Winnie the Pooh has been compromised. I really like that f-ing bear.

How do you spell evil? I also spell it M-O-O-N-E-Y.

Rachel Bernstein, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who is pregnant herself, said she was concerned about marketers using hospitals as customer hunting grounds. “But Disney is a nice company,” she said, “and I think my patients would actually be thrilled to get free Disney stuff.”

Can you say “Stockholm Syndrome?” Hello Patty Hearst! You are completely inculcated into the cult of Disney. The mass media assault works.

Elizabeth Carter gave birth to her daughter Olivia on Jan. 19 in Piedmont, Calif., and was given a Disney Cuddly Bodysuit as part of an Our365 photo package. “It surprised me that Disney was in there promoting something right as the baby was born, but we figured as new parents we weren’t in a position to turn free things down,” she said.

Mrs. Carter put the garment on her hours-old baby immediately. “And I have to say Olivia looked fabulous, much better than the rough, bulky thing the hospital had her wearing,” she said.

Piedmont, for those of you not in the know, is an extremely affluent area. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I equate affluence with education and education with awareness. Shame on the parent with no excuse to be so blind to this blight.

As for me, I’m happy to wear a tin foil hat, if that means keeping my family away from this stuff.

For more info, check out the section on Unbranding.

Read Full Post »

In Defense of a Slow Childhood

When I was in my twenties, I spent a stint of time as a dog walker. I loved the job, since it gave me a reasonable excuse to be outside in every type of weather and I really like the company of dogs. One day, it was storming like crazy in San Francisco, where I worked. I was concerned about the wind whipping branches out of trees and killing me or the dogs, so we went to the beach for our outing. We were at Chrissy Field, just inside the bay from the Golden Gate bridge. Almost as soon as we hit the beach, I heard this incredible rumbling out on the bay. The storm was so thick that you couldn’t see more than 30 feet out into the water – it was just a whitewash of gusting rain. At first I thought the rumbling was a distressed tanker in the bay and suddenly I realized it was a gale force wind — literally a wall of wind flying from the ocean, under the Golden Gate Bridge and slamming across the surface of the water towards us. The dogs were all standing a bit in front of me and I knew I had to protect them. I squatted down and screamed out to them over the storm while unzipping my raincoat, my back to the bridge where the wind was coming from. I opened my jacket just in time to create a pocket of still space in front of me. The dogs, lowering their heads facing the wind, inched into the pocket just as the gale rushed over us. One of the smaller dogs got picked up in the wind and tossed a few times along the sand. We, meaning the other dogs and I, moved like a phalanx in the wind, keeping the cover of the jacket spread wide like wings, until we could catch up with Charlie. We stayed like that for a good fifteen minutes until the gusts stopped and everything got quiet again. The sun broke out over a still, grey air and we looked at each other, stunned and thrilled at the same time that we’d managed through that experience together.

I recount that story because it makes me think of the way in which I want to spread my wings over my children, creating a sheltering pocket for them from all the speed and racing, media and technology that waits with bated breath just outside the door. I don’t think all technology and media are evil, but that there’s a time and place for them. In the same way that it takes an adult to appreciate a wine, so too does it take a fully mature mind to be able to handle the speed of common life today. I’d rather under-expose my children to technology and media than over-expose them. They way I see it, I have always figured that if they want to be media savvy and live a fast-paced life, they can always catch up as young adults. It’s not like you can’t pick up technology and adaptively use it in your life — that’s the very nature of technology — it’s meant to make your life faster and easier.

I recently read a fantastic guest post by Esa Helttula at the “Moms with Apps” blog. It’s entitled “Let the Children Play.” It’s ironic that a techno-focused blog would post something this profound in justification of unplugging your life and your children.

Esa illuminates some of the outcomes that result from a deficiency in play, especially unstructured, outdoor play, in our children. Apparently it’s a global phenomenon. I instinctively strive to give my children what I call a “Slow Childhood.” This means minimizing obligations to a hyper-scheduled life and providing lots of unstructured play time, focusing on toys that require imagination and interaction to make them function (ie, generally not things that light up and go “whiz-bang!”). One of Esa’s points that struck home with me was the need for children to create games that are based on their rules. This isn’t about being in power, but in play-acting the structures that they encounter every day which are rarely explicitly declared, but upon which we base most of our society. It must be very confusing for children to comprehend the norms of introduction between adults, or the art of navigating the rules of traffic! By being able to play-act and create games that fluidly shift rules and dynamics, children can experiment with the social structures they encounter and come to master them through play.

Another aspect that jumped out was that which relates to elaboration:

The most striking decline was in Elaboration (ability to develop and elaborate upon ideas and detailed and reflective thinking and motivation to be creative). Scores in Elaboration decreased by over 36 % from 1984 to 2008.

I started wondering who else is thinking about the idea of a Slow Childhood and came across this beautiful post on “A Wild and Precious Life.” This homeschooling mom commends Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv. I think I’ll add it to the list and start looking for more ways to build on this idea of spreading my wings to create the space, protecting my children from the gale force winds of technology and the pace of modern life so I may give them the gift of a Slow Childhood.

Read Full Post »

Media and Body Image for Girls

Check out the resource guide on princesses and fairy tales.

It gives some options for directing “princess passion” away from Disney misogyny and includes great information about media awareness for girls.

Image used under Creative Commons Licensing, attributed to iboy_daniel

There’s an interesting post that made the WordPress.com home page today about some young girls in Beirut. The post is about the “whitening effect” related to race and how some cultures are pretty upfront about preferring lighter skin – so much so that they openly advertise skin lightening products. At one point, the blogger conveys how much “white” is preferred and how it’s exemplified by her young pupils who have taken to playing a Disney Princess game where they can create their own version of a princess. Though they hem and haw over details like clothes and hair, they reflexively choose the “white” skin color on the princesses.

Since I already have an axe to grind about Disney Princesses, this post practically leapt off the screen for me. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to notice that media influences self-image and that there’s considerable cause for alarm, especially as it relates to children. Boys and girls are limited by media influence, but I’m more concerned about my daughter than my son because the majority of roles portrayed for girls and women in media are that of supporters and objects, not leaders and protagonists. Some day, when I have more time I’ll get into the boy part, but the girl part has me for now. Part of it is that, when it comes to girl physiques, all types come with their risks — stereotypically attractive girls will be objectified and sexualized as they mature, more physically challenged girls will hold themselves in comparison.

As a mom, I’m driven to creating a sense of inner character and beauty in both of my children, male and female. In order to do this, I think it’s important to keep them from the dominant media culture as much as possible, as long as possible (they’re both <4 yrs old right now).This especially applies to the cabalesque influence of the Disney Princess regime and the Barbie empire. Both of the aforementioned perpetuate unrealistic physiques for girls and shuttle them into cattle shoots the feed the girls into cookie cutter versions of who they should become. This may sound extreme, but if you doubt my mentality, take a few days to breeze through Packaging Girlhood. It makes a pretty good case for the fact that there genuine intent in the crafting of marketing schemes to produce ultimate consumers. Or read this wonderful letter petitioning Pixar to create an un-Disney movie with a female protagonist to get a sense of the need for more.

When I try to discuss this subject with other adults, I’m surprised at how often my concerns are met with an attitude of “what’s the big deal? You’re taking things way to seriously.” or “You’re overthinking things.” Really? Am I? Take a moment to look at these short videos produced by Dove. Sure, it’s just another take on a media campaign, a fresh spin, but at least they’re pointing out something that’s deadly serious.

Watch the videos and then ask yourself if you still think the influence of media on girls’ body images is benign. Tell me there’s not something to be worked up about.

Read Full Post »

Polite as a Princess

For information and resources check out the resource guide on princesses and fairy tales. It gives some options for directing “princess passion” away from Disney misogyny.

Shoot me now. Who thinks this junk up?

“Polite as a Princess”

Here’s a quote from the back of the book:

The Disney Princesses know that it’s important to have good manners. Now you can learn to be as polite as a princess, too. All you have to do is say “pretty please,” and read this book!

Here’s my review from Amazon, a 1 star, of course:

“I have swallowed a secret burning thread. It cuts me inside and often I’ve bled.”

That’s a quote from a Suzanne Vega song, “The Queen and the Soldier.”

Teaching manners to children is all well and good, but courtliness isn’t about being a Disney prince or princess – it’s about being considerate and appreciative of others as a basic human value. Sure, this book has a seemingly well intentioned purpose: to teach your little girl good manners, but it comes at a cost – “be a little princess, learn to keep your mouth shut, be polite, passive and considerate of all others and maybe, some day your prince will come for you too!” Here’s a thought, skip the prince, skip the princess, learn about values of caring from others from true heroes and role models, like Mother Theresa and Martin Luther King.

Read Full Post »

Alterna-Princesses for Your Un-Princess

Looking for anti-disney resources to raise an unprincess? Check out the Princesses and Fairy Tales resource list.

Years ago, I babysat for a lesbian couple who had two little daughters. I was living on the East Coast and during my spring break, I visited San Francisco for the first time.  While perusing an alternative bookstore, I came across “The Paper Bag Princess.” At the time, in the early 90’s,  I thought this was an incredibly avant-garde book and snatched it up for the moms to share with their girls. Little did I realize at the time how I would come to appreciate this book for my own children and come to consider its “the princess doesn’t need the prince” message as a moral every little girl should learn, not just the daughters of lesbians!

I share that vignette as a note to how far my own perspective has changed over the years. I was raised fairly consciously about gender roles and grew up in an extremely pro-feminist area. Even with that advantage, I was so indoctrinated to the standard messages of  the princess tropes in contemporary and historical storylines that it seemed kitchy and cute to get an empowering book for little girls (this was in the pre “girl power” days, when the idea of girl empowerment hadn’t yet been a readily accepted intentional movement, which was later co-opted by marketers and made totally hollow). Now, I understand that providing little girls with strong female role models in their earliest literary experiences is essential.

I think that in recent decades, marketing machines have become so savvy at targeting small children parents need to think early and often about protecting their children from, or at least counteracting against, the limiting definitions of gender. When I was growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, I think it would have been normal to become concerned about over-sexualized or over-feminine messages being pointed at middle schoolers or high schoolers. Now, the messaging is already strong in preschool. Looking for a good example? My daughter goes to a pretty progressive Montessori school in a well educated area, with fairly savvy parents. One of the little girls brings a Bratz backpack to school every day. Great. My daughter is exposed to little hookers every day at school. Cool.

So, what’s the solution for a parent of a little girl? A complete media blackout? No girlie things ever?

Absolutely not! I think all little children need to play with and explore gender identification by playing with the height of masculinity and femininity to discover where they feel most comfortable in the spectrum. I don’t want to deny my daughter the chance to be a girlie girl… I just don’t want it to be pre-packaged and pre-defined for her a-la Disney princesses (BLECH!!!).

So, my solution is to seek out fairy stories more than princess stories, to find the tales of the wise women and wise girls, the ones who aren’t waiting for rescue from a prince, but are out exploring the world on their own feet. In addition, I want to embrace my daughter’s girlie play, but with flowing skirts and poofy dresses that would befit any fairy or princess, not just those of Disney.

I’m not a super crafty person, but I find great inspiration on Etsy.com. Just check this out:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/48781742/leilani-an-island-pixie-a-tiaras

Read Full Post »

Are You a “Real” Mom?

I was reading about Sanctimommies, and it got me thinking about types of moms and marketing. We live in a post-feminist era (this is not news, of course). The wonder of women entering and excelling in the workplace has long-since ceased to be a phenomenon and is now a general expectation. In the present state of the state of motherhood, there seem to be two camps – the “working” mother and the “SAHM” (stay at home mother). In general, both sides seem to feel a bit of jealousy for the other, as well as judgement, and this push-pull / dichotomy is a a classic reason why women have a hard time unifying for common causes, though we all have so much in common (like the desire for our children’s welfare). As with so many things female, this division isn’t readily visible – it rests like little faultlines under the surface of the women’s movement. After all, no one wants to offend, and no one wants to come across as overly sensitive. Ask the average mom in the park or boardroom if she feels this jealousy or judgement, and she’ll likely breezily brush it off as nonsense, that she’s happy with her position, and then finish her dismissal with examples of why her life is balanced. Ask an intimate mom-friend, however, and you’re likely to get a more honest appraisal.

Here’s how it breaks down: on the one hand, the “working” mothers feel judged that they are not home more with their children, that this somehow makes them less of a mother. Even if they don’t feel this way about themselves, they feel that this is how SAHM’s see them. On the other side, stay at home mothers feel like they’re missing out on career and being valued (financially) by broader society. Our culture gives lip service to the work of the mother, the all-importance of raising children, our future, blah, blah, blah, but at the end of the day, one glance at the way our social security program is structured or how swiftly we lop off education programs from public funding shows how highly valued this work is. So, SAH moms sit on the “undervalued” side of the fence, wondering if they’ll ever apply that education, be able to achieve the professional heights they may have gotten to had they not had children, etc. And, yes, they do feel judged by the working moms – judged and begrudged.

In between these two camps, you’ve got the “perfect mother.” We all know this one – the ultra-achiever hell-bound to do it all. To me, this kind of mom is a holdover from the eighties, the woman that tells herself she can and will have it all — not just a “job,” but a full, high-achieving career and spend every other minute of her live involved with her children. This is all very well and good… except… where’s the woman, the actual individual? How does the woman foster herself? To me, the concept of the “perfect mother” is far more damaging than the June Cleaver model. The elusive “perfect mother” exists somewhere out there, along with the Easter Bunny and Lochness monster… and we all hold her ideal up as an example of where the rest of us are falling short.

None of these ideas are novel. I’ve known that, but I still haven’t gotten a space to express this for myself until now. What I didn’t know, until today, was that these ideas are SO un-novel that they’ve even made their way into an advertising whitepaper for Ad Age entitled “The Rise of the Real Mom.”

I’ve only been able to briefly scan the whitepaper, but a lot of what I’ve just stated is there — the notion of the “perfect mother” the super-mom, the june cleaver…

So, here’s my question… as with the creation of the “tween” demographic” (did they exist before they were marketed to?), the marketing machine behind the “me” generation (remember all those “I am…” ads of the late 90’s?), or the Virginia Slims “Long Way Baby” campaigns capitalizing on women’s independence… Do marketing campaigns follow and further define facets of society, or create them? As a mom, do I think of myself as a “real mom” struggling with comparisons to the “perfect mother” ideal because I’ve been marketed to, or do marketers pursue me in that way because I’m part of the demographic?

Either way, this white paper is cause for pause and insight to an insidious industry. Why insidious? It’s not just about what products I may or may not buy as a result of an effective campaign… but how I may even think of myself and my role in society!

Here’s a link to the full white paper (opens a PDF): The New Female Consumer: The Rise of the Real Mom

Read Full Post »

Raising a Princess Who is Not a Princess

For information and resources on  Raising a Princess Who is Not a Princess, check out the resource guide I’ve put together on princesses and fairy tales.

It’s hard to write about this subject without launching directly into a rant about the evils of marketing that’s directed at children, the lengths to which I’ve gone to keep my children unbranded, and the dangers I see lurking behind the faces of even the most innocent of children’s characters, such as Winnie the Pooh.  ***Deep Breath*** I will try to stave off those subjects for another time…

 

I was a tom-girl growing up, no question about it. You’d sooner find me digging up worms than playing dress-up or putting on lipstick. Because of this, I’d largely assumed I’d have only sons. Of course, the universe blessed me with a daughter and I’ve known all along that, at some point, I’d probably have to figure out how to do the more girly stuff.

Let me say right up front that I don’t look down on the girlie stuff, the princess fetish, all that pink and frills… I just don’t naturally “get” it. I do get that many little girls need to go through a princess phase. In fact, it’s probably very healthy. I see it as playing with the extreme end of gender identification, the height of femininity, in order to find one’s place somewhere in the middle. What I don’t like about the princess thing, however, is how heavily marketed and pre-fabricated it all is.

The mass-media machine readily converts an interest in femininity and princess play into lots of ready-made princess roles — cinderella, snow white, the little mermaid, etc:

These pre-fabbed princesses come with very specific messages of what it means to be a girl, what it means to be a woman. The physical ideals are bad enough — large breasts, small hips, demure head tilts, etc — but the story lines are even worse… What’s the “hidden” message behind Beauty and the Beast? If you love a horrible, awful monster enough, despite all his horrendous behaviour, you’ll eventually change him. Oh, and the rest of the world thinks he’s this horrible beast too, but they just don’t understand him the way you do. Perfect storyline for the future battered wife!

How about Sleeping Beauty? Be passive, don’t do anything, you are frozen and impotent, but eventually, because you are pretty, someone will come along and save you. Way to take a hold of your own life!

Breaking down the story lines of Disney movies and fairy tales is the stuff of a dissertation, not a blog post, but I think you get my general point.

When my daughter turned three, she got some really nice presents, some of which were “princessy.” She hadn’t yet begun a princess phase. Despite the fact that it’s common, I personally don’t think it is a requisite for growing up “girl,” so I set the princess books and games aside and decided to wait until she expressed an interest in things of that nature. Along the way, I did toss out the Disney-specific stuff, but held onto items that were “princess,” but not loaded with so much other context.

This brings me to the title of this post, which introduces a new subject for this blog — Raising a Princess Who is Not a Princess.

As a conscious parent, especially a media-conscious one, how can I help my daughter embrace her femininity without feeding her into the giant maw of the Disney/Bratz/Anorexic-Ophelia-Drowning-Paralyzing-Passivity-Cinderella-Effect-Anti-Feminist machine?

Read Full Post »