Cinderella ate my daughter
The author of the groundbreaking bestseller Schoolgirls reveals the dark side of pink and pretty. Orenstein is an award-winning writer, editor and speaker about issues affecting girls and women. Journalist, Peggy Orenstein’s, book Cinderella ate my Daughter takes a look at the profound girlie- girl culture and how it influences everyone in this day and age including 5 year old girls to 90 year old Women. She makes sure to point how women have been socialized to fill a certain part in society through mainly media and other sources. This though, has deemed to be a problem now because it appears to get worse and worse with time and now it is even reaching children at a very young age.










Orenstein tell the reader a lot about her daughter. She explains to the reader that at first she did not want a baby girl. At first she was scared of raising her daughter in this world filled with what seemed to be one point of view for women. But when she actually thought about it she realized she yearned for a daughter. We have been socialized to think that women would rather have baby girls and men would rather have baby boys. But her prayers were answered and she had a baby girl. Now all she had to do was to shield her daughter form all this pop culture and everything things else that separates boys and girls and everything that society deemed natural and normal for each gender.








Orenstein was raised during the time women were pining for their rights and so she grew up a strong feminist and wanted to bring up her daughter in the same way. When her daughter was young, Orenstein would buy her trucks and blue baby clothes to defeat this stereotypical little girl image we associate with; but when her daughter was put in school all that went to waste. All the little girl’s friends would point out the reasons why she should not play rough’ or wear blue. “because you are a girl”, the little kids at her school would say’ “and girls don’t do that.’’












Now Orenstein was faced with the trouble of dealing her troubles and giving into media, pop culture and the stereotypes. She goes on to explore other famous girls we have watched grow up for instance Hannah or also known as Miley. When she was younger she appealed to young girls. But when sse tore away from Disney she gained a bad rep and girls had looked up to her. Orenstein talks about Lindsey Lohan, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and their downfalls. Also mentioning current Disney stars such as Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato and predicting their fall. Most importantly though she talks about the fairytale characters that little girl seemed to “eat up”. Yes those that we are very familiar with; Cinderella, Snow White Arielle, princess Mia and many more.







Cinderella ate my daughter basically means that all these girls, fairytale stories characters, media are proposed to girls from a very young age and we are socialized to believe in them and aspire to be like them. All these women and these fairytale maidens pave a way for all of us as girl from a very young age. We want to dress like them and be like them and somehow they define what’s good and what is not.







I very much enjoyed this book. It gave me a new perspective on how to look at our society and how even the little things such as affects out thinking and our upbringing. Yes I admit to wanting to be a princess when I was younger so I related to that. The book was an easy read. I would recommend it to anyone. I defiantly learnt many more things I was oblivious to.