I consider myself an empowered woman who, overall, cherishes her own features even though they do not necessarily fit in the beauty ideal portrayed in mass media. In fact, as a feminist and a social equality and human rights activist, I advocate against the idea of a paralyzing stereotypical idea of beauty. In spite of this “portfolio”, this is what my six year-old (going seven in two months) daughter said to me the other day:
“Dark skinned (girls) don’t make good ballerinas”.
I tend to discuss issues like this one (that involve racism or gender bias or human rights) as an opportunity to reflect on something, stuff to talk about: ‘where does that stem from’? There is no use in aimlessly repressing this kind of comment from a child that young if you can’t put your finger on the origin of such uttering.
“What makes you say that, honey?”
“Dark skinned can’t do ballet properly.”
“What makes you believe dark skinned can’t do ballet? Did you hear that somewhere?”
“No, I’m saying it. Only Beatriz”* (*fictitious name), her only blond classmate, “can do ballet properly. You have to be yellow haired and have white skin”. Then she looks at her own hair (I’m a dark haired white skinned lady and her father is Japanese), “I will never be a good ballerina! Look at me!” said she as she looked at her own hair and probably remembered her own darker and slanted eyes.”
“Darling, of course you can be a good ballerina. Anyone can. The skin color does not matter. Or the hair, or the body type. You practice you will become a good enough ballerina”.
And I went on mentioning her teachers and friends who are not blondes and are ballerinas or beautiful their own way and good enough at whatever they have applied themselves to.
But my daughter looked at me skeptically. She is six going seven. The world around her is up for grabs as far as categorizing and classifying are concerned. She is very empirical by nature and by age and reality has, for a long time, shown her otherwise. What are the most popular and most shared ballerina videos like? Who are the protagonists?
“Look, honey, I know that it seems that only blondes and blue eyed girls can do ballet because some people seem to prefer to show only these types of girls doing ballet, but they are mistaken, anyone can do ballet well”.
She was thoughtful. And so was I.
I’m not going to explore the nuances of genetics and body aptitude to this or that sport. From all I am concerned these are arguable, but, again, I am not the specialist. But I can tell you one thing: my daughter was not relating to high performances. She was reflecting on her “authorization”, from a very symbolic and subjective aspect, to do ballet, due to the fact that her looks did not belong to the looks of those she was led to believe could.
My daughter has also said such things as “I’m not eating that because I don’t want to get fat”.
“Honey, you are just fine, you are growing up, you ought to eat healthy things to grow up well, don’t worry about that”.
I know I don’t talk about “getting fat” at home. And I know I am very aware of biased language that may lead to or support a racist mindset. I am confident that at her father’s house and at school she has those same role models.
And yet, my daughter is convinced that there is an ideal image of ballerinas and that, at age 6, being in the 50% percentile of the growth curve (both weight and height) and healthy across the board, she should worry about “getting fat”.
I know the power of advertising is incalculable, thus I have always fought against it in my activism. But to see it happening right at your face is alarming. I mean, who would have thought that my daughter, the daughter of a feminist, a civil and human rights activist, would have such thoughts?
The impact of representativity is overwhelming: despite a Moana here and a Princess Sofia there, the most widespread beauty reference — from dolls to main characters in kids’ movies — is still the skinny blond blue-eyed one, preferably an indefensible princesses to top it all up.
Thus, as parents, no one of us (not even the activists) is immune to the effects this pattern may have on our children, especially girls. From shattered self-confidence to low self-esteem and to later difficulties of self-acceptance with potential development of eating disorders. While the beauty ideal does not affect girls only, the huge impact on women’s lives is well documented.
So how do we deal with it? Well, first of all, the message I get from this episode is that, to start with, we have to be all willing to deal with it, to deal with these tricky subjects at home. It is easier to look the other way, to repress a foul comment here, to ignore a glimpse of insecurity about one’s appearance there. ‘She is too young for that’. Apparently not. No one is immune, not even a child as young as six.
This is not an easy task, I know. It may mean first dealing with ourselves as adult women (and men) who might have to come to terms with the effects of the fantasies and ghosts the exposure to such ideals and biases have had in our own lives. But perhaps this is a good opportunity for us to face our demons and to revisit some of our beliefs and what they have done to us, and to then help our children have maybe a different and healthier experience.
