Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl
Culture
Trying to raise a girl in our “post-feminist” age, journalist Peggy Orenstein was
more than a little perplexed. As a new mother, she was blindsided by the persistent ultra-
feminine messages being sent to a new generation of little girls—from “princess-mania”
to endless permutations of pink. How many times can you say no, when your daughter
begs for a pint-sized wedding dress? In her probing, personal, and often hilarious new
book, the author of Schoolgirls and Waiting for Daisy ventures to the lands of Disney and
American Girl; braves a Miley Cyrus concert; and talks with historians, marketers,
psychologists, neuroscientists, parents, and children. In the process, she faces her own
confusion that rearing a girl raises about her own femininity.