Cinderella ate my daughter

Parts of it, I loved very much. Much of it, I found very dated. How amazing! But the world of gender has changed a LOT since this book's release date (2011): namely, we've had the 2013 Supreme Court decision, #MeToo, the 2016 election, and an explosion of gender diversity on the cultural consciousness (and transphobia becoming a political platform :vomit:). So, I found a lot of this book to be - maybe outdated and rendered moot?

Anyway,

The things I liked

Preschool girls are definitely obsessed with princesses. The blooming of gender consciousness among the preschool set is really a sight to behold (and annoying to deal with). Boy, this tiny gender police. So the book was great in framing that: framing how, for example, kids as old as 6 don't understand that their sex is (barring medical intervention) unchanging. So they reckon, yeah, if you cut my hair short, maybe I will become a boy. And so on. I found this very adorable, enlightening, and compassion-giving: ooooh, so that's why you can't wear the baggy shorts. Okay, fine, whatever.

I also appreciated the author's awareness of her own hang-ups, and the (colorful!) interaction between second wave (mostly white lady) feminism - which sounds lovely, tbh, I wish I was wearing overalls in 1977, full of women's lib hope, fighting for equal pay and so on - and early 2000s reactionary feminism. DID U KNOW that the number of stay-at-home-moms increased in the 2000s? (DID U ALSO KNOW that “parenting” was not a word until the 1970s, and, indeed, women out of the workforce were previously called housewives or spinsters (aka, it was marital status - not kid status - that labeled you)). Anyway, I found Orenstein's ability to also recognize her own ridiculousness - NO TULLE SKIRTS FOR U! - relatable and, again, compassion-giving.

Did you know that “tween”, as a word, was invented by marketers? AND “toddler”?!!

Anyway, I appreciated how much Orenstein focused on marketing - THE EVILS OF MAD MEN - and how insidious capitalism is in defining our culture, our childhoods, etc. The brand recognition stuff was, ugh, revolting.

The things that made me go, “oh, jeez”

I didn't necessarily dislike anything in the book, but I did find it quaint. First of all, one of Orenstein's big focuses is the sexualization of girls - and the way (American! corporate!) culture inundates girls with an emphasis on appearance and performance, at the expense of their own internal selves. Fine, okay. Yes. Toddlers and Tiaras is an aberration, as are Bratz. I had literally just read a research report (argh, which I can't find right now - I think by Pew), something that had surveyed teens, about their hopes and fears. Their TOP worry was mental health (top worry for parents too). Their top pressure was academic. Sex and sexuality was way down the list - something that makes Jean Twenge, e.g., get worried (the kids!! always glued to their screens!). Girls are also, on average, outperforming boys academically - at all levels (see Richard Reeves's book). Sooo I just couldn't really take seriously Orenstein's concerns (which go on for quite a while) about the early 2000s Mad Men/Disney Princess marketing machine/Britney Spears/Hannah Montana breeding a generation of empty-headed bimbos.

Another quaintness that I feel is no longer helpful was Orenstein's hand-wringing over social media (which included... MySpace!!!). In this regard, I found Richard Culatta's book a lot more down to Earth, reasonable, and helpful. Orenstein was basically like “these crazy kids with their thefacebook.com”. I mean, she's right about social media being intricately linked with advertising, social performance, and social-performance-as-free-advertising, but Facebook is ded now. :p And TikTok is just so very different.