Being French is very au courant these days. Thus far Bringing Up Bebe is the parenting book of the year. Paris Fashion Week just ended. And, now, a French report offers several suggestions on how to fight against the hyper-sexualization of young girls. While those last two sentences may seem contradictory, given that France is [...]
Last week, in between two month vaccines (I may have cried more than he did!) and StrollFit classes to try to lose that baby weight, I was busy talking about a few different strands of my research. 1) I appeared on NECN’s The Morning Show to talk about a new, disturbing trend: T(w)een girls posting [...]
Watching Dance Moms and Toddlers & Tiaras is always interesting for me– both because the shows are often entertaining (if only in a horrifying way, like the recent T&T episode that featured Heaven, a modern day Violet Beauregarde with her incessant gum chewing, and Honey Boo Boo child and her TLC crossover extreme couponing momma [...]
Tyra Banks has invented her own version of Hunger Games. No, not her competitive reality TV show America’s Next Top Model, but Modelland, her debut novel about a mythical world where girls compete to become supermodels with superpowers. Modelland, which came out in September, is pure Banks. It’s a bit overblown and overly long, with [...]
CLICK HER TO READ THIS AT THE DENVER POST! What did Santa bring the little girl in your life? A Barbie or an American Girl doll? Perhaps it was a gift certificate for a manicure or a facial? Don’t be surprised if it was the latter, as girls young as 6 are making appointments at [...]
Princess means that you’re a loser! A lot of feminists might agree with this sentiment– especially with the recent release of Disney’s newest princess targeted at the preschool set, Sofia the First. But it was a child beauty pageant mom who uttered this line during the continuing fourth season of TLC’s Toddlers & Tiaras, which [...]
To outsiders it might seem like there are lots of links between the world of child beauty pageants and the world of adult beauty pageants (which do not exclusively include the Miss America, Miss Universe, and Miss World systems, but those are certainly the most prestigious and well-known). But that isn’t quite right. Lots of [...]
You’ve seen the four-year-old dressed up as Dolly Parton (complete with “enhancements”), right? And, of course, you’ve seen the images of the three-year-old dressed up as Julia Roberts’ prostitute character from Pretty Woman, haven’t you? Judging by the ratings for TLC’s fourth season of Toddlers & Tiaras, it seems you have. Each week over two [...]
This has certainly been the summer of stage mothers– at least on television. We have the Dance Moms on Lifetime, who continue to bring the crazy. If anything, it’s ramping up as the Abby Lee Dance Company prepares for its big “nationals” in Tahoe. Stay tuned for a smackdown with Crazy Cathy from Candy Apples… [...]
The tension has been building for months — the online protests started in April, and then there were the rallies in May. Not to mention the Facebook threats and numerous complaints to public officials. Despite all the brouhaha, an “American-style” child beauty pageant sponsored by Texas-based Universal Royalty took place over the weekend in Melbourne, [...]
