Comments on: Good Morning Angels. Good Morning Charlie. (After the Fall)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:41:10 +0000

bad

By: If I didn’t already hate Disney princesses « blue milk

If I didn’t already hate Disney princesses « blue milk — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 08:15:07 +0000

[...] that dare not speak its name right in front of my exasperated self. I’ve decided to follow this advice with it, so we have a Disney princess happy hopper currently residing in the play room. A, it was [...]

By: outside the (toy) box » This is NOT a blog post.

outside the (toy) box » This is NOT a blog post. — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:26:55 +0000

[...] other fronts, you may remember that I bought my daughter a set of rubber Disney princesses (not a big deal for me, no, not at all) and I thought it worth mentioning that they were a complete flop. They got exactly zero special [...]

By: rebel

rebel — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 22:32:02 +0000

See what Barbara Ehrenreich has to say about Disney princesses!
http://ehrenreich.blogs.com/barbaras_blog/

By: Spiderman has entered the building « Must be Motherhood

Spiderman has entered the building « Must be Motherhood — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 16:01:53 +0000

[...] succumb to the desires of little girls and give them what they seem to want most of all, and buy even the smallest Disney trinket, guilt ensues. I’d be in the same boat as these parents if Pitter were a girl. I’d resist, as my [...]

By: A couple of posts to radicalise your motherhood « blue milk

A couple of posts to radicalise your motherhood « blue milk — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:42:07 +0000

[...] by forbidding them? Roll over and play dead and let the princesses do their thing? This is my favourite post ever on how a feminist mother deals with princesses. Then I did something I’ve never done before. I [...]

By: subarctic mama

subarctic mama — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 08:50:12 +0000

May the figurines work as tiny plastic vaccines. My fingers are crossed.

By: rebel

rebel — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 03:19:07 +0000

I just discovered your blog and have been reading it the last few hours!
I am happy to report that my princess-obsessed girly girl lost her obsession some time after I caved and allowed her to have a princess item. (It was a Princess Barbie - I fell all the way!) I hope the princesses lose some of their power for your girl.

By: mom

mom — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 04:52:57 +0000

Wow Jacey — nice to meet you — hegemonic masculinity — you’re speaking my language! I’m dying to know more about you and sad you didn’t link to your own blog so I could go sneak a peek. I would have TOTALLY bought him the dress up trunk — bending gender trumps marketing

By: Jacey

Jacey — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 23:05:48 +0000

I just recently came across your blog and I am really enjoying not only what you have to say, but how you say it. I too am an academic and a mother and challenged routinely by the two (separately and together!) I particularly liked your comment about preferring “them” (the princesses) more as toys rather than logos. At first blush in my home princesses aren’t the “problem” (I have two little boys). But, your issue here seems to parallel with my own concerns about raising (dare I say feminist?) compassionate boys who become men who challenge rather than reinforce dominant constructions of hegemonic masculinity. Already it starts as my four year old (who loves everything Cars Inc…don’t get me on Disney just yet!.. trucks, and lots of the stuff found in the “Boy” aisles at the toy store) has told me he wants to be a princess for Halloween next year and the “only thing he has in his heart that would make me very happy for Christmas is the Dora Dress-up Trunk.” For much (I think) the same reasons you don’t want your house [or at least the toybox] to become a Girlie Girl Shrine I’ve spend much time and energy already thinking about what are the alternatives to “NOT” encouraging his interests. ‘No, sorry Sweetie, you can’t be a princess for Halloween (traditional answer) because only girls can be princesses!” Nope! “Would you like to be a prince instead?” Nope this leaves it all intact. For now, it is on hold! And a simple, “that might be fun” has sufficed.
It is great theoretically to think outside of the box (be it the institution of motherhood, academia, intensive childhood or the toybox literally). Yet, in practical terms in our journey to alter the culture and society in which we and our children live, IT IS the context in which they find themselves. I am all about countering the dominant claims, yet I also don’t want my son excluded.
I look forward to reading your thoughts and continuing to thinking through my own positions here! (The Dora Dress up Trunk was $26 dollars and looks it, it is for ages 2-4 so the clothes probably won’t fit him, but my heart/head couldn’t NOT get it).