Winds of change in magical kingdom of princesses

We have an awful lot of little princesses in this country, and they should hold their tiaras high, because there are many who would prefer to see a world full of scaredy-cat women, writes Clodagh Finn

HAVE you noticed? For a Republic, we have an awful lot of princesses. You’ve seen them, I’m sure, dressed in their diaphanous gowns skipping along in beautiful gem-encrusted pumps.

The average age is probably — what? — six, but don’t underestimate these visions in pink (and yes, it’s always pink). A three-year-old royalista of my acquaintance regularly bursts into this little self-composed ditty: “I am a princess, I have no fear”.

Her fantastic — though, whisper it, rather tuneless — song makes me think of feminist author Naomi Wolf’s advice to the parents of princess- obsessed little girls: “Don’t worry if your five-year-old insists on a pink frilly princess dress. It doesn’t mean she wants to subside into froth; it just means that she wants to take over the world.”

To all those pretty-in-pink princesses out there — hold on to that thought because there are many who would prefer to see a world full of scaredy-cat women. Though, raise your tiara high, it does seem as if the winds of change are blowing softly through the kingdom.

The evidence among the under-sixes (anecdotal, I admit) is that there is little fear and even less self-doubt in the land of pinkdom. Why rail against the pink-ifcation of girlhood and the gendering of toys if we are raising self-assured women? It’s possible, it seems, to be pink, princess-ly and powerful, at least before puberty.

The problem is what happens next. If little girls are encouraged to follow the princess dream, are we setting them up to be weak and submissive; to rely on rescue fantasies rather than hard work and self-reliance?

For Jerramy Fine, a die-hard princess admirer and staunch feminist, the answer is a resounding no. In her new book, In Defence of the Princess: How Plastic Tiara and Fairytale Dreams can Inspire Smart, Strong Women, she makes the refreshing argument that princesses, even aspiring ones, can be feminists too.

She’s still wearing pink herself —and will fight for any girl/teenager/woman’s right to do so. The irony in all this is that Fine herself was not a mini-princess in her early years. Her parents dressed her in tie-dye, fed her tofu, and raised her to be an activist. They also, she notes dryly, gave her a boy’s name.

Her parents, however, did get their wish. She grew up to be an activist all right, but one that campaigns for princesses. There is, she argues, more than one way to be a girl. And here’s the good bit. If little girls want to live out a princess fantasy it doesn’t necessarily follow that their world, real or imagined, will be devoid of courage, exploration, excitement, and bravery. On the contrary, argues Fine, princesses — from the fictional Princess Leia and Elsa and Anna in Frozen to Princess Di and Kate Middleton — can be confident, intelligent, even radical, women. Though, I can’t imagine that it’s very empowering to be a member of a real-life Royal family, with every sign of human gaucheness pored over in the pages of a ravenous media. That very same media expects its princesses to be composed, refined and, in truth, rather wooden.

Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel was on to something when she said that Middleton “appeared to have been designed by a committee and built by craftsmen, with a perfect plastic smile and the spindles of her limbs hand-turned and gloss-varnished”.

She was pilloried for the remarks but she was simply making the point that being a real princess in the public eye was very hard work indeed.

It’s great, then, to think that we might finally be ready to challenge the idea of what a princess should be and broaden out the princess archetype so that our six-year-old wannabes have something real to aspire to.

That’s why Fine’s contribution is so worthwhile. If more girls (and women), she says, felt that they had the freedom to embrace their inner princess then things would change significantly —and for the better. Here’s what might happen: “[Women] might stop dating losers. They might ask for a raise. They might aim for goals that are worthy of them. Most importantly? They might stop thinking that a mediocre life is enough.” Bring on the tiara and diamonds, I hear you say.

And wouldn’t it be just wonderful if Fine’s vision became a reality? If only little girls and the people who look after them could somehow subvert the torrent of pink merchandise that is thrown at them and turn the glitz and the gossamer into symbols of strength and empowerment.

On a micro level, some little warrior princessesare doing just that, but something terrifying seems to happen along the way: girls discover fear.

I’m not sure how that happens exactly, though there are many studies to suggest parents and teachers play a role in putting the frighteners on growing girls. To give one example, a study in the Journal of Paediatric Psychology in 2015 found that parents were four times more likely to tell girls to be careful than boys.

True, there are an awful lot of reasons to be careful in this world but when our little princesses emerge, much later, in the workplace they are much more likely to be suffering from ‘Tiara Syndrome’ than sitting on the throne. The term was coined by women-in-leadership coaches Dr Deborah Kolb and Carol Frohlinger to describe the way women work. They noticed that women in business were inclined to work hard with their heads down, expecting someone to recognise their hard graft and come along and put a tiara on their head.

Guess what? That happens only in fairytales. So back in the real world, what can we say to our miniature queens-in-waiting? Maybe this: Hold on to your fearlessness, your hopes and your dreams but, above all, hold on to that tiara. You are going to need it.