one-step-enough:

delicatepr1ncess:

Stop telling girls they have to be super heroes and not princesses. Stop telling girls that wanting to be a mother or a homemaker isn’t a real job. Stop telling girls that makeup isn’t art. Stop making fun of girls who like being in a relationship and looking for love.  STOP telling girls that femininity is bad. I thought being a feminist and being a woman’s rights activist was about giving women the freedom to choose. Stop the internalized misogyny. 

I had a professor/research mentor in college who was a very left-wing feminist. Like, we had to buy some supplies at a craft store for one of our experiments, and she made us drive to a Michaels 30 minutes away because she refused to support the Hobby Lobby that was only 10 minutes away.

Anyway, she was telling me once about friends of hers with two daughters, who were intentionally raising the girls in a gender-neutral environment. No pink clothes, no Barbies. Which isn’t necessarily wrong; certainly girls can play with trucks and boys can play with dolls. But, my professor was lamenting that despite the careful avoidance of anything overtly girly, by the time they were in preschool both daughters loved princesses, pink, dress-up. Much to their parents’ chagrin, they were both girly-girls.

And none of these very progressive people recognized how problematic their attitudes were. Certainly, we should not force girls to engage in traditionally feminine activities. BUT, perhaps more importantly, that doesn’t mean we should deride these activities in and of themselves. It is misogyny to condemn or ridicule something just because it is a stereotypically feminine activity.