Bratz. Be still my angry heart.
My daughter has one Bratz doll. I don’t love it. Someone else gave it to her.
My daughter has one Bratz t-shirt. I don’t love it. Someone else gave it to her.
My daughter went to a book swap at school and traded in her Franklin and Dora books for a Bratz book. I did not love this.
I made a deal with her: she can keep the book. She can look at it as much as she wants and take it wherever she goes, but I will read it to her only once, and it WILL be followed by a feminist sermon.
It wasn’t so much as a sermon as a Q&A.
Baby Q. Why don’t you like Bratz?
Mama A. I don’t like Bratz because they dress in a way that is not appropriate for young girls and it seems like they’re trying to be women instead of kids. I don’t like Bratz because they show their stomachs to get attention. I don’t like Bratz because there are better ways to get attention, like being kind, making art, helping people, solving problems, discovering things, being a good friend, excelling at school, playing sports, singing songs. I don’t like Bratz because in that book all the girls do is go shopping, worry about looking pretty, and chase boys. I don’t think they are a good example for you. They don’t show you how wonderful it is to be a strong woman with many interests and skills.
Baby Q. But you like Beyonce. And she shows her stomach. Is Beyonce a brat?
Mama A. It is part of the performance. The main show is her talent. I think. Maybe.
This isn’t a simple issue to address. I’m not sure how to address it. I’m pretty sure I did it wrong, because later my daughter showed me her Bratz doll wearing a dress, a parka, and jeans and said: Look, Mama, she’s not showing her stomach! She’s not a brat anymore!
Shopping, vanity, parties, boys, slut shaming, sex and politics and feminism and women being dispossessed of their sexuality. Sex and spirituality. Reverence. Whore.
I’m inconsistent and conflicted.
I’ve been accused of ‘prostituting your cleavage‘, my blog is named Cleavage, I sell a PORN tshirt, I write about pretty much everything through the lens of sex and yet I’m tsk-tsking about Miley Cyrus. And Bratz.
Why? Because the message about sexuality that I get from Bratz is that it is a commodity. Saleable. I am not in love with the message: be Paris Hilton! Only brown! And get that boy! To buy you things!
I think it is not a great example of femininity for a five year old. (Or any year old.) Yet images of women rockin’ their sexuality truly rock my world while stories of slut-shaming make my head explode, twice.
I want to shield my daughter from a world with fangs and a desire to take something from her that she doesn’t even know she has. I know that vampire, personally, intimately, bloodily. I bear the scars.
But what is it that I am trying to protect her from, exactly? From predation? Exploitation? Mistakes? Tears? The only way to get to empowerment is to run that gauntlet. It takes time and false starts and pouring your sexuality into the cups of unappreciative others before you abandon that bottle. Before you surrender to yourself and own it.
Maybe – as young people and young women – we grapple with the seeming imperative and challenge of adapting ourselves to society and as adults we stop apologizing for ourselves and just be in the world, as we are.
I think that’s why we have therapy and the word ‘cougar’.
I don’t know. I don’t have a fully fleshed out theory or paradigm to tuck my child-rearing – and my child! – into. I just think that the centre of the “how to be authentically feminine and sexual in a world that consumes and diminishes female sexuality” question is also A Grand Life Question: how do I navigate the constraints and dictates of our society while questing for authenticity?
It is a big, worrisome question. But what worries me even more than that question is this one:
Did I just slut-shame my five year old?
———
image: callme_crochet via flickr
Oh, Kelly Kelly Kelly …
I struggle with this all the time. My daughter has internalized my dislike of Barbies to the degree that she just got rid of them. Hallelulia, right! But why do I dislike Barbie? I struggle to articulate it in ways that mean anything other than “she is fake and artificial and real women don’t look like that.”
I read her the Paper Bag Princess and talk abotu hwo she can be anything she wants but I also know I care about how I look and I go shopping and wear makeup … conflicted and inconsistent. Yeah, me too.
So, no answers here either. But really damn glad you are asking the questions.
Thanks.
[Reply]
An exchange between two girls in my first class:
Child A: Look at my picture of my mummy, isn’t it pretty?
Child B: Yes it is
Child A: My mum looks like a Bratz doll so she is pretty and your mummy doesn’t so she’s ugly.
They were both four! I was floored and wanted to point out to Child A that her mum was a complete bitch to boot but that is unprofessional! I hate Bratz dolls as much as hate t shirts for little girls that say stuff like hot chick. We do not need 5 year olds watching DVDs in which one of the boys talks about “all of the hotties in my black book” (this is true I bear witness!) I turned the DVD off on DVD day when I heard that line!
[Reply]
I know we have discussed this at length. You did not slut shame your five year old. I am always conflicted about what I tell my girls (and my little man) about what is appropriate. The most amazing gift I can give my children is an example of a strong, assured woman. The boundaries and guidance given are only there to give them parameters to navigate this crazy world until they are able to make these calls for themselves. What my children wear is not so important as WHY they wear it. I want my girls to know and love and embrace themselves. I want them to go out in this world as intelligent young woman that can see through the crap that we are all bombarded with on a daily basis. When I became a mom to two amazing girls, I knew it was my job to teach them how to see past shallow images that are part of their every day lives. Basically, to cut through the crap. I LOVE that they can , and then occasionally call me on it when I am not practising what I preach (not loving that so much). I hope they see that their Daddy loves that I am fiesty,opinionated, smart, sassy and loving. I have not defined myself in order to get a man and keep a man. Who I am and what I am is the defining factor in what drew Tony to me. I want my son to truly value and respect women, and be attracted to girls that are strong and empowered, not doormats. He adores his sisters, and nothing can be a better example for him than his two spunky and wise sisters showing him the ropes (or tying him up with them when he pesters them too much).
[Reply]
Oh my word – thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! So I am not the only crazy one out there. I have an almost five year old daughter and I RUN past the Bratz section when we are at Target or any other place that sells them. They make me oh so angry and yes, they completely sexualize our baby girls FAR too early. No Bratz for my girl and I refuse to buy them for gifts, too! When I recently asked a mom what her daughter was into so we could purchase a birthday gift she would like, she told her little girl just loved Bratz. I refuse, so sorry. While I am up on my soapbox, I will also admit to balking at a shirt I saw recently that read “The only thing worse than school is my sister.” Nice…Stumbled upon your blog and am liking it – about to launch my own site (not ready yet) so I found your insights in your ProBlogger article helpful. Thanks!
[Reply]
Well, I’m new here, so I’ll spare you my normal mouthiness just yet. I did want to chime in on this discussion in both agreement and one little bitty sliver of dissent.
First the agreement: Amen to everything everyone has said so far. Amen, amen, amen! Seriously.
But… (and there’s always a but, somewhere…)
The one thing that the Bratz dolls give my daughter is a doll that she can identify with…and I’m talking about skin color.
My 10 y/o daughter is mixed (her daddy’s black, I’m white) and until the stupid Bratz came along, she could only find dolls in Target or Walmart that related to half of who she is. She could find white Barbies or black Barbies…white baby dolls, or black baby dolls. What do you tell your daughter in the middle of WalMart when she asks, “Mom – why don’t they make brown dolls like me?”
Enter the stupid Bratz dolls. One of them, I don’t know which by name…if someone were to create a caricature of my daughter, it would be this one. And, no surprise, my daughter wanted one.
So I gave in and got her one.
Thankfully, her interest in Bratz was short-lived. She’s all about Joe Jonas, now.
Oh yeah – from the pan to the fire…
[Reply]
kellydiels
replied:
on December 4th, 2009 at 7:55 am
I’m with you. I’m WITH you. My daughters are biracial, too – black daddy, white mama. And that makes the Bratz thing more palatable – because they do come in a range of skin colours, just like all of us – and disturbing, at the same time. Because don’t we already have enough of a narrative and a well of images about the hypersexualized, exotic, dark-skinned woman?
But yeah. What you said. And now I’m saying a bad word.
[Reply]
As a father of 3 girls I worry about this all the time.
They’re not teenagers yet but my wife and I definitely try to guide them towards activities to make them active and confident women.
We don’t have cable in our house, but whenever I see the preteen “role models” on Disney fawning over boys and being complete air heads I vow to show them a different way to act. A way that’s more in line with what real young ladies and women should be.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go read Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters again…
[Reply]
Hello.
I loved your piece on Pro-blogger and decided to stop by. Liked this one even more.
I completely get where you’re coming from. For me it boils down to women owning our sexuality. Where I take issue, is that young girls are being sold a package of sexual goods they can neither understand nor afford at too early an age.
I have no answers. Only solidarity re the questions and the struggle.
[Reply]