When my 4-year-old told me the other day that she was “ready for princesses,” part of me died. Not just because the day had finally arrived when that virulent meme had infected her, but also because of how utterly powerless I was to contain it. Let me be clear: These weren’t progressive princesses like Adventure Time’s Lumpy Space Princess and Doctor Princess (that’s just her last name). This kind of princess forced my programmer wife and I to do what we swore we’d never do to our child, which is deny our daughter a book. The one my kid picked up in the bookstore spent more pages describing its characters’ future husbands than the princesses themselves, and when a book about girls for girls fails to pass the Bechdel test, something is pretty wrong. Other princess books she looked at weren’t much better. Exemplary, idiosyncratic female role models, like Turtle from The Westing Game or Rat from The Snarkout Boys & the Avocado of Death, were nowhere to be found. Continue reading at 'Slate'
[ Slate | 2014-12-03 00:00:00 UTC ]