At a recent presentation on a college campus, a mother express concern to me that her young daughter wanted to have a princess birthday party.
Now I can understand that concern — princesses have gotten a bad rap in our culture, primarily because, in most of our fairy tales, all they have to do is be beautiful, wear some sparkly tiara and glass slippers (ouch — they would never bend to fit your feet, and imagine what would happen if one of them broke!), and wait for a handsome prince to come rescue them from a high tower or an evil stepmother.
But in my opinion, princesses are not inherently bad and neither are princess parties. For me, the problem with princess parties is that not everyone who wants one gets to have one.
Princess parties and similar trappings are marketed only to girls. In our culture, girls are supposed to want to be princesses, but woe is the little boy who asks to have a princess party. Not only will his parents likely haul him off to the therapist, but his friends will tease him mercilessly — that is, until they stop playing with him or decide to beat him up.
It’s not the party that’s the problem — it’s the gender expectation that little girls should be princesses and little boys should not.
If I was in charge, besides enacting universal health care and really redistributing the wealth, I would make princess parties an acceptable choice for everyone. Anyone who wants a princess party gets one, and nobody gets criticized, shunned, shamed, or beaten up for their choice.
The idea of a princess party should not make people shudder. What should make people shudder is that there are girls out there having princess parties who don’t want them, and boys out there desperately wanting a princess party and knowing that it will never be — not even in a fairy tale.
Great post! Let’s throw ourselves a princess party when you get back to Denver.
My first and last party as a kid was the complete opposite of the princess party I would have enjoyed. I don’t know what I said to my parents when they collected me bit I never went to a boys birthday party ever again! saved me a lot of grief.
That’s why I don’t oppose princess parties. Like you said, Caroline, you would have enjoyed going to one. What I do oppose are parties or themes that are supposed to be for one gender and are basically off limits to everyone else.
While you were hating that boys’ birthday party, there was a little girl out there who wished that she had been invited. I wish that our culture would acknowledge that gender doesn’t or shouldn’t have to figure into everything–it’s okay to be a princess (or a prince), no matter what gender you are.
And until we quit forcing gender separations and specific roles for specific genders, there will always be unhappy children like you were who are being forced to do something they hate and others who are miserable because they are left out of something they would have loved.
“If I was in charge, besides enacting universal health care and really redistributing the wealth, I would make princess parties an acceptable choice for everyone. Anyone who wants a princess party gets one, and nobody gets criticized, shunned, shamed, or beaten up for their choice.”
Well said, but can we expand that so that anyone who wants a pirate party can get one too (without being criticized, shunned, etc.)? That’s all I ever wanted as a kid, instead of the ballerina and fairy princess stuff I got (but don’t cry for me, I finally got the pirate party at my last birthday
).
Plus we get universal health care and wealth redistribution if you’re in charge, eh? Sure, I’ll vote for you.
Pirate parties – absolutely! That’s a great idea – having a pirate party now.
I always wanted a GI Joe, and I never got one. It surprises me, because my parents got me a spy camera. It was a plastic “camera” (that didn’t take pictures) that opened up into a gun when you pushed the button as if you were going to take a picture. I wanted to be The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which was a very popular TV show about spies back when I was a kid, and I asked for that camera and got it. But I never did get a GI Joe.
If they were opposed to what GI Joe stood for, then they wouldn’t have gotten me a toy that turned into a gun. They just said GI Joe was for boys. Who knows?
Maybe you should have requested a Ken doll and drafted him into the army.
I never have anything to contribute, but I love your blog & have been reading it religiously since I found it through Womanist Musings! Thank you!
Thank you for reading!