Cinderella Ate My Daughter

Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture
© 2012 Peggy Orenstein
260 pages

When did every little girl become a princess to be bedecked in pink and fawned over? Such is the question posed by Peggy Orenstein, author of numerous books on issues of motherhood and raising women. The answer is at least twofold. First, advertising toward girls in general has emphasized coy, yet overt sexuality, even to the very young: and secondly, in the early 1990s, the Disney Corporation realized there was a lot of money to be had in developing a line of princess goods.  But this isn't really a book on advertising: Orenstein is more concerned about what the princess culture is doing to the minds of girls. The substance of the book is an examination of  how girls view themselves and each other in society.

 What makes a princess special? There's no answer. A princess is special just because. She exists solely to be an object of attention: her specialness is not the result of her accomplishments, her skills, her talents, her character, or anything substantial.Therein lies the problem with the princess culture, for it influences girls to aspire to be objects of appreciation. Their sense of self-worth is an external fair, subject not to what girls feel themselves capable of, but how girls feel others respond to them. If they are not regarded as Special, they feel worthless. Distracted by the quest for attention, they don't bother with the kind of self-growth that would merit attention, or  be fulfilling on its own. Substance is placed by superficiality. This is particularly troublesome in the case of sexuality: in Orenstein's words, girls learn to aspire to be desired before they have desire (of that kind) on their own. Orenstein sees this as a problem for girlhood in general, because the princess culture has utterly hijacked what it means to be a girl. If a helmet isn't pink, it isn't a girl's helmet. If a mother scorns all the fluff, her inadvertent lesson to her daughter is that it's not okay to be a girl.  This being the problem, her solution -- in addition to reversing Reagan's deregulation of children's advertising -- is for parents to focus on teaching girls how to live for themselves, and not for the approval of others; to define themselves and not try to fit Disney's definition of a girl.

Orenstein is a fun author, especially as she covers beauty pageants for four-year-olds and facebook, using phrases like "Sesame street walker".She's also one who has to practice what she preaches, for her own daughter Daisy is one of the afflicted: the account conveys her desperate frustration in trying to raise Daisy to be a strong person in an environment swamped by odious messages in the advertising. It shares themes with Consuming Kids and So Sexy, So Soon and covers similar ground. What So Sexy, So Soon referred to as "age compression", Orenstein calls "KGOY", Kids Getting Older Younger. This refers to the way kids are attracted to objects advertised to older children, hence kiddie thongs and Barbie in the toddler aisle.  Of obvious interest to the parents and guardians of young women, and quite readable. 

Reefer Madness

Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market
310 pages
© 2003 Eric Schlosser

What do pornography, marijuana, and migrant labor have in common? They're all factors in an underground economy, a vast web of cash-heavy transactions barred (or limited) by laws and social mores, but which generate substantial wealth for those willing to risk criminality.  Reefer Madness contains thre seperate exposes on these subjects by the author of Fast Food Nation, followed by a conclusion which attempts to tie them together and glean some general lessons about the black market. Although the three don't quite fit together as well as Schlosser might hope, each piece is well worth considering on its own, pointed as well as entertaining.

Although "An Empire of the Obscene" is something of an oddity (pornography isn't illegal),  the preceding sections ("Reefer Madness" and "In the Strawberty Fields") address subject alive and well in American politics today. All three mix colorful history and contemporary exposition which reveal both fascinating trivia and lessons about the specific subjects and the black market in general. The underground economy is not marginal, and its size should concern us not because of potential tax revenues lost by corrupt porn kings like Reuben Sturman, but because they fundamentally alter the rules that everyone else plays by. The use of undocumented workers in California, for instance, keeps food prices artifically low and stifles innovation by allowing companies to be dependent on cheap labor, just as the American south stagnated based on its use of slave labor. Considering the conditions migrant workers are forced to live in, the comparison to slavery is most apt.  Despite the long-term consequences of allowing this behavior to go on -- tolerating it because it keeps food cheap -- the US government's attitude toward companies that seek out migrant labor is far too lenient. In other cases, the government is far too heavy-handed. This is the case with marijuana; Schlosser covers our bizaare obsession with it, which far exceed the concern the facts would merit we have. In what other nation can a person receive a lighter sentence for murder than selling a largely harmless drug?  Considering the US's economic woes, decriminalizing the drug would go a long way in freeing up police and prison resources that could be better used elsewhere.


Schlosser believes that a study of the black market can teach us about the market in general -- and namely, impart the lesson that Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' is not always one of providence. It is one, in fact, that can lead to great abuses (like exploitation of migrant labor). What they excel in providing us outside the bounds of the law tells us secrets about ourselves; that we have a 'deep psychosis' regarding marijuana, for instance, and that Puritanical rejection of sexuality is out of line with human nature. Reefer Madness is a call for sensibly-informed moderation, although it misses one point certainly worth mentioning, that foolish laws, or the lack of laws when they are crucially needed, saps the public's respect for law in general.

Choice quotations:

We have been told for years to bow down before 'the market'. We have placed our faith in the laws of supply and demand. What has been forgotten, or ignored, is that the market rewards only efficiency. Every other human value gets in its way. [...] No deity that man have ever worshiped is more ruthless and more hollow than the free market unchecked. [...]  

p. 108

Black markets will always be with us. But they will recede in importance when our public morality is consistent with our private one. The underground is a good measure of the progress and health of nations. When much is wrong, much needs to be hidden.

p. 221

Related:
Off the Books: the Underground Economy of the Urban Poor, Sudhir Venkatesh
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, Eric Schlosser

Fast Food Nation

Fast Food Nation: the Dark Side of the All-American Meal
© 2001 Eric Schlosser
362 pages

I underestimated Fast Food Nation. I'd expected a heated attack on the subject from a nutritional standpoint, but Eric Schlosser's history and overview of fast food's origins and impact is far more substantial than I had ever anticipated. The United States doesn't have a national cuisine of its own, but it has been most successful in exporting an approach to food across the world. The global presence of the McDonald's corporation has allowed American values to conquer the world in a way no military effort could ever rival. Such conquest is not to our benefit, as Schlosser's work bears out.

After beginning with the history of how fast food evolved, supported by the United States' auto culture and beginning with "drive-in" restaurants, he then charts the industry's rocketing success. The key behind every chain's success story is efficiency: applying the mindset of the factory to the restaurant. This means assembly-line preparation, the standardization of portions, a dependence on pre-processed food ("meat" arrives at these stores dessicated, in vacuum bags, and requires the addition of water to resemble ground beef again), amd immediate access to huge quantities of cheap foodstuffs just to start. (They're cheap for a reason:  standards at slaughterhouses and feedlots tend toward the horrific.) A hostile attitude toward labor also seems to be a key component: jobs are broken down into a series of mindless tasks which require little training, and a worker with little training also has little power. Wages are kept depressed to ensure maximum profits, and thus there's little wonder that these places are staffed by people with few alternatives, like teenagers. That the national chains aren't keen to provide sick leave, medical insurance, or vacation days goes without saying. There are, however, exceptions to the exploitative tendency, most notably in Schlosser's account the In-and-Out company. The same abuse of labor occurs in the chains' principle suppliers; Schlosser writes that Upton Sinclair (The Jungle) would be distressed to learn how little had changed since his 19th century  expose of the food industry's labor and health conditions.

Even more impressive is the widespread influence of these fast food chains. Schlosser attributes their ever-increasing demand for food, and their success in selling it, to the growth of the power of agribusiness. The fast food chains were such rewarding customers that their suppliers were able to establish a hegemony over the markets for beef, potatoes, and so on. As the chain stores destroyed smaller restaurants, so did their suppliers-- the corporate farms -- destroy smaller, private farms.  Economic power goes hand in hand with political corruption, which Schlosser also covers. More insidious is the growth of food-related advertising. I should think that food is so important that it doesn't need advertising, but fast food apparently needs it -- and is aggressive about spreading the work.  The chains anchor their future success in their ability to turn children into loyal, lifelong consumers,  and the growing financial weaknesses of cities and suburban municipalities offers them a new market:  advertising in the schools!  When the brands work together, combining products (toy companies and restaurants, for instance, or McDonalds in WalMart), their profits become even greater. We might applaud such  cleverness were  it not for their abusive labor policies, negligent heath standards, and political opportunism.

Fast Food Nation is an impressive work, revealing the ways that the industry affects the lives of every American, even those of us who avoid it for health or other reasons. Schlosser's coverage is extensive -- exploring nearly every facet of these businesses, from their origins to their supply lines, business practices, and labor policies.  It is both thorough and pointed, and prompts readers to consider -- what is the true cost of the 'value meal'?

Highly recommended to Americans.

Related:
The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan
In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan
Asphalt Nation, Jane Holtz Keay
Sugar: the Bitter Truth
Folks, This Ain't Normal, Joel Salatin