Should I be concerned that all my three year-old daughter talks about--both in conversation and her pretend play--is the Disney princesses? Yes, she is my adorable little princess...

but I'm starting to hear and see eerie similarities to the 19th century Cult of Domesticity. Is my daughter learning to be submissive?

Let's compare some body language:

An illustration from Godey's Lady's Book  (c. 1850)                                     An illustration from the Disney Corporation (c. 2007)

from  www.quiltersmuse.com/sarah_josepha_buell_hale.htm      from www.screenlifegames.com/goodies.php

I see the submissive head tilt, lack of direct eye contact.  Although, the Disney illustration seems more sexualized.  Small waists are emphasized in both images, but jutting hips and large breasts also appear in the Disney illustration.  The Godey's ladies might be more fairly called submissive, and the Disney princesses coy.

Let's examine message:

from Catherine Beecher's Treatise on Domestic Economy:

  "For this purpose, it is needful that certain relations be sustained, which involve the duties of subordination. There must be the magistrate and the subject, one of whom is the superior, and the other the inferior. There must be the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, teacher and pupil, employer and employed, each involving the relative duties of subordination. The superior, in certain particulars, is to direct, and the inferior is to yield obedience. Society could never go forward, harmoniously, nor could any craft or profession be successfully pursued, unless these superior and subordinate relations be instituted and sustained."

I read this entire text in college.  And as I skimmed a couple of chapters again today, I was of course appalled by the idea that educating girls and women in traditional schools is not only a waste of resources, it's harmful to them, blah, blah, blah.  But Beecher does say that in a democracy no one has to choose a superior.  You can be self-employed or you could decide not to marry.  Mostly unrealistic for the time period, but possible.  In the Disney video, I don't see any representation of a woman haveing anything to think about aside from the handsome prince.  In fact, her dream of him is almost inescapable and overshadows her love of reading, the fate of China, even the brutality of the French Revolution. Come to think of it, all of the contemporary Disney Princesses (Belle, Ariel, etc.) are presented as strong-minded and independent young women with choices, but their choices always turn out to be to find a way to marry the prince in the end.  So maybe there is a Beecher similarity after all:  choices are hypothetical.

Reading Beecher, I was reminded of one terrible library book that Sophie found a couple of months ago. You can see inside the Disney Princess book of manners, Pretty Please, at amazon.com.

and from Catherine Beecher:

I learned from the newly released Enchanted Journey that there are rules to being a princess, but I can't find a list of those rules. There's just such an overshadowing priority for appropriateness that feels like wearing pantyhose.   

I have to be honest and disclaim that I am utterly biased in this research.  I'm looking for evidence that the Disney Princesses are a terrible influence on my daughter.  There are pop culture antidotes like Ella Enchanted and the Shrek the Third princesses.  Possibly, the forthcoming Enchanted.

Conclusions:

I think my agitation at the princess' brainwashing of my daughters is a metaphor.  I've been surfing around for two hours trying to prove that the Disney Princesses represent some sort of conservative conspiracy to raise girls to know their proper place. 

But my epiphany is that Sophie's growing old enough to make her own choices and won't always let me make them for her.  What if she chooses to become someone I don't like?  What if we have nothing in common, nothing to talk about? What if the culture we live in won't allow me to create a respectable path for her to follow to womanhood?

If I were to write this essay, it would be a personal reflection on motherhood and womanhood with an organizing metaphor about these Disney Princesses juxtaposed against my education in women's history. 

I wish I had other contributors to this wiki page on princeses because I'm getting really tired of looking for stuff.