In her article What's Wrong With Cinderella, Peggy Orenstein discusses the recent "princess" craze that has spread amongst young girls, and how this trend could affect their personality later on. Orenstein states that there has been an enormous spike in the commercialization of princesses by Disney and other companies, which has led to most toys that are sold to girls being princess themed. The issue with this is that the idea of being a princess causes girls to try and be "perfect" when they grow up, and Orenstein says that many girls feel immense pressure to succeed in everything they do as well as be beautiful like the princesses they grew up with. However, Orenstein is overreacting by trying to prevent her daughter from purchasing princess merchandise, because in doing so, she is also trying to confine her daughter to a certain role. Instead of doing this, Orenstein should just try to introduce her daughter to other toys, like toys for boys, because that way it is giving her daughter the freedom to choose what she wants to play with.
I understand Orenstein's point about the negative influence that princesses have on young girls, but I feel like the more pressing matter is that recently children have been confined to these gender roles from an early age. In most toy stores, there are split sections between toys for girls and toys for boys, and in her article Orenstein states that the difference between the toys in these sections is incredibly visible. I agree with Orenstein that this disparity between the toys that boys and girls play with could impact them, because it causes them to unconsciously generate stereotypes on the differences between males and females from an early age. By playing with army figurines instead of princess dolls, boys are immediately introduced to a more aggressive mindset. Although some people will argue that this disparity