One of the wonderful benefits of growing up in the post-1960s world of feminism was being taught that I could have a career and that career could anything I imagine. I had choices.
I grew up knowing that I could be a lawyer, a teacher, a business owner (thank you Katharine Graham and Mary Kay Ash), a scientist (thank you Jane Goodall and Margaret Mead), an astronaut (thank you Sally Ride), a Supreme Court Justice (thank you Sandra Day O'Connor), a professional athlete (thank you Billy Jean King) or anything else I could imagine, including a wife and mother.
One option, however, was not on the table. As much as I fought it, my parents insisted that I could not be a princess. And now, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor agrees with them. Being a princess is not a career.
Of course, if being a princess is not a career choice, this begs the all-important question: Why do all the Disney movies seem to imply that being a princess is not only a career choice, but it's the only career choice?
I know. I know. Let's solve one problem at a time.
So yay! for Sesame Street teaching girls that they have real choices in life. And yay! for Justice Sotomayor for being such a great role model.
Thank you for posting this. I just watched this with Olivia, and while she was disappointed she can't have a career as a princess, she liked seeing that she could grow up to be a smart lady who knows a lot. (And she liked that Justice Sotomayor is a well-educated woman with the same name as her mama, who ALSO thinks education is important.) Olivia is glad, though, that Justice Sotomayor agrees that pretending to be a princess is a lot of fun.
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