A Facade of Choice

I had talked about this topic briefly last week on my post about the documentary Miss Representation. However, I wanted to go ore into depth about this topic, as it has been a huge part of my life. Princesses. More specifically, Disney princesses.

Do you really expect all girls to look like this?

Growing up, I adored these cartoon characters. I loved and wanted to be one of them. In my eyes, they were the definition of perfection and what a girl should look like. I would dress up in costumes and act as if I were one of them. You could say I was obsessed. I thought they were perfect and beautiful, so growing up, I aimed to be like them.

Only after watching Miss Representation, did I realize that this is what their purpose served. We women have grown up in a society that categorizes us as a "damsel in distress" and expects us to looks and act a certain way. Take a look at the princesses. They are all thin with the right amount of curves, have long luscious hair, and they all fall in love and live happily ever after. We see this and believe that this will happen to us if we look like them. We are taught from an early age that this is the role we play in life. We are supposed to be saved by men and we're supposes to look like this.

This is what I wanted to look like when I was about 3.

Many of the princesses also dress in a way that shows off their bodies. Again, this teaches girls at an early age that we are expected to show skin and be this definition of beautiful if we want to live happily ever after. I remember when I was a little girl I wore a princess Jasmine costume and my stomach was sticking out. I wanted to be just like her. I wasn't even aware of the effects that these princesses had on me. I was living proof that we, as women and girls, were taught to acts and dress a certain way so we could achieve our happiness.

I find this extremely sad that our society has been shaped like this. It is said that we have our own freedom and our own independent choices growing up, but how much of that is really a lie? Are we really able to make our own choices without the world and society having a say in it? We are taught at such an early age to be and act a certain way and this effects the outcome of who we are as people. Our whole lives seem as if they've been controlled and made for us. I hope this changes in the future and we will really have the choice to decide who we want to be, not this facade of choice that we have today.

I hope you have a nice and and make the choices you want to make.