A firestorm erupted last week after the Walt Disney Company, which owns last year’s Pixar movie about a Scottish princess who doesn’t want to be forced to marry, inducted Merida into its official pantheon of princesses — a designation that places her on a universe of consumer products — and gave her a sexy makeover in the process....
Parents were apoplectic, complaining that Disney had ruined a beloved character. The company soon replaced its website image with the original, though Sexy Merida is likely to turn up on product lines.
The PR disaster grows out of Disney’s long-ago decision to create a consumer line around its princess characters as a group, downplaying the distinct personalities of each one. Grouped together on bicycles and bedspreads, they look pretty and strike coquettish poses but have little else to contribute. Reasonable minds disagree on whether this is dangerous; critics fear the princesses set up girls for a lifetime of body-image issues, while others say parents have the freedom to add their own interpretations....
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Related: Slow Saturday Special: Mattel is a Monster
Also see: British Bellyaches
UPDATE:
"Many women with top degrees stay home; Decisions show sense of security" by Katie Johnston | Globe Staff, May 27, 2013
Jessica Brewer graduated from MIT in 2005 with a mechanical engineering degree and spent the next five years designing nuclear reactors for Navy aircraft carriers and submarines. Now she stays home with two young sons, ages 3 and 1, and works a few hours a week teaching a children’s choir at her church in Arlington, Va.
“I do continue to be surprised by people who say, ‘Oh you’re staying home with them?’ ” said Brewer, whose husband also attended MIT. “I don’t know if they react because of the MIT degree or just because I’m staying home.”
Brewer, 30, is among a surprising number of women with elite college degrees who are rejecting Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg’s advice to aggressively pursue careers even as they raise families — and choosing to spend more time with their children instead....
Well, some women have that choice available to them. Others do not.
Well, some women have that choice available to them. Others do not.
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