Monday, July 24, 2006
I see brown skin looking at me.
Sigh.
The dotter is firmly convinced that Twiggy is beautiful. "But I'm not," she tells me earnestly.
Another day, she tells me, "Girls with brown skin can't get married."
She tells me she's a "boy-girl"; I correct her with "tomboy", and she happily agrees. This one doesn't bother me at all (though I'm not sure she's really a tomboy, more like a pseudo-tomboy or a tomboy-wannabe).
Twiggy, in certain manifestations, would bother me for other reasons. I still remember the waif-like look she flaunted during the 60s. But the Twiggy the dotter is referring to is an older, more fleshed-out Twiggy, guest-starring in one of the first-season episodes of the Muppets (we have the entire collection on DVD). The "beauty" is that she has long, curly blond hair, that she looks like Barbie.
Mulan and Jasmine just don't cut it. Oh, they're great fun to watch, and it's fun to pretend that you're Mulan training in swordwork, but...well, heroines like them are few and far between.
I ran this by OmegaDad this evening, and he immediately went out to the dotter and began a sweet but excruciatingly awkward conversation with the dotter while she was watching Muppets dance around with Twiggy. The end result: the dotter got quite upset at his insistence that she was more beautiful to him than Twiggy. Didn't work. He obviously doesn't know what beautiful is. How stupid can he be? was the impression I got from the overheard conversation.
Her favorite friends are all blond moppets with curly hair.
Her long-time beau, C., is a tall blond lout-in-the-making. (Well, he's actually a very sweet boy who worships the ground she walks on, but he's several inches taller than she is and very very blond.)
The "I'm not beautiful" and "brown skin is bad" is starting so very very early. I mistakenly thought we had a few more years before this started.
posted by Kate @
7/24/2006 11:45:00 PM
8 Comments:
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My keyboard doesnt work. show her this*= http://www.missuniverse.com/delegates/2006/files/CN.html http://www.santabanta.com/contestants.asp?picid=1385 http://www.pageant.com/universe00/ http://www.pageant.com/universe99/index.html http://www.pageant.com/universe98/
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And the sad thing is there are companies/industries based on, "And if you buy and use this product, you can finally become beautiful"
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The dotter needs to remember her Japanese-American aunt and her cousins, whose existence should disprove her beliefs!
As for the Miss Universe site -- if I am to believe the eye color statements, almost every blonde used the bottle. There was not one blue eye, not one hazel eye in the entire group of contestants.
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How early this is happening for OD! How, oh how, can we help our daughters to escape such beliefs? I'm sure you have told her a thousand times that she's the most beautiful creature on earth....but still they pick up popular belief from what they see on TV and from the majority opinion around them.
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Granny J, thats why we must think global for our daughters, Miss Universe instead of Miss America (not that I approve of either) because: of all the beautiful women in the world, most are brown. There are just a lot of white people in the US.
Hah! I got a new keyboard!
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And it beaks your heart because she IS so achingly beautiful. Funny-I have worried at times about how often people approach dd and tell her she is beautiful because I don't want her to focus on what is external-but maybe if she hears it enough from outsiders as well as us (though we also point out equally how funny she is and how smart and what a good guitar player and dancer she is etc. etc.) maybe it will sink in.
All that said when her bday rolled around and we promised her a scooter-she didn't want the Dora one or the Disney princess one-she wanted the Barbie one-just like her cousin has. Her cousin is from Korea:)
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Oh that breaks my heart!!! My mom and her brothers and sisters all felt the same way growing up, especially when they were given orders (grandpa was in the military) to go to Oklahoma.
I don't have any advice, just wish I could give her a hug...many many hugs to you both!
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Oh that sounds heartbreaking. Especially when she's still so little.
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Miss Cellania said…
said…
My keyboard doesnt work. show her this*= http://www.missuniverse.com/delegates/2006/files/CN.html http://www.santabanta.com/contestants.asp?picid=1385 http://www.pageant.com/universe00/ http://www.pageant.com/universe99/index.html http://www.pageant.com/universe98/