Ok, I was watching The Daily Show with Hubby & one of the segments showed a ABC segment on Baby High Heels from last year. I hadn’t seen these before. I’m still not sure what outfit a baby would need heels for. They are made by Heelarious. And I do get it’s supposed to be tongue in cheek & cute.
But…
You knew there was going to be a but didn’t you?
When I saw these a lot of conflicting emotions were brought to the surface for me. Kristen Schaal, she appears occassionally on The Daily Show, was doing a piece on France’s push to ban burqas. Her point even in our free society there are still these social expectations that exist for women to live up to. Even our babies get caught in the net.
I’ve always been a little uncomfortable with the whole dressing up girls thing. I’m talking toddlers/preschoolers in heels & fancy dresses, the whole pretty princess look. I see how excited Mamacita gets putting these dress-up clothes on & while I love seeing her enjoy herself there is a part of me cringes at it.
I feel torn between my radical side that wants to reject anything that mainstream society says is feminine, carve out my own version of feminine that embraces innate beauty, kicks down doors & pushes aside the images of women as objects in need of some fairy tale rescue. And the other side of me that wears heels, puts on a princess tiara with Mamacita (and likes it), & wants to embrace the fun of playing with imagery of the feminine that already exists in society without the objectification that is popularized in media.
However, it’s really powerful stuff as Mamacita gets older that she’s going to face in a different way. I know the data & the research. I have rearched & written on it myself. I’m all too aware that media & fashion do play some part in how women define themselves.
There is a certain type of beauty & femininity that exists out there in our culture & it’s got a big footprint. I worry about her feeling pressure to conform to this feminine ideal. An ideal is never attainable, it’s always out of reach. If it weren’t then it wouldn’t be an ideal. Instead it would be realistic & realism isn’t idealism. Idealism doesn’t make room for imperfections.
I want my daughter to know that what she looks like doesn’t have to be some pre-packaged version of perfect. I worry about her developing a sense of who she is. I worry about her being saddled with the same hang-ups I or other women I see around me carrying around about how they look versus who they are.
I know people are reading this & thinking I’m the one reading a lot into baby heels. However, it’s not the heels so much as what they remind me of. They remind me that as woman I’m constantly coming up against images of what being “pretty” is & that I cannot attain them no matter how hard I try. They also remind me that I want my Mamacita to know, not just feel but know, that her worth is more than heels & a pretty outfit. I am further reminded that I don’t want my boys thinking that women are only worthwhile if they look a certain way.
I didn’t expect something like a pair of baby high heels to invoke any response in me. Certainly not one that would cause me to think about how my daughter will grow up in the world. Making me wonder how she’ll define herself as a woman in years to come. But they did.
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You struck a cord with me because this idea of beauty and femininity also has so much to do with body image…how women truly feel about themselves. It’s a fine line that we are walking, especially because we want our daughters to become self-confident, self-assured women. But the real challenge is trying to accomplish this in a media-crazed body conscious planet that we live in. Great post.
Have you ever seen that show on TLC about the beauty pagents for little bitty girls? It’s sickening. I have no problem with older teens or adults doing them or little girls dressing up for fun, like in their mom’s dresses and lipstick. I did! But I agree with you–why focus on beauty when they should focus on fun?
I just saw that segment on the Daily Show last night! DH and I were appalled at the thought of baby high heels, even tongue in cheek. I agree that there is this ideal and it is even beyond beauty. Like in addition to looking like a supermodel you also have to be extremely successful not to mention a great mom. Too many expectations for women these days!
what an awesome post!! when I first saw these shoes last year I had such strong feeling about them – I did not agree with them at all. I do agree that girls should be able to dress up and have fun (I had a blast doing that as a kid) and my 1 1/2 year old daughter already loves to try on new clothes and get dressed up. But it is so hard with the media these days – I do not want any additional pressures on my daughters to have to “look pretty”. I think those shoes are totally impracticle and send the wrong message.
Glad, I’m not the only one who has a strong reaction to them or to the expectations out there. There are just so many social expectations & most of them conflict, it makes my head spin.
Oh…I have seen that TLC show, Blond Duck. It was such a hard thing to look at because of the implications for those young girls. Everyone always claims the girls want to be there, but really can such a young girl consent?
I remember the first time I saw these and did not have a good reaction to them either. I understand they are supposed to be cute, but why is there the constant need to make our little girls look so much older than they really are?
I’m really enjoying this site. I struggle with these issues too, even though I only have boys. There’s a lot to say about those heels, our Western version of binding feet. As parents, we struggle with the concepts of masulinity and feminine. I don’t know how I’m going to get through it.
Powerful post… I agree with you wholeheartedly. Why can’t little girls, just be little girls? Why the need to create these little “women”. It is disturbing.
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