Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture

I have two daughters who are very into princesses and very girly. I thought this book would be a very interesting read, even if I didn't agree with the author. As I read, I appreciated the author's extensive research. She traveled to far away places to see how the other half lives and truly tried to understand why the princess mentality is important in some cultures and not others. She traveled to universities to witness studies being done as well. However, I felt there was too much of her opinion thrown into the book and after a while felt like I was reading an editorial and not a book. It's one thing to write an editorial and share your opinion, but to write a book and throw your two cents in there to make a couple bucks doesn't seem right. I was disappointed by the end of the book.

i found this book boring personally. I think this book is more for mothers. She seems to repeat herself through out the book. At some points i did agree with her. But as a teenager i wouldn't recommend it.

At first I was enjoying the author's points about American Girl and Disney Princesses, but then as the book went on I felt like I was reading someone's blog than a book. The author became a little too anti girlie stuff and when she goes on about Miley Cyrus and others like her I really just wanted to be done. My book club read this and had some issues to discuss but overall I guess we all love princesses more than this author!

No, I don't agree with everything the author says 100%. Yes, the book does come off a bit Femi-nazish at times. However, there are many good points and great references throughout the book. This book is a must read for anyone with a young daughter.

I heard the author in an interview and thought this might be an interesting read and a refreshing perspective. Unfortunately it is just a rehash of an old whine about how girls like Barbie too much. She never grasps a fundamental about young children - that when they become aware of their gender, they celebrate it. Most girls do so by embracing Cinderella and the like. And that is okay - being feminine does not make a female less strong, less independent, less capable. Trying to make a child be something other than their nature is what retards their ability to move on to the next phase of girlhood. Let them celebrate each stage of childhood and you'll soon be rewarded with a young woman who has all the strength, drive and sense of self you want for her.

If you worry about what your child will become,, I suggest you examine yourself, and your own vanity., because that is where your doubts come from. Then, put less focus (and blame) on looks (and Barbie, Cinderella, etc), and a lot more on culture, travel, museums, current events, sports, classical - or at least, adventurous, literature, the great outdoors, volunteerism, crafts that stimulate imagination - the things result in an active and productive mind . That is what I did, and lo and behold, my daughter thrived. She's now 22, and I could not be prouder of the strong, brilliant, independent individual she struck me as very early in life, and has always continued to be.

Peggy Orenstein shows the difficulties of raising strong independent girls in today's consumer culture. She shows how this works in general and in her own household.

First she explores "the princess" which every three year old girl magically wants to be. Sleeping Beauty cleans for the dwarfs and sleeps; Cinderella cleans for her step family and is beautiful. Princesses are rewarded for their beauty. They are not team players; they don't have to because they merely wait until their rescue. Disney has created a whole consumer culture for little girls to dream they are princesses. These little girls graduate, all too soon, to slightly trashy dolls that come with a host of beauty products and services that communicate beauty and body ideals.

This creates a host of issues for parents. How far should these fantasies be indulged? Some parents go all out, spending small fortunes on not just toys but beauty pageants.

While Orenstein's points are important and her observations are right on, there are alternatives. Sports and individual achievement for girls are no longer frowned upon. In the pre-school media Clifford the Big Red Dog's owner is a girl and she has a nicely diverse neighborhood group. Dr. McStuffins is a girl as are many of the toys she cures. The Wonder Pets appear to be sexless. The American Girl dolls have each played a roll in history. For older girls there are girl travelers, detectives and superheroes.

These alternatives may be mere distractions from the larger marketing coups that may have psychology on their side. Orenstein cites research showing that children pick up visual cues that they feel are the identifiers of their sex. They latch on to these identifiers almost to verify and signal that they are indeed a girl (or boy) or to ward against a possible change. Hence, girls not only gravitate to pink because it is overwhelmingly marketed to them as part and parcel of being a girl, but also because it is re-enforced by the peer group that has these pink consumer items and by doting parents who lovingly refer to their "little princess".

Orenstein sticks with the issues for those parents who can afford these toys and accessories. I cannot help but think of the issues for parents who can't.

The book is short, breezy and thought provoking.

Thought provoking. I think any mother or father of girls should read this. I am not a parent but read it because I'm a new pediatrician and am astounded by all the princess stuff. I'll be honest I didn't realize all of it even, but the book made me aware.

A good story of an event that occurred today. I'm a big cyclist and I was working on a new mountain bike I got off Craig's list and just taking it to the street after working on it... My neighbors girls were talking to me about their bikes... Of course all pink. Then the one told me how she got a hand me down helmet and that it was horrible because it was blue. I have many different helmets but was wearing fluoro orange. I told her I thought her blue helmet was much cooler. I hope she believes me.

In Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture , Peggy Orenstein attempts to justify her feminism with the of raising a daughter in realities of today's "princess culture."

Ever noticed how childless individuals always seem to be experts in raising everybody ELSE'S children? After giving birth to her first child, a daughter, it would seem natural for feminist researcher and author Peggy Orenstein to put her politics to the test. She laments,

"Walking around the streets of Disney, I found myself in an odd juxtaposition between intoxication with the sparkles, jewels and tiaras on the one hand, and disbelief that I was an active participant in what I had so proudly balked at in my former life. My former life being my life BEFORE children."

She cleverly wages war using clearly examined research on the culture of the color pink; magnified and invented gender differences in marketing, the value of toy guns in childhood pretend-play, childhood consumerism beginning at age eighteen MONTHS, and the role Disney Princess play in children's gender-driven behavior as the Princesses evolve from the seemingly harmless Cinderella to the adult version of a Disney Princess, the shockingly sinister Miley Cyrus.

Orenstein ask the million dollar question: “Is all this pink really necessary?”

The answer?

“Only if you want to make money.”

The topic of fairy tales and their influence on children, especially girls, as well as pop culture is one of the more popular topics on SurLaLune, my fairy tales website and blog. I had to build pages about Children and Fairy Tales and Women and Fairy Tales to help answer all the many, many queries I receive about these topics. Then there's the whole kettle of fish under Disney and Fairy Tales, too. This book can be added to all three lists to some degree.

The book developed from a somewhat famous article by Orenstein in the New York Times on December 2006, What's Wrong With Cinderella? It is no surprise it developed into a book deal. The article is rather inflammatory and received quite a bit of response on the web.

One of my complaints about these types of articles and books--usually--is the lumping of fairy tales in general with Disney fairy tales in particular. Orenstein avoids this. In her book, she discusses Disney as a separate entity and also goes back to the source tales. Of course, most of the direct fairy tale interpretation and criticism she invokes is Bettelheim, no surprise really, despite Bettelheim's fall from grace with academia. Not that the there is much discussion of fairy tales at all, some pages, not even a full chapter. The relief is that fairy tales are not really blamed for anything, treated more as symptoms and representations of issues. The focus is on Cinderella with Little Mermaid, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty getting pretty much equal second billing together. She admits that not all Cinderellas are created equal. She is actually somewhat enamored with Aschenputtel.

That said, fairy tales are not really the case in point here although they are represented. The book covers Orenstein's interactions with Disney, American Girl, Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana, beauty pageants and even Twilight. The surprise to me was that despite my assumptions from the book description as well as the original inspiration article, the book is not very inflammatory. Orenstein is sincere and tries to find a balance between the extremes as she explores American pop culture of young girls and its influence upon them. She doesn't offer solutions--which other reviewers have wanted--but she makes the point that parents pretty much have to circumnavigate this difficult period in history to their best style and choices according to their daughters, and sons for that matter.

Overall, this is not a scientific book although Orenstein references some research and other sources, such as the well-reviewed Girls on the Edge. The examples are mostly anecdotal, and in this case that means the anecdotes are mostly from San Francisco and New York, not cities that represent most of the country's experience although there are certainly commonalities. That was also my issue with the Babies movie in which the children from tecnhologically advanced countries were from Tokyo and San Francisco. Those children's experiences are almost as foreign to the average American kid as the Mongolian and African children. That said, I certainly enjoyed the movie all the same. Mostly, I don't know many children as materially privileged as the ones discussed in this book. This is a book for sparking thought and discussion, starting the discussion of girls' needs and wants under the influence of a supersaturated media culture. I can see it really sparking in a book club meeting. Nevertheless, many of Orenstein's anecdotal experiences are similar to my own. The Princess culture lives and breathes just about everywhere little girls live in the US.

So, yes, I recommend the book if the topic interests or even scares you. The book offers benefits to the princess culture--and surprisingly enough Twilight--despite the author's initial apprehensions. It doesn't celebrate, mind you, but it doesn't wholeheartedly condemn them either, seeing value. The nature vs. nurture debate is also strong and discussed--this is where the most scientific research is shared. There are no easy answers and Orenstein serves only to ask the questions and give a little comfort, surprisingly enough. She admits to her own imperfections and wobbles, too. In the end, she is another mom wanting her daughter to grow-up with the freedom and inspiration to be whoever and whatever she wants to be without insecurities or hang-ups, or at least the minimum amount possible.

The marketing, I admit, fascinates me for it is more inflammatory than the book itself. I fear it may alienate some of its needed audience, those who throw it all out due to the extreme sounding descriptions. I left the book with more of a loathing for marketing to children in general. I am of the last generation that didn't get the full court press from media marketing although I experienced my fair share. My younger siblings did get it in the 80s and I experienced a little bit of it with them. It's a scary, scary machine.

As a female software engineer, I've been finding myself thinking more about what to do about the paucity of women in my field. I recently read "Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics", a research report from the American Association of University Women, which lays out many of the challenges women face in those fields. One of its points is the role that stereotypes play in how girls perceive their own success in these fields, and how gender stereotypes play a role in girls' confidence. The report is fascinating and accessible; I highly recommend reading it.

I stumbled across this book soon after I read the report. It's clear that gender stereotyping issues appear early in life (after all, it was Barbie who famously proclaimed "math is hard!"). While I don't have children, it's impossible to not notice both the pink phenomenon and the princess phenomenon. Do these well-marketed phenomenons play into gender stereotypes?

Orenstein takes a look at what is marketed to girls, and the ages at which these items and ideas are marketed. Her view is through the lens of raising her own daughter, and the book illustrates the debates that she has with herself about pink princesses and how they shape girls in general and her daughter in particular. She meets with the Disney exec behind the highly-successful Disney Princess line, attends a beauty pageant for little girls, and ventures deep into the belly of the beast by visiting an American Doll store. She looks at the hyper-feminity presented to girls, first in the pink and princess phase, which then transforms into "sassiness" (which is a codeword for "sexy") of Bratz dolls. The next step is a return to Disney and its well-marketed tween stars like Britney Spears (remember: she was a Mouseketeer long before she shaved her head) and Miley Cyrus.

The book doesn't directly answer my question about the princess phase and how it might impact gender stereotypes that decrease girls' confidence and performance in science and engineering fields, but I didn't expect it to. It's a look at how marketing plays into (and perhaps causes) hyper-sexualisation from a young age. Orenstein's method of considering each phenomenon, how it might impact her daughter, and questioning her own assumptions is well-suited to this book. It gave me a lot to think about, not to mention a long list of books and other research about girls' performance to read in the future.

I'd already read Ms. Orenstein's SchoolGirls and loved it (as frustrating and depressing as the subject was), so I was very eager to read this book and see her take on another aspect of modern "girl culture." I don't have any kids yet, but for a long time I've frankly been scared at the prospect of having a daughter and would prefer only boys, thanks to this Disney princess culture and inappropriate sexualization of younger and younger girls. But as Ms. Orenstein points out, this culture also ultimately hurts boys and teaches them equally skewed ideas of what it means to be a boy and relate to the opposite sex.

Ms. Orenstein covers topics such as beauty pageants for prepubescent girls (some not even a year old yet), superheroes, the color pink, the Balkanization of children's toys, teenybopper pop stars and celebrities (who doubtless won't be remembered in another generation), body image, Libby Lu makeovers for girls not even old enough to wear makeup or really understand what being sexy is all about, social networking sites, and how the Disney princess culture really started. I learnt a number of new things, like the reason why none of the princesses ever make eye contact when they appear together, and why pink and blue switched teams around the 1940s.

It's frustrating to read so many stories about how commercialized children's toys have become, and how rigidly sex-segregated they are in stores. Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but I don't remember "boy" and "girl" aisles when I was growing up in the Eighties and early Nineties. Toys were toys, and there were a myriad of colors. Even the more stereotypically "girl" toys weren't bathed in a sea of pink. Today, even toys that seem completely unisex are painted in blue and pink. And as Ms. Orenstein points out, it's not about pink being a bad color or it being a bad thing for a girl to pick pink as her favorite color or a princess doll as her favorite toy. It's about not having other valid options presented, and having sex stereotypes reinforced through teachers, parents, classmates, movies, and the media. It's not really a choice if a girl sees only toys and clothes in pink, salmon, fuchsia, rose, and carnation, as compared to picking pink from a choice including blue, peach, orange, yellow, green, and black.

Ms. Orenstein's own daughter Daisy started getting interested in the Disney princess culture, despite her parents' best efforts to raise her in a different way. She explores how even girls from progressive, non-commercialized households can fall prey to this culture, and what parents and other adults can do to combat it and redirect it in a more positive way. As frustrating and depressing as it feels, it is possible to raise girls with a well-rounded notion of what it means to be a girl, and to teach them that it's not a choice between extremes. A tomboy can play with dolls once in awhile, just like a girly girl can enjoy playing with trucks sometimes.

Summary: A somewhat reactionary but otherwise well intentioned and well reasoned critique of the new objectification of women.

As the father of three girls I was already painfully aware of the pervasive pink pandemic that seems to have swept the pre-teen years. Perhaps it was first grade where I noticed our eldest doing some suggestive hip thrusting. Common for an MTV video, but what is the message she might be getting from this?

For those who haven't really thought much about the topic, it may come off as somewhat alarmist, but that's definitely the point. On the other hand I found the author's tone to be appropriate, though I was already quite concerned with the "Pink / Princess / Bratz" progression.

As the author points out, there are numerous channels that initiate this. Even if you ban Bratz, however, even the Disney princesses hold subtle messages that undermine the long term confidence and value structure of girls. The author also quotes studies that show even subtle messages can affect how girls think - and perform - in school.

While the author may not make specific recommendations, the message to me is clear: be aware of the messages that these products, media, etc send, consider the message that you, as a parent, want them to get, and take the appropriate actions (Talk to them about what they think these things mean)

She really bashes the color pink and girls stuff. I am not still sure how that sexualizes a child. Having had girls and having been a girl there are ways to keep girls grounded. No works really well. Also a lot of this book seems to about rich little girls who else can afford 500 at the drop of a hat at an American girl store? Also seems to me that her daughter went through a stage and by the end of the book was friends with only boys. So mom had some influence. Honestly I think as long as parents are involved in their kids life and they show them how to make right decisions. Everything else is bunk.

Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture by Peggy Orenstein is an eye opening study for anyone raising girls in today's society. When I saw the book on the options list for the store Vine review, I was fascinated by the title and the concept, which turned out to offer a great deal more than the cover suggests. The Disney-instigated princess phenomenon has ceased being new and novel and is simply the backdrop of our daughter's lives, at least in America. Don't get me wrong, modern children have always played princess, but Orentstein's book exposes how the culture of strategically-cultivated consumerism that is behind toys and dolls is troubling and the many manifestations of "princess" are cause for concern.

Orentstein's book is broken up into sections, some that I was expecting and some that were a surprise. She opens the book with the birth of her daughter and her immersion into the world of princess, starting even before birth. In "What's Wrong With Cinderella," Orentstein explores the changing nature of the Disney princesses over time, how they turned from being a few characters in old animated movies to the enormous money-making franchise of today. Peggy explores how this phenomenon was not an accident, but a strategic marketing decision to turn young girls (and their mothers) into marketing targets. She also touches on the contradiction of the American Girl line, which offers more depth in message but mixed with material consumerism in purchase options.

In "Pinked," Orenstein explores the rise of the color pink to define girls (less than 100 years ago, believe it or not, that color was associated with boys and blue with girls!). She also discusses the rise of the doll in American society and the path from baby dolls to Barbies to what she calls today's "doll wars" - lines of dolls, replete with accessories, competing for market share. She also, in these first chapters, begins a book-long exploration of the resulting early sexualization of young girls that, disturbingly, rears its head in nearly every subsequent chapter.

Orenstein delves more into the academic nature of "What Makes Girls Girls," exploring the developmental path of discovering gender and sex for young children, before moving into what she calls the extreme of expressing girl culture - the children's pageant circuit. She then spends some time exploring not the merchandising, but the stories themselves that our children are reading - the Grimm fairy tales vs. the sanitized Disney versions as well as modern fairy tales like the Twilight series.

In my opinion, the most interesting chapter in the book was "Wholesome to Whoresome." Personally, I'd like to see Orenstein expand this chapter into a book of its own. She deals with the "live" Disney princesses - Brittany Spears, Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana, Hilary Duff, Selena Gomez and others in the Disney constellation of girl stars. Over and over these girls seem to transition from a role model to young girls into a tabloid cautionary tale. Orenstein makes the point that is not the "good girl gone bad" that is the problem, but that the fetishism of their "goodness" that is the problem to begin with. There is simply nowhere else for them to go, potentially taking their young fans with them, to the horror of the mothers who pinned their hopes on the artificially sweet role model they were promised.

Orenstein then spends some time talking about alternate role models and body type awareness, as well as the online world of social networking. She is concerned about the way girls "package themselves" as a brand in the online world, and the permanence and rapidity of information exchanged by kids on the web. As a facebook fan, I am concerned about this as well, while like Orenstein, also challenged by these very notions myself.

Overall, Orenstein's book asks more questions than provides answers, partly because some of these issues, while academically interesting, are so very ingrained in how we raise girls today that it is easy to acknowledge her concerns, but shrug them off for lack of any hint of how to do things differently. Orenstein does a great job acknowledging these tensions throughout the book - the princess thing is over the top, yes, but it's so CUTE! Facebook is problematic, but they'll have an online presence through their friends whether they want to or not. Alternate play is a great idea, but will any friends play with them.

But each of these issues and questions are important ones for parents to be asking themselves as their daughters grow. The primary message I drew from this book is the importance of protecting our daughters from the tentacles of consumeristic marketing. Life cannot simply be about having stuff, buying stuff and conforming to the need for the right stuff. This has always been true, but the "stuff" has become so much more intrusive in our everyday lives. The other message I found was continuously finding ways to challenge our girls to develop their inner selves rather than just packaging their outer selves. Ideally, this is the sort of book that should be revisited every year or so by parents of daughters, and eventually by the daughters themselves.

I congratulate Peggy on an excellent exploration of the challenges of young girls today and for deconstructing the significant role consumer marketing impacts the daily inner and outer life of our girls. I also would direct my readers to Peggy's excellent Facebook fan page, on which she expands these themes through discussion of the current events of the day.

After reading this book I went out for dinner and saw a little girl in pink with wings, I smiled and her grandfather asked why. I explained that I had just read this book. It makes you more aware of children and their fashions.

The author not only relies on her daughter's taste in fashions and fads, but copiously references research on child behavior. Why does her daughter get caught up in the fashion for princess gear? The book explains how Disney revived its merchandise by offering princess gear, shamelessly marketing it to little girls. The author has great insights into the world of child beauty queens and pageants.

The book looks at where and how children are influenced - whether in the aisles of Toys R'Us or at a neighborhood party. There are plenty of references for further study at the end.

The author comes around as she writes to accepting that it might be OK for little girls to have fun following fads, yet she still has her concerns. By negotiating with her daughter, rather than operating in a command and control mode, she allowed marketing influences to affect her daughter's style. She wants her child to think independently and not be swayed by fads. On the other hand she wants her to have a full life and be socially in the mainstream. She doesn't want her daughter to have an Amish-style upbringing. She could have chosen to take her daughter walking in the countryside instead of to a New York toy store.

This is a book about parenting, but it's also a comment on today's culture for little girls.

This was an entertaining, quick read for me when I found out I was pregnant with my first child and not knowing the sex yet. There were certainly some troubling statistics that she threw out which I was never aware of (ie I was not even aware that prepubescent girls could get plastic surgery, much less breast implants??) - however some of the conclusions she jumped to from the stats were a bit wild. I definitely could relate to the spa-parties and over-the-top-pink/princess-parties that she mentioned since I am seeing some of with my husband's family who have young daughters. But she does not present any solution to her stated problems, since she admits that she is a bit confused herself. That was a bit frustrating, not because she did not have the answers (who does??), but she continued to push her daughter without strong convictions herself (ie giving in to a Barbie doll).
Bringing up a child in this day and age is tough, and one could probably argue that it may be tougher for a daughter, as the author did. But the author missed out on an opportunity to be a educator for her daughter by being a role model - as mother, she does not have to shun all that is pink and princess-y, but she could go out hiking, play sports, etc. If we were going to have a daughter, she could probably have all the pink she wants, but there IS another world out there other than the materialistic one.

It's difficult raising children in our culture of social media, rampant messaging, and mass media--even moreso when that child is a daughter. What does it mean when the little girl you've raised to believe she can be whatever she wants to be decides that she wants to be a Disney Princess?
Peggy Orenstein tackles many of the issues that result from the "real-time experiment on our children" taking place in today's commercial culture. Her analysis is convincing; and her approach is not polemic nor extreme. She even handles beauty pageants for little girls with sympathy and understanding, challenging our beliefs about what is acceptable or not for our daughters. I think this book is an important read for anyone, whether you have a daughter or not: all of us have a responsibility to the girls and young women growing up in our society today.

Orenstein does a good job of analyzing the breadth and pervasiveness of this princess culture as well as how we got here. She has done her research and has a balanced approach to the issues. Perhaps sometimes a bit too balanced as there is a constant, "this seems to be very bad, but then again one could argue..", to the point of you wishing she would just hold firm to one side or the other. My guess is that she probably felt that she had to take this approach because she would likely be challenged on every assertion. Its all rather depressing, but overall I learned a lot and found it worthwhile.

My main complaint is the following: This book is supposed to be about how to raise a young daughter. It is about parenting. Why oh why are dads so conspicuously absent? This book is yet another that works with the premise that only moms really care about the raising of their children and are the most engaged in child-rearing. It would not bother me so much if this were meant to be about mother-daughter relationships or even strictly about motherhood. But again, it is about raising our daughters, and if fathers don't care as much about that as mothers, then they SHOULD. Books like this only reinforce that difference. This disparity starts at the very beginning of the book with statements like,"How much trouble could she get into, I reasoned: there were at least fifty Jewish mothers in the room." It's a Bar Mitzvah, so I assume there were just as many fathers, but never mind them, thank goodness for the mothers who will watch the children. That might seem like a silly anecdote, but the whole book is like that. "Rare is the mother..who does not worry about her daughter's body image." Fathers apparently could care less. "I am hardly the only mother who wrestles with..", "Mothers want to guide their daughter to .." etc. "Mothers, moms, mothers" throughout. Id say maybe a third of the time she does use the term, "parents" which is much better, but I don't understand why the term "mom/mother" can't generally be replaced with "parent" (except for times when gender is important such as comparisons to a mother's childhood).

It's almost ironic that in the middle of the book she does say that she hopes her daughter marries a person (which will most likely be a man) who does "half the child-care". Now I expect defensive moms to argue, "but fathers don't currently do half the child-care, and fathers don't take as much of an interest in their daughters upbringing as moms, so Orenstein is simply writing to the existing status quo." That is all true but thereby only amplifies her error. Writing mainly to moms only reinforces the idea that raising our daughters is something only moms really need to be concerned with. We are never going to get fathers more involved in parenting unless we write books like this for them too.

Perhaps some may think I am making too big a deal out of this, but as a future dad, I am frustrated with all the parenting books, articles, media etc. oriented towards moms as if fathers barely exist. Orenstein is clearly very thoughtful and enlightened and I think she could have done better.

Peggy Orenstein explores one of the most universal, yet under-explored, demographics: girls who text, phone, network socially among themselves.
Sociologists might consider them a tribe unto themselves. As our culture has grown along with Disney's myths as if they were reality, our girls have become princesses by the age of three and continue growing into bigger pretty pink dresses while waiting for Prince Charming to come and rescue them from the drudgery of living with their, ugh, parents.
Obviously, this scenario falls apart when one views how little boys are not growing up to become princes or very charming for that matter.
Ms. Orenstein became concerned about her daughter, Daisy, when she discovered her playing Snow White sleeping on the flor at a large party with lips pursed and eyes closed. Three year-old Daisy kept refusing one boy after another while a crowd of children stood in a circle watching. By the time Mama Orenstein reached the circle she watched appalled as little Daisy declared Harry her choice and players ran off to find the lucky "Prince" who would kiss her.
From then on Peggy Orenstein became a social science researcher of contemporary girls' cultures. The most authentic and funniest thing she did was to get an identity on a social network. Included in her description of a rather average looking little girl with glasses is that she had a pig nose. That was so out of touch, Mama! She then studied the other girls descriptions and they all had big hair, big boob, doe eyes with complete makeup. And this became her target study group.
Peggy Orenstein writes in an entertaining and informative style about a topic that is rarely even discussed, except perhaps among middle school girls who are not sharing this culture with outsiders. Now parents, teachers, aunts and uncles can know what's going on by reading for find out how Cinderella Ate Peggy Orenstein's Daughter.
A fine book, indeed!

The rise of the "girlie-girl" culture, Peggy Orenstein warns us, is far from benign and innocent, even in all its "pink and pretty" guise. Instead, these trends may be working against the gains that women have made in more equal treatment in the workplace and media over the past half century.

Orenstein lays a lot of blame on marketers for the pushing the defining of "individuality entirely through appearance and consumption." But she doesn't leave parents out of the problem. These companies "wouldn't make those products or spin those sales pitches if they didn't work, and it's not as though little girls themselves are laying down the cash." (pages 50-51)

It may be easy to write off Orenstein's concerns as overblown, but she notes two significant problems: "Our tolerance for hypersexualization rises without our realizing it" (page 91) and "rather than raising a generation of Cinderellas, we may actually be cultivating a legion of stepsisters--self-centered materialists, superficially charming but without the depth or means for authentic transformation." (page 104)

Orenstein has raised some very legitimate concerns and has issued a call to parents to more thoughtfully consider their daughters' exposure to parts of the culture--toys, advertising, music, etc.--that could be detrimental to their long term development. However, there are several weaknesses to this book that any potential readers need to be aware of.

First, there are those other than parents who create some of these problems. Grandparents, godparents, friends and neighbors may well try to overrule parental efforts at curbing the pretty in pink effects on their daughters, and I think there could have been a stronger message to all of us to consider our impact on all girls.

More importantly however, is that Orenstein's worldview ultimately results in a very confusing message. Her warnings about the rising tolerance of hypersexualization seem to be at odds with her own attitudes toward the sexuality of our daughters. "Let me be clear here," she says on page 129. "I expect and want my daughter to have a healthy, joyous erotic life before marriage. Long, long, long before marriage...I want her to explore and understand her body's response, her own pleasure, her own desire...The virgin/whore cycle of the pop princesses, like so much of the girlie-girl culture, pushes in the opposite direction, encouraging girls to view self-objectification as a feminine rite of passage." Having re-read this section several times, I fail to see how her anticipation of her daughter having an active erotic life is really all that different from the emphasis in the girlie-girl culture that she continues to deride.

Does it not seem as though the trends that Orenstein derides are actually those that inculcate a desire for erotic lives as a core of one's being? Wanting her daughter to be seeking her own pleasure, her own desire--how is that any different from the "self-objectification" she opposes?

Later (on page 174), she notes that "my fear for my daughter, then, is not that she will some day act in a sexual way; it is that she will learn to act sexually against her own self-interest." While I share her concern about the problems presented by the girly-girl marketing pressures, there is a disconnect between the Disney princess, American Girl marketing and how those factors ultimately lead to girls acting against their sexual self-interest--whatever that really means.

This is a book that tells us about the problems of marketing pressures being put on our daughters, and that can be a good thing to remind those who may be swept up in thinking pink and frilly things are mandatory for our daughters. Unfortunately, Orenstein seems to have exchanged one set of stereotypes for girls for another, the one that turns every person into a being based primarily on their sexuality. For those who share her worldview, this may not be a concern, but for many--most--readers, this weakens her argument and makes the book far less helpful than it might have been.

While this is an awareness raising book as opposed to a solution book (and there are no simple solutions, really) Orenstein does offer some new information as she connects the dots from cradle to Facebook. Whether discussing Miley Cyrus (that chapter needs monthly updating) pageants, or princesses Orenstein resists the urge to have a reaction in favor of exploring the appeal or harm of the item under examination. She finds a defense for the Twilight series that may not quell it's harshest critics (I would be one) but certainly makes them consider the appeal of the series in a new light. Drawing on a number of different studies about the effect and appeal of gender marketing, Orenstein strikes a relatable tone as a mother trying to navigate her daughter through the minefield of girlhood. Like every mother, she finds that her beliefs about the mother she would be were not completely accurate. This would be an excellent gift for any parent struggling with the issues of gender assignment in children's culture. I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of the book, but I plan on buying several print copies as gifts. Cinderella Ate My Daughter does an excellent job of framing some of the problems that face parents of daughters without condemning the parents for failing to provide a pink-free playroom. In the end I think she's suggesting that we may be worrying about the wrong things. It's not the pink or the princess we need to fear, it's the early sexualization. Hard to argue with that.

If you've liked Peggy Orenstein's other books, then you will like this one as well. I mean that in all sincerity -- Orenstein's writing is as clever and spot-on as ever, and she is just as good at really honing in on the odd balancing act that parents must find with their daughters and with both an idealized view of what society *should* be and the very real view of what society *is*, and finding a middle path. That being said, for anyone who reads a lot of sociological analysis, both from a feminist perspective and from the strongly parental, Orenstein isn't breaking a tremendous amount of new ground. Her entire chapter on social networking, for example, has been covered by many other writers before her -- most notably Caitlyn Flanagan in her magazine articles.

On the other hand, Orenstein is approaching her topic with an interesting frankness and openness that I think can be attributed to her own new experiences as the mother of a young girl --- she seems more willing to forgive parental compromises, though her ideals remain as shining as ever. But there were some absolutely lovely (and really thoughtful) chapters ruminating on the explosion of the color pink, female muppets, Disney princesses, the downfall of Barbie, American Girl dolls, and even little-girl pageants. Orenstein does a fascinating job chronicling the odd changes and shifts in the way that we treat and sexualize little girls while at the same time romanticizing their youth. This was well worth the read, and I strongly recommend it.

After her daughter began to fall passionately in love with "girly" things like Disney Princesses, Peggy Orenstein was inspired to take a deeper look at how the new "girly girl" culture might be affecting our girls--and boys. Was the obsession with pink, with makeup, with princess, with being pretty, just harmless girlhood fun, or did it have serious repercussions for girls as they grew up?

Though Orenstein is a journalist and not a scientist or sociologist, this book provides some pretty compelling evidence that all of this emphasis on hyperfemininity is actually harmful for girls. The book is a very interesting and rather alarming read, but I also thought it was a very fair, measured, and balanced one. Orenstein frequently points out that, while our culture does tend to pigeonhole girls, it also does the same for boys. As she points out, girls may be teased for playing with toys that aren't "girly" enough, but boys in our culture aren't exactly free to deck themselves out in pink and play with dolls and purses. As a result, even though Orenstein is focused on girls, the book doesn't come across as an extremist feminist rant, but more as an examination of how our culture may very well be stifling and causing unintentional harm to both boys and girls by forcing them to fit into certain roles.

I found the book very insightful in several instances. As an example, Orenstein examines the furor surrounding the Twilight novels. After having read the first, I rejected the rest of the series, feeling that it was a story that more or less glorified a very unhealthy relationship between two teens--and this had nothing to do with the fact that Edward is a vampire. I was, rather, disturbed by Bella's lack of self-identity and with how Edward exercised an inordinate amount of control over her. Orenstein addresses this, but she also offers up what I found to be a compelling suggestion for why girls might find the series so compelling: Bella isn't the prettiest girl in the school, she isn't the most popular, she doesn't dress the most provocatively and, yet, she's the one girl in school who captures Edward's attention. As Orenstein points out, maybe girls are just relieved to find a book in which the romance does not center around sex or around the extreme "hotness" of the female character. I was really taken aback by this argument because it had never occurred to me but, the more I thought about it, the more I felt that there just might be something to it.

What really disturbed me, though, was the evidence Orenstein offers that indicates that, in trying to be hot and sexy at all times, girls are becoming more and more disconnected from any sort of healthy sexuality. In defining themselves so emphatically by their looks, growing numbers of girls are describing sex in terms of how they thought they looked rather than in terms of how they felt. This means that, not only are girls sometimes made objects by boys, they are also making objects of themselves. Rather than defining who they are based on how they think, what they feel, what they believe, girls are defining themselves according to their physical assets. I don't see how any parent of a daughter could find this anything less than extremely alarming.

As the mother of a young daughter, I am very concerned about many of the issues Orenstein raises. I feel that, the more informed I am, the better chance I have of doing my best to minimize the damage. As a mother, I could really identify with Orenstein, who seems to struggle with the same issue I do. How do I raise my baby to be a self-confident, happy, and strong young lady when she lives in the midst of a culture that is sending her so many unhealthy signals? While Orenstein doesn't really propose solutions, she does provide a lot of food for thought. This is a book that I hope many people will read and discuss. Hopefully, by opening a dialog about important issues like these, we, as a culture, can work toward resolving them in a way that empowers both our daughters and our sons.

My thoughts on the book and a recommendation for a different book that is better...

I'm the mom of a six year old and all of the issues outlined in this book are of concern to me and many other parents of little girls that I know.

While I do believe the issues in this book are important and the book does a nice job of drawing attention to the concerns, I agree with other reviewers that the author doesn't really provide ready solutions or recommendations for the reader. Like many, I'm always disappointed by authors who investigate an issue yet fail to then research potential solutions. I guess I support the adage "Don't bring attention to the problem until you're also ready to provide possible solutions" - otherwise, in this case, it's just adding stress to the already stressful job of trying to be a good parent.

In my opinion, a much superior book which addresses these same issues, plus others that are equally important, and which also offers suggested parental interventions based on evidence and experience is Girls on the Edge: The Four Factors Driving the New Crisis for Girls-Sexual Identity, the Cyberbubble, Obsessions, Environmental Toxins. While the focus is not so much on pink princesses, the overall information of what is occurring culturally for our girls, and what we can do to help raise strong confident girls is detailed.

Based on Girls on the Edge, the environment of the school your daughter attends, her exposure to particular media and the internet, what her friends are "into", and your parenting style are all factors that can influence how your daughter might be affected by the the cultural sexualization of girls at younger ages (tweens), their potential drive for unreasonable perfectionism, their self esteem, and in-person and cyber bullying.

Again, the book Girls on the Edge details these issues and potential solutions with supporting evidence. It is written by a physician who is a psychiatrist and family practice doctor who began researching the issues based on common problems he was seeing with the girls in his practice. I strongly urge you to check out that book before buying this one as it has more information and intervention suggestions.

I think this is good secondary information for those already familiar with the issues, but for someone new to the subject or who only wants to read one book, Girls on the Edge is a better choice.

I was very excited for this book, especially after it has been linked to Enlightened Sexism, a book that I thoroughly enjoyed. This book has its good points, but overall lacks the depth and content that I had expected.

What did I like? There is a lot of interesting, concrete research on the developmental stages that children go through and how it relates to "princess culture". I felt that the author became more realistic as the book and her research progressed- she went from outwardly hating the Disney Princesses to accepting them as a phase in her daughter's life. I felt that the purpose of this book came from a pure place, in that all the author wanted was a place where her daughter could grow up without being blasted with (often sexist) marketing schemes.

What DIDN'T I like? Well... as other reviewers have mentioned, this book is definitely written from a very upper-class perspective. Her and her friends' children seemed to receive toys simply because they wanted them, which is not the case for most middle-class families, especially now (during a recession). For example, she visited the American Girl Doll store with a friend whose daughter claimed to be "over" her American Girl doll.... the mother then proceeded to spend hundreds of dollars on accessories for her daughter's doll (including a toy bed and closet). That the author came from a very privileged place made me feel as though she was whining.
Furthermore, her parenting style was very much just hoping that her daughter would turn out *just like her*. She rarely spent time contemplating, maybe she likes Disney princess stories because they are fun? Maybe she genuinely likes the color pink? IT was all a marketing scheme, and I worry that the author will blame society for her daughter's behavior and preferences, rather than believe that her daughter is just not a very liberal feminist like she is. (disclaimer- I am a very liberal feminist so I am not bashing that).
And finally, while she offered many different viewpoints and did a lot of interesting research, I felt that the author clumped together ALL aspects of teen culture into one clump and refused to believe that any female performer could not be a sell out, or as she puts it, "whoresome". She lumped Hillary Duff, of Lizzie McGuire fame, with Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, two former Disney stars with serious drug and emotional problems, simply because Duff posed for Maxim magazine (fully clothed)! She also implies that, despite Selena Gomez's "current" squeaky clean image, there is no doubt in her mind that she will "end up" like Miley Cyrus, who posed topless for Vanity Fair and once danced around a pole. Meanwhile, Selena Gomez is currently a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and seems to be doing fine. Finally, she made a passing jab at Shakira, a 35-year-old woman, presumably for targeting her 3-year-old daughter into gyrating her hips and wearing a midriff-baring top, which clearly makes her "whoresome."

Overall, the research included in the book was interesting and thought-provoking. Ms. Orenstein's personal anecdotes and attacks, however, left much to be desired. A better book would simply be one on how to raise a child in our consumerist culture, and how to instill non-materialistic goals in your child.

This book has become a flash point for many reviewers. In my opinion, this is a very fine book. It is a well written, well researched and thoughtful study of how the minds and bodies of little girls are manipulated by societal influences and mainstream culture, both bad and good. This is not a doctrinaire tract. This is an entertaining and easy read. Advertisers and marketers are not portrayed as devils, parents want the best for their children and little girls are, well, little girls.

Peggy Orenstein, an author and journalist known for her insightful work on girl's behavior and emotional health becomes a mother of a little girl. As a parent, she finds herself torn between theory and fact, myth and observation. She wants her daughter to grow up strong, happy and secure with a positive body image, while her toddler daughter, Daisy wants to be Cinderella. Orenstein doesn't ever say this is necessarily bad but she is concerned with the ever increasing volume of mainstream marketing that envelops little girls from the age of 3 onward.

And, what is wrong with Princesses? Princesses are, princesses, especially as envisioned by Disney. They look good, they are virginal and they wait for the prince to arrive. Then they ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after. A lovely fairy tale but what does it teach the little girl of real life? Of self realization? Of happiness?

Personally, I wanted to be a princess-fireman. A princess with a back-up plan. I didn't know it at the time, but this made very good sense. Sometimes life doesn't work out the way you would hope, sometimes the prince leaves the princess with kids and a mortgage on the castle and there she is a 40 year old former princess with no interests, education or way to make a living. What parent would want that for their daughter? What daughter would want that for herself?

Little girls eventually grow out of this princess stage but they retain the message that perfection, and appearance is what is important. That it is better to look good than to feel or to think positively about their actions and activities. In fact, Orenstein points to studies that show that when this is reinforced, girls eventually equate how they look with how they feel; they only feel positive about themselves when they think they are pretty and stylish and thin enough. This is encouraged by the massive marketing industry that starts with movies and TV and then moves on to toys, cosmetics, and clothing. It is everywhere. And it is overwhelming. How do you convince girls that "fat is not a feeling" when Kate Moss says "Nothing tastes better than skinny feels"? (Edited to correct quote)

We have all seen little "Sesame Street Walkers" wearing nail polish, makeup, curled hair, and midriff bearing tops. Is this harmless or is this harmful? Children's marketers use the code "KGOY" for "kids getting older, younger". Yesterday's 12 is the new 6. Is this an organic move or is it artificially created? Orenstein poses multiple opinions all of them thoughtful and some of them terrifying.

A particularly interesting thread through the book was Orenstein's deconstruction of traditional Grimms Brothers fairy tales so rarely read to children these days. How these fantasy, instructional stories were written originally and how Disney and others have re-written the characters and plots to mesh with more "modern values". Are these re-formed fairy tales better for the child? It certainly is worth the investigation of Bruno Bettelheim's writings on the subject.

On a personal note, it was gratifying to see that Daisy selected Wonder Woman as a favorite character. Orenstein devotes a part of a chapter to super heroines. I had to laugh uncomfortably when she describes Wonder Woman's invisible airplane as "lame when compared to the gleam of the Batmobile", and finally admit after all these years that it might be true.

Orenstein ends her book with a chapter that gracefully ties everything together. "No wonder my kid is confused," she writes "so am I". There are no easy answers. This must be worked through by each parent and by each child.

After reading the first few chapters of this book, I was thinking to myself "I don't think the whole princess thing is THAT big". The next morning, I took my 6 year old girl into a store, and as we were checking out, the cashier said to her "You're a little princess, aren't you?" Janey is autistic and not often inclined to answer people, so she was silent. The cashier went on, almost aggressively "Of course you are! You have on a pink coat, you have blond hair and blue eyes, you are a PRINCESS!". And I thought---dang it, Peggy Orenstein is right!

However, I didn't completely agree with her message that the commercial world is driving our young girls to be objectified and affecting their development. I think it's one of those messages that comes and goes over the years, always with an alarmist tone that THIS time we are REALLY messing up our kids. Watch any TV show or read any kids book from the 40s or 50s and you will get in a short time far more blatant messages about girls and women's place in society. I also don't think it's as hard to shield kids from the messages as Orenstein thinks. I think a few well places words by a parent or a lot more "no"s at the toy shop can do wonders to somewhat negate the messages.

I also am not sure gender issues are quite as imposed on children as Orenstein feels. My daughter is influenced almost not at all by popular culture. She simply can't be---she really isn't aware enough to be. Yet, although I am far from "girly"---I never wear makeup, I buy all my clothes at thrift shops, etc---Janey loves to check out her outfits in a mirror, spinning around, and she begs for Chapstick instinctively, the only "make-up" in the house. It's just her. And I bought my sons pink dollhouses, in an infamous shopping spree which horrified even the most liberal of my friends, and they were never touched except to make toys jump off their roofs.

But the very fact that this book inspired me to start rambling about gender issues here speaks to how well it is written and how throught-provoking it is. IT contains much to think about, is well researched and is most definitely worth a read.

And when I say thought provoking, I mean it. There is actually room for your own thinking. Orenstein even admits that despite her best intentions in raising her daughter, she worries that she has somehow made her believe anything traditionally feminine is bad; which wasn't at all her intent. This book had several high points for me, really eye opening and worth the read. The information on marketing (beginning in infancy!) and the domino effect it has in the sexualization of young girls was profound.

There was also plenty I need to think about more, and some things I would say I just don't agree with. I personally love the Disney princess movies; though I see Orenstein's point, I do not believe the princesses are solely about looking pretty and waiting for a man. Not that the movie is without flaw, but Disney's Cinderella is kind, patient, hopeful and generous. And at one point Orenstein seems to rant that Disney eliminates the fairy godmother and thus any kind of female role model presence in girls' lives... which just isn't true. Maybe she was referring to the merchandise (with is not heavy on images of the Fairy Godmother)? In any case, it was unclear.

I also love the color pink, and will have no aversion to putting my girls (and boys!) in pink clothes as well as every other color. I understand the point about its use in marketing a specific, gender appropriated version of girlhood (a version of which I do not approve); however, I feel acknowledging it by completely avoiding a color continues to give it that power.

I don't mind reading this type of 'editorial' non-fiction and finding a few points to need to chew on further or flat out disagree with. I read this book hoping to open my mind and see the way girls are growing up today in a mindfully critical and analytical light, and that's exactly what I got. Recommended.

When I was pregnant, we intentionally didn't want to know whether our baby was a boy or girl. So, most of the baby gifts were in various shades of yellow or green. Fine by me. Even after my lovely daughter was born, I went out of my way to avoid or minimize pink (especially that particular shade favored by Mattel). Alas, despite my best efforts, my four-year-old's favorite color in all the world is pink. If she gets to pick something, it will be pink.

Ms. Orenstein did a pretty thorough examination of the pink and sparkly epidemic. I kept waiting for the ultra pro-uber-feminist text to show up, but I didn't see it. It was relatively objective, despite the author's own acknowledged misgivings about the PINK culture.

I'm not sure the chapter on beauty pageants really added a whole lot -- I see those folks as true outliers. But the investigation into Disney's marketing tactics was really informative. The book confirmed a lot of what I've always thought -- as parents, we need to make a real effort to love up our girls while praising them for their brains and abilities.

I looked forward to reading this book thinking that it will give me some ideas on how to tackle "the too much pink" problem. However, this book only describes the problems and does not offer any substantial ideas on how to avoid the Disney princesses. Nevertheless, the book is cleverly written and I am not sorry I read it ... but now I am looking for the book with solutions.

Orenstein apparently thinks that she's above citing her work. She refers to amorphous "studies" without so much as giving the name of the scientists involved, let alone a numbered reference so I could see if she's actually telling the truth or lying under her nose. E.g. she cited a mysterious "2005 study" (researchers??) that claimed that "only" 17 out of 77 boys whose genitals were severely damaged by male genital mutilation and then assigned a "female" identity regretted it. (with nary a word of condemnation of the horrifying barbarism inherent in this practice). Quite a shocking claim, and I could find nothing on the internet to back it up.

The book is mostly a work of philosophy (ergo a waste of time if you're not a liberal Jew like Orenstein), with a few exceptions consisting of interesting digressions into the devious techniques of marketers and the people who own the media (who happen to have something in common with Orenstein-I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to guess WHAT!).

However, chapter 4, which supposedly is supposed to be an exhaustive investigation into the latest science of how much of the differences between genders is inborn vs. culturally inoculated, would certainly be worth a read, if it weren't for her refusal to follow the basic conventions of scientific writing and cite her freaking sources. Thee sad part is that Orenstein actually introduced me to some new material--except without any citations, I've got to take her word for it. (She also gives no indication of how significant findings are, raising the specter of P-hacking. This is doubly idiotic when the entire focus of the chapter is to determine the relative magnitude of nurture vs. nature). Chapter 4 is really short, anyways.

Modern culture is scary to anyone who has a small child, especially a small girl child. It seems that society's expectations are growing more and more dangerous for girls these days, and the path through adolescence even more treacherous. I'd hoped this book would have some good insights as far as navigating this difficult time.

I found a lot of things to like in this book. I enjoyed the tone of the author and the thoughtful way in which she examined her own life. She is obviously concerned about her daughter and scrambling for ways in which to guide her safely through to adulthood.

I appreciated the insights into pageants, and marketing, and the Disney machine. This author does an excellent job of expressing the root of my vague unease at children dolled up like princesses or children with Facebook accounts. This book made me think more carefully at how femininity is marketed, and the messages both my daughter and my son might be getting.

However, this book, like many similar books I've recently read about raising girls, is pretty low on solutions. Problem after problem is highlighted, the dangers mapped out, but it seems nobody really has any idea how to counteract the pressures on our girls. It would be nice to have some concrete ideas about what might be done to help our daughters come through adolescence unscathed.

I remember having those same conflicting feelings when my daughter was born thirty-seven years ago. It was so validating to know I wasn't alone, although I'm saddened to know that it seems to be even harder to raise girls today. Fortunately, my daughter managed to balance things out quite well and is an extremely well-functioning professional wife and mother who is now going through some of the same things with her three year old daughter.

Pink, princesses, disney, pageants, tiaras, and on and on. All of these things and more come into play at a very young age for girls growing up in today's society. Often the introduction of these items seems to come organically without any outside intervention and other times it's entirely based on the media & friends our children interact with on a daily basis. As a parent of a newly "crowned" princess of her own, Peggy Orenstein navigates the murky waters that nearly every parent of a daughter will encounter at one time or another in their child's life.

Before I get into the meat of my review I need to say up front that this book was not at all what I was expecting. In many ways I was completely disappointed at the lack of helpful tools and overwhelmed by the sometimes contradictory information & statistics. Being the parent of a young daughter who has recently acquired a love of all the things author Peggy Orenstein finds wrong in the world currently (ie. pink everything & most of all Disney Princesses) I was on the lookout for helpful ways in which to counter balance this influence. Something to encourage her to become a young woman that is tolerant and accepting of others as well as comfortable with her own self-image. What I ended up with was more frustration than answers.

Both my husband and I are the first born in families where there was only one gender of children. His was a family of four boys and mine a family of three girls. Because of my situation I became quite a bit of a tomboy and helped my Dad with whatever he was doing around the house or outside. I learned to work on cars and fix stereo equipment, but was also a classically trained flutist. Even with the influence of two younger, very girly, sisters and a mom who was always dressed beautifully I never fully became a "girly girl". Despite or perhaps because of my lack of "girliness" I still suffered from bouts of anorexia and depression as a teen, but even these experiences shaped me into a strong confident woman. Why? Primarily because of my parents and their never ending open line of communication while growing up. This leads me to my own daughter & son (who funnily enough chose pink as his favorite color until just recently) and how I can encourage & support them even when our tastes are varied, which was the primary reasoning behind picking up Cinderella Ate My Daughter.

It's obvious to anyone who reads even a few chapters of Cinderella Ate My Daughter that Orenstein has done her homework. From spending her days monitoring the interactions between pre-schoolers to visiting the mecca of the doll world, the American Girl Place, to thoroughly researching both sides of pageants and even interviewing the man behind the marketing genius that is the Disney Princesses. For me personally I found most of this information to not only be too much but also something I was already aware of. What I didn't appreciate was the near constant contradictions I found. Yes, it bothers me to know that the Disney Princesses were intentionally placed on marketing & packaging materials in such a way that they never "look" at each other. But what also bothered me more was that the author, who was bothered by that situation was also bothered while observing pre-schoolers who naturally separated into gender specific groups without any encouragement from adults. So it was wrong that the Disney Princesses were never allowed to seek the camaraderie & support of the other princesses, but it was also wrong that girls played and enjoyed the company of other girls? It was situations like this that left me confused and baffled at what exactly it was that the author was trying to accomplish. Instead of feeling as though I was learning from the shared experience of a fellow mother seeking solutions to help her children be the best people they can be I felt like she was more interested in carrying out her personal vendetta against all things pink, princess and girly.

In what I hoped would be a book filled with ways to counter balance the role today's media & marketing plays into the ways our daughters grow up I found near constant negativity without many solutions. Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein is perfect for readers not familiar with today's popular girl-driven marketing trends because it's filled with statistics and observations of not only the author herself but many professionals. Unfortunately for me it was of little help. Yes, I hope to encourage both of my children to be strong independent thinkers that are not only tolerant but accepting of others. What I also hope to teach them is that no matter what they choose I support them in whatever their passions may be by not privately (or publicly as in this case) disparaging their decisions. There is no definitive statistic that can prove a young girl or boy who grow up loving pink and only pink will be completely depressed and disillusioned as an adult, but unfortunately that's the opinion I gathered from the author. Oddly enough my favorite quote and perhaps my personal hope is one found on the last page:

"...our role is not to keep the world at bay but to prepare our daughters so they can thrive within it." (p. 192 Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein)

Originally reviewed and copyrighted at my site There's A Book.

A great book about the new generation of little girls being bombarded by all the overly idealized images of a perfect young girl/woman generated by the massive spawn of doe-eyed Disney Princess merchandise as well as too-early sexualization, but...

"I may want my girl to do and be whatever she dreams of as an adult, but I also hope she will find her Prince (or Princess) Charming and make me a grandma. I do not want her to be a fish without a bicycle; I want her to be a fish with another fish. Preferably, a fish who loves and respects her and also does the dishes, his share of the laundry, and half the child care. Yet the typical "feminist alternative" to the marry-the-prince ending either portrays men as simpletons or implies that the roles traditionally ascribed to women are worthless. Thus you get Princess Smartypants, in which our heroine, uninterested in marriage, bestows a chaste smooch on the prince who has won her hand in a contest sponsored by her father, the king; the prince promptly turns into a frog, and she is freed to live contentedly with her pets. To me, that's not progress; it's payback."

Back off, Mom! What if your daughter DOESN'T want to get married or have any kids, let alone be in a romantic relationship if she isn't interested?

"I expect and want my daughter to have a healthy, joyous erotic life before marriage. Long, long, long before marriage."

Be careful what you wish for, lady. Your kid may make you a grandma on her 15th birthday. :P

And you were also a bit too worried about Hillary Rodham Clinton (especially about the novelty nutcrackers resembling her thighs) when political campaign is more about competing to be elected into important offices (and yes, it CAN get nasty at times) than being given special treatment because of your gender. Just pointing it out.

Otherwise, it's not a bad book at all. :)

I recognized my children in every page of this book. I only wish I read it when they were born to prevent the "princess tornado" from hitting my family (I have 2 girls, ages 3 and 5). I feel more ready for the next steps in parenting my girls now. I loved that book and recommended it to many friends who also loved it.

Great read, very conversational. The author has no glaring, polarizing viewpoints. Also she's not a crazy feminist. She balance's women's lib with being a mother very well. Not a child-rearing guide, but a great read and narrative on society today.

This book is, to put it simply, fantastic. Orenstein makes intuitive realizations and gives thorough explanations chapter after chapter. The book is both personal and broad, and she speaks from both real life experience and observation. I strongly recommend this book.

Cinderella Ate My Daughter / 978-0-061-71152-7

For people interested in gender politics and how they play out in advertising aimed at young girls in America, this book is an absolute delight to read. Author Orenstein examines everything from Disney Princess merchandise, American Girls dolls, the "Twilight" phenomena, Miley Cyrus (and all the "innocent-but-sexy" singers and actresses that have come before her, and will come after her yet), pageant culture, and Facebook - all through the dual lens of her own experiences as a mother and her own research as a journalist.

"Cinderella Ate My Daughter" is wonderfully written - both informative and interesting. The author has a wonderful sense of when to intersperse daily anecdotes from her own life into the meticulous studies she references and the experts she quotes. This is anything but a "fluff" book - there's so much information compiled here and it's presented in an imminently easy-to-digest format. Looking back on this book, dozens of fascinating facts leap to my mind - such as the evidence that dolls were in low vogue among girls in the late 1800's, until President Roosevelt warned the country against declining Anglo-Saxon birth rates and suddenly the race was on to prepare (certain kinds of) girls to be 'good American mothers'. Then there's the chapter about mixed-gender play and how to understand the difference between boys and girls playing WITH each other and them playing NEAR each other (and how to encourage the latter to blossom into the former). Especially impressive in this book is how the author always tries to give the opposition a fair say, even while making it clear where she falls on the spectrum - everything comes across as highly informative and extremely fair-spoken.

One thing I particularly liked about this book is how fallible-as-a-mother Orenstein is willing to be, and how kind and fair-minded she is towards the other parents in the book. She seems to really understand how difficult it is to meld high-minded principles with day-to-day parenting (for instance, in explaining WHY a Bratz doll is "inappropriate" to her 5-year-old, she's frustrated that the very CONCEPT of the inappropriateness of a "sexy" doll isn't something she wanted to get into just yet!), and I really respect that there is pretty much zero "parent bashing" here. When the author explores the "American Girls" dolls (a marketing line that she readily admits is out of the budgets of most parents and thus constitutes a minority of American girls being able to even afford the dolls), it would be easy to decry all the money "wastefully" spent on the extravagant doll clothes, but she doesn't. Even the pageant chapter is tactfully and thoughtfully written - Orenstein seems fully aware that "parent bashing" only helps to blind us to the other forms of marketing and expression that are targeted to our girls (i.e., "Sure my daughter wears a Cinderella bridal veil to kindergarten every day, but at least I don't let her dress like JonBenet!"), and so instead she uses the pageant concept to draw parallels, not to cast judgment.

I also want to note that this book struck me as very HAES-friendly and extremely insightful on how to encourage healthy body-image in young daughters - several of the experts that Orenstein quotes hit the nail on the head, I think, on the best hows-and-whens to tell your daughter that she's beautiful, and how to link that "beauty" to inner character rather than outer trappings.

For people who are interested in gender studies and girl-aimed marketing, I feel like this is a wonderful book to read. The book is easy to digest, and hard to put down - I read the whole book in two days, largely because I just didn't want to stop. Most of all, I appreciate that the author understands that the issues of gender politics and how they affect our young daughters are *complicated*, and while she tries to offer her own solutions at the end, she never sounds preachy, know-it-all, or "my way is the right way" - I think, largely because she gets that a complicated issue like this doesn't have one, pithy solution that can be easily summed up on a bumper sticker.

NOTE: This review is based on a free Advance Review Copy of this book provided through the store Vine.

~ Ana Mardoll