I love synchronicity. Here I am, in my corner of the blogosphere thinking about the ways in which Princesses impact my children. Over at The Good Men Project there is a wonderful essay about The Prince and what noxious stereotypes he teaches.
So now I'm thinking about Princes and how to re-frame what we tell our young men about manliness. I don't have any concrete thoughts about this yet (I just read the essay 20 minutes ago), but I wanted to share the link for those who were interested in the Princess post.
The Good Men Project: How To Be A Prince
Interesting sidenote: as I looked around for prince images, I was intrigued by the very small number of single prince images. Almost all of the pictures involve the Princess. He's not really a stand-alone character, apparently. Lot's to think about!
I always thought that most princes were pretty one-dimensional, at least in the classic Disney stories (Cinderella, Snow White, etc) - really, all they do is show up at the end to save the princess. Not that all the princesses were fully developed characters, but the stories really weren't about the prince.
ReplyDeleteAs I think about this, I am incresingly convinced that the Prince is actually a lot more work to deconstruct and make positive than the Princess. At least the Princeess has some backstory and personality. The Prince is just this...male on a white horse. And what can we really say about that? What does that teach our little boys about the importance of the male side of a relationship?
DeleteShow up and they'll be so grateful they'll marry you?
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