I could be this little girl. I'm as happy for her as I am sad for the little ones losing their childhood parading in infamous contests to satisfy their mother's egos. Or for the ones shot while going to school-by those men who hate women as a concept (but that's another story).
She seems happy and free. And that is always beautiful.
I like to think I am the woman she has become.
In the late 70s-early 80s, I had the chance to grow up within a pop culture that produced this kind of imagery, and a family environment that favored cars and books as much as dolls. I never got, or wanted, a Barbie doll or a pink little cute iron, to tell me how to inhabit my body and my home.
And yet, I got all nostalgic when I saw this image. Not so much for the long summer afternoons running wild and creative, that have remained somewhere in my memory, but for the freedom to be oneself that this image conveys to girls, and about girls.
Even if representing girls like this might be a marketing tool, the choice to do so is a deliberate one, and already means something important. Something that lacks now.
It reminds me of that time and place, when we could be girls and children and persons at the same time and it was OK, we didn't need to choose. When we could play with everything and we could wish to be whatever we wanted. I was extremely lucky to be a girl in that kind of environment, a short-lived.bubble, but nevertheless a great gift.
This image embodies the gender values cruelly lacking today in popular western culture regarding gender and its roles/cages. As much perverse (though less visible) towards boys than towards girls (and every category in between), most pop imagery today conveys the pervasive gender oppression that lies in having to choose between Barbie toothpaste (pink) and Spiderman toothpaste (red and blue).
I wish very hard that this kind of image -and the values that make it possible- come soon from vintage, back into mainstream.
She seems happy and free. And that is always beautiful.
I like to think I am the woman she has become.
In the late 70s-early 80s, I had the chance to grow up within a pop culture that produced this kind of imagery, and a family environment that favored cars and books as much as dolls. I never got, or wanted, a Barbie doll or a pink little cute iron, to tell me how to inhabit my body and my home.
And yet, I got all nostalgic when I saw this image. Not so much for the long summer afternoons running wild and creative, that have remained somewhere in my memory, but for the freedom to be oneself that this image conveys to girls, and about girls.
Even if representing girls like this might be a marketing tool, the choice to do so is a deliberate one, and already means something important. Something that lacks now.
It reminds me of that time and place, when we could be girls and children and persons at the same time and it was OK, we didn't need to choose. When we could play with everything and we could wish to be whatever we wanted. I was extremely lucky to be a girl in that kind of environment, a short-lived.bubble, but nevertheless a great gift.
This image embodies the gender values cruelly lacking today in popular western culture regarding gender and its roles/cages. As much perverse (though less visible) towards boys than towards girls (and every category in between), most pop imagery today conveys the pervasive gender oppression that lies in having to choose between Barbie toothpaste (pink) and Spiderman toothpaste (red and blue).
I wish very hard that this kind of image -and the values that make it possible- come soon from vintage, back into mainstream.
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