Princesses, girly-girl stuff, wearing pink and being weak

The problem with the color pink is not what it is, but what it represents--girlness, femininity. And therefore weakness. But I reject the notion that the feminine is weak, as I think everyone who tries to embrace feminism does. So how does one reject the notion that feminine is weak while still believing that there's something wrong with the girly-girl stuff?

These are the basic questions that are everyone's minds that wrote to Salon this week regarding the article about little girls fantasizing about princesses. It's a question that's on my mind a lot as well, because, as I've mentioned before, I've got a girly-girl streak in me a mile wide. (I am happy that it's cold because I have a cute new sweater to wear, for instance. This really did get me all excited.) On a certain level, there's nothing wrong inherently wrong with all the separate pieces of girliness--even the vanity that is part and parcel of the clothes, make-up, shoes package is not a particularly harmful trait as long as it's kept within reason. And, as this letter from Sheila Underwood points out and as those of us who harbor girly tendencies can testify, it's not that easy to let go of the fun and fantasy of glamour.

It's a horrible trap for those women who naturally gravitate toward the girly. It leaves you with two choices: acknowledge your love of the feminine and decide that you are unsuited for competition, struggle or independent thought; or, hide your girlieness, and let it fester deep in your heart until it forms a core of self-doubt, a suppressed need that will rise up to shame you every time you crave something pretty or yearn to have your physical beauty acknowledged.

By telling girls and women to reject things that are coded feminine and embrace things coded masculine, we are arguing, albeit unintentionally, that masculine is inherently better than feminine. If it's possible to drain value judgements from things masculine and feminine, then it's likely that you'll find people selecting from a hodge-podge of masculine and feminine traits and modes of dress to suit different occasions. A perfect example is that when pants were no longer coded as strictly masculine, most women incorporated pants into their wardrobes, but they didn't abandon their skirts. If only skirts could be coded neutral as well, and it were easier for men to adopt feminine things as it is for women to adopt masculine things, it might be easier for us to get a grip on what's bad-feminine and what's value neutral-feminine.

And that's the problem. A lot of feminine things are not inherently bad but are just coded that way out of loathing for women. But a lot of feminine things are essentially tools of oppression. And a lot are in the gray area. This letter from Helen Young can make those of us who like the girly-girl stuff flinch.

I believe a large part of what now allows me to be happy in reality is that I wound up, solely by chance rather than merit, securing a number of those fairy-tale elements in my actual life. I happen to be skinny and reasonably cute; I happen to have married an attractive guy I love who makes a lot of money. If I had instead grown up to be an ugly duckling who had no man, I would probably feel like crap, even if I were a rocket scientist. And everywhere you look in our society there is overwhelming evidence that millions and millions of women do indeed feel like crap -- just take the eating disorders, the obsession with looks and weight, or the fact that women are still earning less then men in every state and doing lots more than their fair share of domestic drudgery.

Ouch. The beauty standard still is the overriding standard of how women are judged by men and by each other, and there is no doubt that this oppresses women. Women who don't live up to it are excluded and mocked and have trouble defining their identity through other outlets and preserving their self-esteem in a society that disdains them. Women who do measure up to the beauty standard are derided as being hateful to other women and stuck on themselves. You're either a dog or a bitch in this culture, and it's hard to get around that.

Plenty of us have found an uneasy balance in our lives where we allow that women have a right to look how they like (men too) while being treated as well-rounded human beings with plenty of interests and ideas beyond their hair and make-up. But even for those who manage, it's a treacherous path. As for raising children who have a decent understanding of how to balance one's relationship to their gender with one's basic desires to be a full human being regardless of gender, I have no clue. But a lot of suggestions in these letters seem reasonable to me.