In the article "Cinderella and Culture," Peggy Orenstein voices how the princess movement is damaging young girls' minds. Similarly, James Poniewozik in the "Princess Paradox" is against the princess movement but shifts his point of view and discusses how it could be empowering for young girls. While both authors have a feminist point of view, Orenstein focuses more on how the princess movement is damaging young girls' minds, while Poniewozik seems more concerned with how the movement can help young girls realize they can control their own destinies. Although both authors have feminist points of view, they have opposite opinions on how the princess movement affects young girls, which they try to prove by using different approaches to prove what their opinion is.
In their opening paragraphs, both authors take a stance against the princess movement. Poniewozik starts out his article by saying that "it is a recurring nightmare of high-minded modern parents of daughters" (Poniewozik 323); the parents give legos and soccer balls and ask relatives to lay off the pink pinafores, but when Halloween rolls around their daughter wants to be a princess. It is a nightmare that has come true. Orenstein writes her article from the perspective of a parent whose daughter was called a princess and treated as a princess everywhere she went, and Orenstein's tolerance of this treatment grew shorter until she lost her patience. Poniewozik takes a stance against the movement in his opening paragraph but leans towards how it is beneficial for young girls, whereas Orenstein does not stray away; instead, she goes on to contradict her standpoint.
Both authors compare today's princess movement with the feminist movement that took place a few years ago. "We've come a long way, it seems, from the girls-kick-ass culture of just a few years ago in which a 360 [degrees] flying roundhouse kick was a girl's best friend." (Poniewozik 323) Poniewozik mentions that the "new kind of Cinderella" has learned the lessons of feminism. They can have a happily ever after, but they learn independence along the way. Orenstein, on the other hand, sees the princess movement as an anti-feminist movement. "I watched my fellow mothers, women who once swore they'd never be dependent on a man, smile indulgently at daughters' who warble "So This Is Love" (Orenstein 327), voices Orenstein because she is taken surprise by the princess craze and the girlie-girl culture that followed behind it. She begins to contradict herself by saying that the princess movement may be a sign of progress and that at long last, girls can have it all. (Orenstein 328) The approach to the princess movem...
