Disney is Eating the Next Generation

With women like Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandburg encouraging women to embrace their inner Hermione Grangers, it seems our society has graduated from the days when women couldn't vote and receive an education. 

Although we have come a long way, seeing the familiar faces of Disney, the cornerstone of most of our childhoods, we might not be as transformed as we might think.  

However, what is it about these pretty in pink creatures that make them so dreadful? According to Peggy Orgenstein's Cinderella Ate My Daughter, language plays a big role in infiltrating the minds of wishful seven year olds. Language in songs especially unconsciously embed in our minds that women are weaker, less intelligent, and less capable than men. 

Back when I was 3 foot and 5 inches, my favorite princess had to be Mulan. She is a brave warrior who sacrifices her comfortable life in order to save her father. One of my favorite songs that I loved to sing, "I'll Make a Man out of You", and still sing sometimes today, inadvertently diminishes our quest to equalize our society.  

So, I recently went back and listened to the song again.
Here's one quote from "I'll Make a Man Out of You" that particularly spoke to me: 

• "Did they send me daughters, when I asked for sons?"

Through a feminist lens, the first quote revives the patriarchal society that we've been trying to shed for decades. The outright comparison between men and women immediately paints the picture that women are incapable of fighting and far weaker than men. As author Orgenstein puts it, "it prompts girls to simply wait for princes they've never met to rescue them from misery". This mentality at a young age allows girls to lower their expectations by convincing themselves that in the end, they'll marry a rich man and live happily ever after.

We may say that these words don't really affect us. We're intelligent. We can filter out the messages. However, according to the New York Times, "Studies have long shown that media messages have a pronounced impact on childhood risk behaviors." Words matter, especially words with catchy tunes. 

We have made such incredible progress in creating an equal society, but we're stuck at the crossroads. Do we keep a childhood cornerstone such as Disney? Disney has managed to capture our every dreams in hour long movies, but if we keep feeding Disney to our future generations, Disney will keep feeding them words and ideas that advances notions that it's acceptable to keep women in the kitchen, that women are weaker than men, that women can be treated differently.

You decide. Do we keep feeding Disney to future generations?