I love this post. I love this post so much that I’d like to print a jillion copies, laminate them, and fly overhead in a biplane, dropping them as leaflets over the land. And then everyone can come over to my house and we’ll eat tacos and have a consciousness-raising session. TL;DR: Come back, Twisty/Jill. We miss you.
I'm Michelle. This is my blog. I write about women and fatness, expound upon semi-coherent thoughts I have in the middle of the night, and offer tough love to those in whom I am disappointed; they are legion.
King of States! 
I miss her SO MUCH.
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Great post. You do the tacos, I’ll bring dessert.
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From the “Patriarchy” post: “Femininity is a rigid system of behaviors imposed on us.”
This does not explain 3-year-old girls obsessed with the princess dream. They are too young to have been imposed upon, in my opinion, and yet they seem to have this drive. I don’t get it, just know that it exists.
Other than that, it is a thought-provoking post that I mostly agree with. Thanks for sharing.
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I would disagree that a toddler is too young to have absorbed widely touted (and toxic) messages about womanhood and femininity, but even if that were the case, the point at which it morphs from a freely chosen play activity to a social requirement of femininity is the issue.
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For them to be “obsessed” with princesses, they presumably have had to have been introduced to the concept, yes? So they have by definition been imposed upon already, unless there’s some tribe of feral three-year-olds inventing princesses out of thin air that I’m unaware of.
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Introduced to the concept? I don’t know. As a boy, I don’t remember being introduced to the concept of aggression, heroism, and risk-taking. It seemed to appear naturally in my play with other boys, and I would argue that it would have done so in the absence of any external stimuli (i.e. the desert island scenario).
I have assumed that girls were much the same in their own way. I could be wrong. Perhaps all 3-year-old girls secretly dream of driving bulldozers when they grow up, but I’ve never met one.
Don’t get me wrong – I agree that there **is** an abundance of toxic messages about womanhood. However, to use the word “impose” is to assume that all girls and boys are blank slates that can be molded however society wants. I think that is not true.
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But aggression, heroism, and risk-taking are human characteristics; princesses are a marketing concept.
I’m being a bit disingenous, as I think it’s clear your point is that you believe little girls are innately interested in costuming, pageantry, and sparkly things. However, most little kids are interested in these things. It’s not that little girls are particularly encouraged to show interest in them; it’s more that most American parents tend to flip their shit if little boys express interest in anything traditionally considered feminine. This is slowly changing — I’m hopeful that in another generation, these taboos will be much diminished from what they are today.
In the end, though, it doesn’t really matter what either of us believe, assume, or even anecdotally observe. There are sociologists, anthropologists, and other scientists whose entire careers are devoted to studying innate differences between the sexes. We can both defer to their research as they certainly know way more about this than we ever will. 🙂
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