Nasty Mother Edits Daughter's Disney Princess Book to Make It More 'Feminist'

Here’s what happened. According to PopSugar, Lindemann, who studies gender roles, became frustrated with her daughter’s incessant reading of her favorite book about Disney princesses, feeling that it promoted inappropriate gender stereotypes. According to Lindemann, the books are “basically teaching these little girls that their worth lies in looking nice and hooking up with the right guy.” So she took a pen and added some edits to her daughter’s book.

But, here’s the thing. None of the images (which have now been shared on multiple sites online) actually promote the ideals she says are so abhorrent. “A princess is kind,” reads a page depicting Snow White. It ought to be fairly uncontroversial to say that kindness is a positive attribute. But Lindemann’s addition, “ . . . of a badass,” implies that, rather than being kind, women must be somehow subversive in order to fit in to these new “feminist” gender roles. (Not to mention the fact that she’s adding profanity to her three-year-old’s picture book!)

“What is a princess? A princess is brave!” reads another page of the book. Um, brave sounds good, right? That doesn’t sound like the sort of passive, damsel in distress character that Lindemann and her compatriots would object to. And yet, in a speech bubble coming from Princess Jasmine’s mouth, Lindemann writes, “”My body, my choice!” What, for the love of all that is holy, has this to do with anything?! Unless, in the previous page, Aladdin was depicted as trying to impregnate Jasmine and then engaging in an earnest discussion about what to do with the unborn baby, this is a total non sequitur!

It goes on and on like this. Not one of the images depicted promotes the ideology of “looking nice and hooking up with the right guy” that Lindemann is trying to push back against. The closest one is “A princess likes to dress up,” but it doesn’t even specify what they like to dress up as, and Lindemann’s addition of “in her medical scrubs, when she goes to work as a neurosurgeon” doesn’t really add or detract from the message. Sure, a princess might like to be a neurosurgeon, or a fairy, or a unicorn, or the president. It’s a book aimed at three-year-olds.

The most ridiculous of these images, in my opinion, is of Princess Jasmine and Aladdin, flying on a magic carpet with their arms around each other. The page reads, “Jasmine flies through the sky.” Lindemann added, “She holds onto Aladdin because he is scared,” and she gave Aladdin a speech bubble that says, “Protect me, Jasmine!” This kind of makes me want to throw up a little.

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