Stephanie Hanes Little Girls Or Little Women? The Disney Princess Effect

Kayla Smith
Amy Thomas
EH 101
18 September 2014
The Problems with Being a Princess Today, “60 percent of children who use the Internet regularly come into contact with pornography” (Hanes 1). In Stephanie Hanes’ article, “Little Girls or Little Women? The Disney Princess Effect”, she provides undeniable evidence to suggest that the culture of today’s world causes sexualization of children, specifically of females, at an alarmingly young age. This sexualization has become increasingly invasive in the past decade, so much so that parents, educators, and even more recently politicians have decided to try to counteract some these negative effects. In this article, Stephanie Hanes uses strong research with logical arguments that support this

Finucane’s daughter had seemingly been robbed of her creative imagination after trying to live up to the expectations of a Disney princess. Her daughter “seemed less imaginative, less spunky, and less interested in the world” (Hanes 1) after being introduced to the Disney princess line, willing herself to be just like the princesses. Young children know no better and are very susceptible to the world around them, and are very likely to imitate what they are shown or what intrigues them. Hanes was outraged at how Disney had stripped the child of believing in other imaginative creatures and activities, and was stuck on behaving as a princess. Hanes provides research in the article that supports that Finucane’s daughter is not the only one to catch the Disney princess symptoms. There is a whole book about this “diseases” as well as much research conducted on educators that seemingly all agrees that “[teachers] are unable to control the growing onslaught of social messages shaping their…students” (Hanes 1). Through her research Hanes discovered that the Disney Princess empire is a $4 billion dollar industry that leads to “self-objectification, cyber bullying, and unhealthy body image…” (1) causing problems for young girls. These “ideals” will stay with them throughout the remainder of their life, based on decisions that were made for them, to introduce such “ideals” into their minds. Hanes’ readers are most likely to be parents or adults who will likely become parents in the near future, and this article is a great introduction to the long road of making decisions that will impact the way their children think