Photography by John Cullen

Once upon a time, in a suburb not far away, there lived a middle-class mother who had two beautiful daughters. The family’s two-storey, Tudor-style castle was teeming with princess-themed toys: talking vanities, singing dolls, movies and games, too. Those girls had it all.

When the woman’s eldest daughter, Charlotte, was two, she wore a second-hand Cinderella costume every day for a year and a half. She wore it everywhere: to bed, to preschool, even on runs to the supermarket. In time, the dress didn’t have much sparkle left and it looked more like rags than the ball gown it was meant to mimic, but Charlotte loved it just the same.

And she looked cute.

Which presented a conundrum for the feminist mommy. Should she—a person who took women’s studies in university, who firmly believed in equality for women and wanted to raise strong, independent daughters—shelter her little girls from all things princess or let them embrace something they really, really liked?

What Is a Princess?

To many little girls, princesses are just about the most beautiful things in the world. They’re kind and sweet and everyone (with the exception of the villain) loves them. Who wouldn’t want to be like that? I know I did when I was a kid. I was a bit rough around the edges then: a little bit chubby, a little bit messy and, scrub as I might, I had perpetually dirty fingernails. But I longed to be as beautiful as Cinderella.

But now I see princess movies, and all the paraphernalia that surrounds them, differently than I did as a little girl. There’s just so much more “princess” in my daughters’ world now. I only saw Cinderella once and I wanted to be just like her; imagine if I owned the DVD and watched it every day. If I had the dress and the shoes would I have been able to separate fantasy from reality? Or would I have spent my life waiting for someone else to make my dreams come true?

Andrea Dworkin, the late radical feminist and author of Woman Hating, wrote a piece on fairy tales that completely changed my perspective when I read it. In it, she talks about how the greatest sin of the female villains—such as Cinderella’s stepmother or the evil queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs—is protecting her power at any cost. In fairy tales, concludes Dworkin, beauty and passivity are desirable traits, while female characters of ambition are wicked and must be destroyed. My kids know I love the evil queen. I love her because she’s a) gorgeous, b) knows she has to stay that way to stay powerful, and c) I think Snow White is a big dweeb, and it drives them nuts. To keep the peace I recently announced that while the evil queen is my favourite character, Belle is my favourite princess. Belle’s great: she’s smart, kind to animals (and beasts) and she’s a brunette like me; she’s a modern woman’s princess.

A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes

Now, when I watch or read about Snow White and Sleeping Beauty whiling away their teenage years dreaming about handsome princes sweeping them off their feet, I feel a bit sad for them. I see girls who are only ever saved from an unfortunate life situation by someone else—never by their own awesomeness. I hope Charlotte, now 7, and Peyton, 4, will be smart enough to realize that happiness comes from within, not from associations with someone else.

And while part of me wants to protect them from stereotypes I’m afraid they’ll glean from princess this and princess that, I’m equally worried that to do so would be to rip them off; these are experiences they clearly enjoy. So we have princess-themed birthday parties and if someone else gives them princess toys, I just don’t make a big deal about them. My hope is that one day they’ll outgrow this phase, just like Charlotte outgrew that Cinderella dress. And every third time we watch Sleeping Beauty, I read them Robert Munsch’s The Paper Bag Princess just to set my mind at ease.

What do you think? Are princesses a fun phase, or a royal threat?