Offending Network: TLC (of course)
Gist: Little Girls Are Televised
Headline: "Just another day in the life of a toddler princess!"
Is this show terrible? No doubt. For the sake of this blog I will risk typing what is glaring obvious. A show following stage-moms (its always mothers who seemingly have no employment beside being stay-at-home moms- not that this is bad) force their 3 and 4 year old daughters to perform in pageants while dressed in full makeup, hair, and other adult grooming measures, can't possibly be anything other than sociologically offensive and wholly sexist. What I saw today has finally convinced me to say something about this terrible show.
The following clip is of a 10 year old girl getting her eye brows waxed. She's so terrified that she is seen clutching onto the chair arms and her mother's hand; its as if she's in labor.
The first question I ask myself : " how old was I when I started shaving my legs and tweezing my eyebrows?". I was 14 before I was allowed to shave or pluck. I tried once to use my mother's razor and failed miserably, coming out of the bathroom with nicks bleeding all over my legs. My mother was pissed and I was terrified- nothing was worth having disgusting cuts and band aids all over my legs.
Shaving, grooming and wearing makeup are ways that women (and men) change their physical appearance to conform to beauty norms, yet there is something important about having a care-free childhood, one I was fortunate to have. With the prevalence of mass media and increased availability to sources of information that perpetuate beauty and other gender-biased social norms, the "age of innocence" is becoming almost non-existent. Parents should be encouraging their kids to find interest in many things and develop confidence based upon stuff more substantive than the way they look.
Beauty is fleeting and ever changing, starting kids on a path to attempting to fulfill all beauty standards at such a young age is extremely damaging and makes me sad. Beyond the little toddlers playing dress up and strutting their stuff on a stage in front of
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