She will grow up, go to college, learn about physics and Vincent van Gogh and women's issues. But at some point, most likely in a bridal boutique or perhaps while making a misguided appearance on reality TV, she will revert. She will see herself basking i
...f the "princess" word while trying on prom dresses, or buying $500 Manolo Blahnik heels to feel properly pretty. It's even silly — the desire of a 30-year-old single, successful mom to wear a pink T-shirt that says "princess" in silver rhinestones. At the heart of it, there is the desire "to belong, to be protected," says Nancy Russo, a Women's Studies professor at Arizona State University. We all want to be loved, and who would object, really, if that love came with a carriage, or at least a Cadillac Escalade, and maybe a little something from Tiffany's now and then? It would be easy to blame all of this on Disney, who brought Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and that buxom Princess Jasmine to life. (There are even Disney princess fruit snacks now, and princess party supplies with plastic tiaras.) But Disney is always getting in trouble, and this isn't all its fault. We saw the princess story in "Maid in Manhattan" — Jennifer Lopez being whisked to a ball wearing a pink strapless gown and diamonds worth more than her entire apartment building. We watched the princess complex on "Joe Millionaire," which began with 20 educated, successful, yet willing women rolling up to a chateau in France to compete for a tall, dark prince waiting inside. Of course, they had to put on gowns and go to a ball. Teens are getting new material, too, with the upcoming fourth volume of "The Princess Diaries." (The title of the third book is "Princess in Love," a thought as irresistible to teenage girls as Abercrombie T-shirts and cute boys. If only there were ice skates, kittens and a unicorn.) Coming this spring, there's another princess movie. The title: "What a Girl Wants." But today, says Barash, "the daughters of feminists do not want to live their mothers' lives. They look at their mothers, who had great careers in pioneer territories, and they ended up exhausted, divorced, as single moms. These daughters look at their mothers and say, `Why would I want to be you?' " Many of today's younger women, especially those in their 20s and 30s, Barash says, "want a college education, want another degree, want to be able to have the same jobs as their mothers, or better, and they also want the choice to be a princess." Yet when the proposal isn't perfect, when the glass carriage just costs too much, when the princess complex rears its crowned head, things can get very ugly. Mary-Lou Galician, an Arizona State University professor who studies love in the media, says some women find themselves in wonderful relationships and yet are not happy because, say, he's not a prince, or at least a financial analyst. The princess complex can be like some sort of disease, hard to evade. Galician knows; she had it. "Despite thinking I was so smart, I, myself, was looking for a Prince Charming so I could live happily ever after the end,"...