Proud That Your Daughter Bailed on Pink Princess Dresses? Maybe Don’t Be
A six-year-old girl declaring her hatred of pink has basically internalized sexism
“I don’t like princesses,” my daughter’s seven-year-old friend proclaimed proudly. “Or pink.”
“Me either,” chimed in another little girl, one of six we were having over for my younger daughter’s seventh birthday, along with one boy. We were in search of a movie to watch, which, they announced, shouldn’t be about a princess. “I hate Frozen,” one said, and the others quickly concurred.
Not long before this, my daughter and her friends were whole-hog into what psychologists call “PFD,” or pink frilly dresses. “We have noticed that a large proportion of girls pass through a stage when they virtually refuse to go out of the house unless they are wearing a dress, often pink and frilly,” psychologist Diane Ruble and her colleagues wrote in a 2011 paper. Some mothers said their daughters began expressing PFD desires as soon as they could speak, and insisted on wearing pink to all occasions, from hiking to horseback riding. As many as 74% of three- to four-year-old American girls demand PFD, according to a follow-up paper by psychology professor May Ling Halim.
