“What’s the problem with pink and princess? The marketing, not the moms.”
Media Studies Professor Rebecca Hains, a Media Literacy Now national advisory council member, responds to recent articles that suggest parents should not be so concerned about their daughters’ obsession with pink and princess.
Here’s an excerpt of the article originally published on March 29, 2014:
“… Kohen and Benedikt’s arguments are wrong on several levels. By pontificating on the subject without actually talking to the moms they’re criticizing, they’ve missed the point. Having interviewed more than 50 parents about princess culture, and dozens of experts as well, I’d like to state this categorically: No one is blaming girls. To suggest otherwise is to make a straw man argument that distracts from the real issues at hand.
Furthermore: No one thinks that pink is inherently a problem. Pink is not the “color of oppression,” as Benedick charges sarcastically.
No, no–the problem is not with the girls or the color pink. It’s with the marketing,because that marketing is reducing girls’ choices…
…Pink princess marketing is so forceful, backed by so many billions of dollars, that it’s not really a choice anymore. It’s proscriptive, it’s coercive, and it takes deliberate advantage of a developmental phase that industrial psychologists are well aware of.”
