For My Daughter

I love my daughter. I love her because I made her, and she is perfect to me. I love her because she's beautiful in every way. I love her because she is smarter than I ever imagined she could be. I love her because she needs me, and I will fight to protect her, even from herself.

I don't let her play with Barbie dolls. Barbie represents an impossible standard of beauty. Barbie represents a single race instead of diversity. Barbie represents style over substance. Her message is to buy, consume, and own rather than build, value, and create. Barbie leads to an unhealthy body image and a tendency to value the trite instead of the true. I will protect my daughter from this.

I don't let my daughter wear make-up. Make-up is a purely superficial affectation. It has no purpose and no use other than hiding something that is real under something that society says is beautiful. Make-up says that you must hide your true self in order to be considered beautiful.  Make-up leads to a distorted image of your own self worth as well as the worth of others as is evidenced by the popularity of "See what this celebrity looks like without make-up" articles. The point of these articles is sick: "You see. Without make-up all these beautiful people are just slags like the rest of us!" Make-up is sexist. Men aren't expected to wear make-up. Men don't have to hide their true selves in order to be considered men. I will protect my daughter from this.

I don't let my daughter wear inappropriate clothes. The clothes you wear help inform the world about how you feel about yourself and by extension how the world should feel about you. You will be treated only as well as you demand to be treated, and my daughter will not be treated as an object. Her worth is not tied to the approval of society and her sexuality. She will not be expected to parade herself to make friends. She will not degrade herself to fit in. She will not masquerade as a sexual adult when she's just a child. I won't let the world make her a victim. I will protect her from this.

So who is to blame for all this nefariousness threatening my daughter and yours? We are, the parents. 

Toddlers and Tiaras, Victoria Secrets' teen line, and baby bikinis come about because they sell well. Mothers of daughters are the main customers for this stuff not pedophiles, and fathers of daughters are the primary enablers.

The innocence of our daughters is precious, important, and temporary. We have to protect it for as long as we can, because eventually the world will notice them and then use all its power into making our children into what the world likes, unthinking sexualized consumers. 

My daughter doesn't like that I protect her. She wants to wear make-up and play with Barbie. She doesn't know that I'm fighting a war and that she is the prize. I hate when she's mad at me for protecting her, but I won't quit.

If they are to have any chance to fight the programming, we have to tell them as children that they are worth more than what people see. That they mean more to the world than a simple sex toy. That true beauty cannot be painted on, but must shine from deep within them. For this and this alone, I will protect my daughter,

From society,
From you,
From me,
And from herself.

And now for something truly offensive: