[by:¿É¿ÉÓ¢Óï¡«www.utensil-race.com]
[00:00.14] Now we return to our weeklong series on the challenges of bringing up baby.
[00:04.45] We call it Parenting Now.
[00:06.51] Tonight, we look at how we raise girls in what has become a princess culture.
[00:12.03] I found it.
[00:14.25] Mommy, I found it.
[00:15.30] For parents, the scene is all too familiar, children wishing and begging for toys to take home.
[00:22.31] On one side of the toy department aisle are the trucks, superheroes and" Star Wars," on the other,
[00:29.15] a profusion of pink, purple and princesses.
[00:35.22] Lambie.
[00:35.58] I like Lambie.
[00:37.26] Market research confirms what most parents already know: Boys and girls often have very different tastes.
[00:43.50] But, for girls, princesses have become a multibillion dollar industry.
[00:48.43] Look at this one.
[00:51.18] Who's that?
[00:55.15] Ariel with a ?and a prince.
[00:57.07] I like her tiara.
[00:58.10] It's so nice.
[00:58.29] In a little more than a decade, Disney's princess franchise alone has gone from $300 million in sales a year to $ 3 billion.
[01:08.03] They 're even giving the iconic Barbie a run for her money.
[01:11.22] Her sales declined 6 percent last year.
[01:14.07] My daughter loves princess.
[01:17.28] Her favorite doll is Cinderella.
[01:20.34] She likes also ?what's her name?
[01:23.37] Aurora.
[01:23.44]" Tangled" and Aurora.
[01:26.34] She has the castles, so we paint her room in pink and purple.
[01:32.03] Carlos Ramirez of Washington, D.C., says his daughter Jamie is in her princess phase, and there's nothing wrong with that.
[01:40.00] She always dreamed to be a ?like dressing like a ?as a princess, behave as a princess.
[01:45.01] I think this is just like a dream that they have to become a princess.
[01:50.34] It does not reflect in the reality, but this is just a dream for them, for the girls.
[01:54.58] My little Esther is all princess.
[01:58.48] Judy Lemke from Green Bay, Wisconsin, has two daughters.
[02:02.51] One is 35-years old.
[02:04.19] The other is 5-year old Esther who she and her husband adopted.
[02:08.27] Lemke says she tries to work around the princess culture.
[02:11.54] It's getting her involved in a lot of different things, having her understand, again, sports people, academics,
[02:22.01] and a wide variety of things that she can get exposed to, beyond wanting everything pink and frilly and ?and princessy.
[02:31.37]( LAUGHTER) Girls ' toys have become even more girlie over time.
[02:36.07] This was Strawberry Shortcake 30 years ago.
[02:39.04] Remember her?
[02:40.22] This is Strawberry Shortcake now.
[02:42.48] This was the 1970s Holly Hobbie.
[02:46.05] Here she is today.
[02:47.30] This was what the board game" Candy Land" looked like in the 1960s.
[02:51.54] This is it now.
[02:54.42] But toys are not the real problem, says Kendra Pope of Burtonsville, Maryland.
[02:58.58] I think it's all about how you raise them to think about themselves.
[03:03.06] I think that's where that comes from.
[03:05.23] You have to install in your child ?you have to install in them the things that they want to be,
[03:14.54] you know?
[03:15.29] You have to raise them to be independent, to be a leader, and things like that.
[03:21.47] Advertising has changed too.
[03:23.41] Parents used to be the target audience.
[03:26.10] Now companies use the ads to reach children.
[03:29.00] I do not know how it can help but influence that, because if that's what you 're exposed to at those very formative years,
[03:34.29] it's going to have some impression.
[03:36.20] I think it has ?it falls much more then on the parents, the schools, and the other influences to counterbalance that,
[03:41.58] because, like I said, it's not all bad.
[03:44.32] But it's concentrated and saturated into a persona that is not as holistic, I think,
[03:53.10] as 30 years ago or 35 years ago.
[03:55.59] It's not all pink and purple.
[03:57.59] New alternatives include books which emphasize different goals for girls, particularly in engineering and science.
[04:04.57] Make sure they remember you.
[04:05.45] Movies with tougher heroines.
[04:07.05] More than pink, pink, pink.
[04:07.51] We want to think.
[04:08.24] And some toy manufacturers have hopped on board as well.
[04:18.51] One company called GoldieBlox has gained attention for ads where little girls gather up their pink toys,
[04:26.03] build a rocket, and launch them into space.
[04:29.14] So, how do we raise daughters in a time of mixed messages, conflicted cultural cues, as well as unprecedented opportunity?
[04:36.45] We explore those questions with two women who have been pondering them, Peggy Orenstein, author of" Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie Girl Culture,
[04:47.11]" and Angelica Perez, founder of the ELLA Institute, a professional development group for Latinas.
[04:53.00] She's also CEO of the New Latina, an online publication focused on women's leadership.
[04:58.57] Peggy Orenstein, why ?let's start with the color pink.
[05:02.15] Why is that a defining and powerful color for girls?
[05:06.21] Well, I think the thing that concerns me about pink,
[05:10.32] if that's what you 're asking, is the way that it narrows the idea of what it means to be a girl and puts it in this little box of pink and pretty.
[05:16.57] So, for example, when my daughter was little, I remember ?you know how you hear your best stuff when you 're driving in the car and the kids are in the back seat?
[05:23.17] I remember driving with my daughter in the back seat and her little friends.
[05:26.25] And I was taking them to go scootering.
[05:28.11] And my daughter's helmet had a fire breathing dragon on it.
[05:32.29] It was green with flames on it.
[05:34.20] And the other little girl looked at her helmet and said, that's not a girl's helmet.
[05:38.39] It's not pink.
[05:40.02] And my daughter looked down at it and she says, well, I think it's for a girl or a boy.
[05:44.33] And the other girl looked very dubious.
[05:46.19] And I had this ?just felt that there was a lot in that little interchange of what we expect of girls,
[05:51.48] the potential to be excluded if you do not toe the line, and just this ever narrowing pink box that defines femininity through ?from the outside in,
[06:00.36] through appearance.
[06:01.55] Angelica Perez, how much of this little pink box is defined by consumerism, how much of it is defined by social forces or defined by us?
[06:11.57] Actually, I think it's defined by all of us.
[06:14.12] I think we 're all involved in this phenomenon.
[06:18.46] Obviously, big brands have a lot to gain from pushing the pink brand and the princess brand.
[06:26.00] And parents actually have a responsibility to monitor, communicate, educate their children about what it means to be a strong girl,
[06:35.46] a strong woman when they grow up.
[06:38.35] And, of course, the media is constantly pushing images and messages that pink is pretty, pink is beautiful,
[06:46.49] pink is soft.
[06:48.10] So I think we all have something to do with this at this point.
[06:51.45] We 're all contributing in all different ways.
[06:54.31] Peggy Orenstein, it seems that we 're also pushing mixed messages.
[06:57.54] If you pick up the cover of" TIME" magazine, you see Beyonce on the cover as one of 100 most important people.
[07:03.55] You see Miley Cyrus as one of ?who is selling out concerts around the country, yet both of them are very sexual and powerful in the message they send.
[07:12.17] What are girls to think about that, and what are parents to do with that?
[07:16.32] Well, I think what concerns us is that that idea is being sold to girls at an ever earlier age,
[07:22.08] the idea of pink, pretty, hot, and sexy.
[07:24.49] So, for instance, when I was a little girl, maybe when you were a little girl, Gwen,
[07:28.40] you got your first Lip Smackers, Bonne Bell Lip Smackers, when you were about 12.
[07:32.15] Girls have a whole collection of those now by the time they 're 4.
[07:34.32] So there's this way that all of this marketing and all of the sexualization of girlhood is getting younger and younger and younger.
[07:41.06] I call it the Kardashianization of girlhood.
[07:44.14] And I think that that's the nub of our concern as parents.
[07:48.07] And that's what we have to think about as we watch this marketing towards our girls.
[07:51.35] Angelica, let me ask you this.
[07:52.40] What if you want your girl just to be a girl?
[07:54.19] What if you want her to be a girlie girl?
[07:55.43] What's wrong with that?
[07:58.11] Well, nothing is wrong with that.
[07:59.35] I think that the problem is when things become extreme and excessive, and girls only see themselves to be that pink color,
[08:09.17] or the behaviors that are expected are of girlie princesses.
[08:13.14] So there's really nothing wrong with having a pink room, or having a pink house,
[08:19.03] as long as it's balanced with the other things that the child does every day,
[08:23.36] with the way that the child sees herself, the other toys that you buy your child.
[08:29.14] Again, I think balance is the most important part here.
[08:32.32] And I do not see that happening as often as I would like it to, to ?as often as I would like to see it,
[08:38.59] both as a parent and as a psychologist.
[08:41.33] If I 'm a stay at-home mom somewhere, Peggy Orenstein, and I 'm listening to a message that tells me my daughter should be powerful and should be thinking about being a CEO or president of the United States,
[08:51.42] what if I take that as a slam on my mothering?
[08:57.12] Well, I do not think that that's the only image we have of girls, but I think the concern is that girls are being told simultaneously to be powerful,
[09:05.26] and to be hot and sexy, and that that's giving ?and that's putting them in conflict.
[09:09.33] So, you see things like there was a study that came out of Princeton in 2012, a survey that was looking at why there were fewer girls going out for leadership position at that school.
[09:18.51] And one of the things that they found was that girls were saying that they felt they had to do everything,
[09:23.07] they had to do everything well, and they had to look great when they were doing it.
[09:26.42] So there was this intense pressure on girls that was causing them to pull back.
[09:30.54] And I think all of us, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, girl advocates, we want our kids to have the most potential possible.
[09:38.55] We want them to have the most potential individually.
[09:41.13] We want it for both genders, and we want them to also to be able to work together.
[09:46.18] And that becomes very difficult when girls and boys are raised in their own little ghettos of pink and blue.
[09:51.48] If you are a parent and you have every day to-day issues to deal with, which fight do you want to pick?
[09:58.02] Do you really want to tell your little girl she can not wear a tutu to kindergarten,
[10:01.15] or do you just want to move on to something else, Angelica?
[10:04.54] You know, I do not see it as a battle that I 'm picking.
[10:06.46] I see it as an education.
[10:08.08] So, I am constantly educating my children about everything that happens in the house and when we go to stores.
[10:15.03] So, for example, if we have $10 to spend on a toy, and the child wants a particular ?it does not matter which kind of toy ?I actually like to teach them about marketing and consumerism.
[10:25.19] And I will say to them, are you really interested in spending these $10 and giving it to Wal Mart,
[10:29.21] who already has a lot of money?
[10:31.06] And so the conversation about pink and dolls and all that goes into that conversation.
[10:36.45] It's embedded in that conversation.
[10:38.21] So I do not see ?I see it as a much more ?a bigger conversation,
[10:44.49] not just about the pink and the girlie stuff.
[10:47.26] I see it as making good decisions for themselves, empowering them to be good consumers, and becoming entrepreneurs,
[10:54.21] because, as I always tell my kids, you may want that American Girl doll, but I would like you to be the owner of that American Girl company.
[11:01.29] And I think that kind of conversation is very empowering to children ?We are going to have ??as early as possible.
[11:07.01] Pardon me.
[11:07.22] We 're going to have other conversations this week, including about how to raise boys.
[11:10.54] But here's my final question for the two of you, which is, if the dilemma for boys is that they 're exposed to violent video games,
[11:17.52] say, and the dilemma for girls is that they 're being sexualized by pink girlie dolls and tiaras,
[11:24.43] which is the bigger problem, Peggy Orenstein?
[11:26.49] Oh, I do not think it's a zero sum game at all.
[11:30.02] I think that girls and boys each have their own issues and that one does not negate the other.
[11:35.06] I think, for all our kids, we have to think outside of the marketing box.
[11:39.07] And we have to just try to limit what we can and, meanwhile, broaden, broaden, broaden their image of being female or being male.
[11:46.58] And what I would say is, you have to fight fun with fun.
[11:49.14] You have to find not just the things you want to say no to, but the things that you can say yes to as well.
[11:54.20] Angelica Perez, final word?
[11:56.09] I think that raising a feminist girl or a strong, confident girl is really a full time job for parents.
[12:03.44] And as we become more busy, more distracted, our lives are just full, it just becomes even more challenging,
[12:10.39] but it is an important challenge to take ?to take over.
[12:12.30] Angelica Perez, CEO and publisher of New Latina, and Peggy Orenstein, author of" Cinderella Ate My Daughter," thank you both so much.
[12:16.08] Thank you.
[12:16.19] Thank you so much.