Once upon a time, little girls are made of sugar and spice and all things nice and little boys are made of frogs and snails and puppy-dog tails ... but no more!
Enter the feminist book for children:
Bring on Jacinta Bunnell's colouring book Girls Are Not Chicks, published in the UK this week. The New York-based author first had the idea for feminist books for children when reading bedtime stories as a nanny. "I found myself editing the words so as not to pass on a sexist message," she says. "In most children's books the girls have pretty frocks and bows in their hair, so I would turn it around – call the boys by girls' names and vice versa."
In the US "anti-princess reading lists" have appeared, pioneered by the websites Mommytracked.com and Bitchmagazine.org. There are now books for three- to eight-year-olds with a specifically feminist agenda: Call me Madame President, Girls Think of Everything, Girls Will Be Boys Will Be Girls.
Viv Groskop of The Guardian has the run down of books that'll turn your little princesses into Betty Friedans in no time flat: Link
Let them be KIDS, let them play, wonder, explore, learn and feel pretty. Let them play in the mud and then clean up and dress up in pink. Let them be girls.
Anyway, this is actually quite great. It isn't about getting rid of princesses, which I'm sure several more commenters are going to assume, but just about giving girls more role models that might be more relevant to them than Barbie Sleeping Beauty and her army of similarly white women who need to be rescued by a prince, which was pretty much all I had growing up. I also whittled sticks, built forts, climbed trees, loved legos and video games (still do) and asked for things like swiss army knives (which my male cousins got), but every christmas brought nothing but more barbies and pink castles, because people like CE assume it's human nature and that that's what I wanted.
I don't think there's an "overfeminist" message here, since the massive majority of our culture is still princessified. Seriously, go to a freaking Toys 'R' Us and tell me it's "overfeminist". http://contexts.org/socimages/2008/06/24/what-kids-learn-at-toys-r-us/
It's quite likely they'll swap their tastes several times in the next decade or two - and good luck to them. The only problem we have with it is the extra work telling them that they don't have to be upset when their school mates can't handle their non-conformity. We've managed to convince friends and family not to buy "inappropriate" presents - they've learned now to ask each kid what's in favour that year.
HOORAY! You've now ostracized your child!
This is originally a very dirty and criminal limerick.
Get educated Peeps!!!
Did it work? To an extent. He did play with the doll for awhile. Then he got bored, tore it apart and threw it over the fence.
I'm not sure why 3-8 year old children of either gender need propaganda of either sort.
You who claim that your daughters would rather dress in pink and play with dolls, and sons that would rather play cowboys and indians, well why do you think this is? It's not because of a congenital need to do so, but rather a mirror image of our society.
Unfortunately (I wish it weren't true) I think that these patterns will never disappear completely. It's too ingrained in our daily lives and because of that simple fact it will continue onwards.
If I ever have kids in the future, or am around kids of that age I will be sure never to get a feminists' children's book. I just hope I have all my children books from the past, then no worries. Heh, can't wait for them to butch up dora the explorer or barbie.
And as for the lil beauty queens and whatnot, it isn't because you read them books, it is because of how the parents raise them.
Originally a poem from 1820 England... not a dirty limerick... Get educated?
Alot of women grew up reading these stories, and turned out just fine...
- this statement proves the need for an alternative message. "What little boy doesn't want to be a prince?" doesn't have quite the same ring, does it - because you can immediately picture some boys wanting to be firefighters or action heroes or whatever else.
Because we show boys from birth that they have many options.
Funny if all you offer - and all you approve of - is princesses and pink, that many girls will "want" that. I'm interested in the fear underlying those who want to insist that it's 'natural' for girls to only want those things. What do YOU lose if girls are taught that blue's a girl's colour too?
If you offer alternatives like in these books, as well as Disney, all kids will have a real choice. Not until then though.
I don't see why the idea that there are multiple ways to be a girl, and that they don't all involve tiaras and pink frilly dresses is so threatening to people? I can't understand why the idea of wanting to challenge very limiting notions of femininity provokes quite so much, frankly ill informed, anti-feminist ire.