My foster granddaughter and I played with dolls yesterday, and I enjoyed it as much as she did, I believe. The doll clothes were ones from my daughter, and the blankets and quilts ones I'd made for her dolls. Luckily, even that long ago, velcro was prevalent, and there are no difficult buttons and snaps for these outfits. They are all cloth dolls. I didn't allow Barbies or grown up looking dolls in the house. These dolls are little girls and boys, and they have yarn hair or none. I don't know if this feminist stance did any good or not. I'd say my daughters love clothes and fashion magazines as much as the next person. And they got their share of body self hatred from the culture at large, Barbie or not.
But I tried. And I see my granddaughters' mothers refusing to buy swimsuits that look like showgirl wannabes and avoiding the fluffy ruffles and Disney logos. They are trying to be practical and not push these girls into some premature sexual role. But yesterday someone was telling me about a neighbor who has begun putting her little girl, at five, into beauty pageants. A ton of makeup, provocative poses, the whole nine yards. It was deeply depressing to my friend and I.
There is a world out there where children are bought and sold, prostituted, and without basic human rights. We can't play around with this and just shrug our shoulders and think the one is not connected to the other. They are. And as women, we ought to know better and fight harder to not sexualize little girls. Who will stand up for these children?
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