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Tara Cousineau, PhD

Clinical Psychologist, Kindness Warrior

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Self Esteem

For the Love of Lipstick: A Tribute to My Mother

May 9, 2015 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????I’ve been using the same lipstick for 20 years. It’s Clinique’s No. 83 Double Truffle. When I found out it was being discontinued, I became obsessed. Whenever I passed a major department store, like an antique collector, I ran in to see if there were any Double Truffles left. I have managed a small stash that might last me another year.

Recently, I needed my makeup professionally done before an interview, and I ran into a MAC store. The unwitting cosmetics girl got in trouble when I insisted on using my own lipstick. I felt bad for her (but not really).

This wasn’t about brand loyalty. It’s an attachment disorder.

In my field of psychology, latching on to things that represent comfort and the safety of mommy – like blankies, snuggle bears or a nightie – is key to healthy relationships. These items are unaffectionately called ‘transitional objects.’ They’re things that a small child uses to self-soothe in the absence of mommy or daddy. What parent doesn’t know the distress of leaving behind a child’s lovie on a park bench or airplane?

They are utterly profound items and eventually out grown. Usually.

My lipstick is one such object for me. Still.

When I was a toddler, my mother, a post-war immigrant from Germany, decided to become an Avon Lady on the sly. My dad was an American dreamer who squandered away any money he earned; she had to feed her girls.

I was enthralled with her secret business. I loved the Avon travel suitcase with its rows of compartments containing miniature lipsticks, nail polish bottles and sample packets of Skin So Soft oils. The lipsticks were the perfect size for me and my sister to play with and put on our baby dolls. We’d even show them off to our chums. For the temperamental child that I was, the orderliness of the travel case became a solace, like a puzzle I could work out. Every month when the new supplies came in, we’d spread the sparkly items across our kitchen table and snap the samples into their proper places.

On many occasions, we’d visit my mother’s growing list of customers who lived among the coastal towns of the Connecticut shore: Marion, Monroe, Norwalk, Shelton and Stamford.

My mother was the perfect salesgirl, a cross between a Sophia Loren and Jackie O.

“Allo Mrs. Conte! How are you today? I have your Lily of the Valley hand cream and other vonderful items!”

She was always invited in to listen to the latest family dramas while she took the lipstick samples and dabbled a rainbow of pinks and reds on their wrists to see what blended with their natural complexion. She gently touched these women as they chatted, a swab of color here and there.

Even though we were on food stamps, my mom would bring the needier families things we no longer could use. It became the norm in our house to neatly fold hand-me-downs because some customer could surely use them. These visits also turned into something else. She became a trusted confidant and somewhat of a philanthropist; an interesting blend of self-care and compassion.

Recently, when I was asked to participate in a local No Make-Up book project by photographer Steve Osemwenkhae, I was downright perplexed. I’m an expert advisor to a beauty brand promoting self-esteem in girls and the founder of an app to promote self-acceptance and empathy in kids. How could I say no to a No Make-Up challenge?

I also have two teenage girls and try to be an authentic and purposeful female role model. A role I inevitably fail. Yet, my 15-year-old keeps me up to date on various girl empowerment and no-make-up campaigns espoused by well-tended celebs or college girls making a public statement on Instagram. Of course, I had to shelve my vanity on principal and agree to be photographed.

When I was sent the close up images, in color and black and white, I could only bear a nanosecond glance.

I mustered the courage much later and revisited the photos with the intent to just sit with my feelings. We teach what we need to learn, I often say. So I told myself, “Be present, withhold any judgment, and be kind.”

Instead, I wanted to weep. Deeply. I was once a pretty girl in an all American kind of way. My husband reminds me that I still look younger than many of my contemporaries, which I attribute to years of yoga and some genetic luck. I don’t spend much energy comparing myself to others. But looking at the photos and seeing the emerging cobwebs of my aging face – finely pixilated, in high definition – was brutal. And there was no “after photo” to accompany them.

chicaprojectbw-nomakeup-40

I wanted to compare these photos to the ‘me’ I imagined myself to be. She wasn’t there. I began to sweat. My heart thumped. My mind did a reverse flashback, like a near-death experience. I tunneled through almost a half of century of my life.

“Take some deep breaths,” I heard a distant voice whisper. I closed my laptop. And breathed.

I pulled out my Double Truffle lipstick and held it like a worry stone. I thought of my beautiful mother with the azure Avon suitcase in one hand and holding my tiny hand with the other. We were standing at a porch door of her next customer. Magnolias were in bloom.

She let me ring the doorbell.

Rita and girls 2 '70026

 

A version of this post was published on Huff Post Women.

– – –

Image Credits:

Girl with Lipstick © Dreamstime, 2015

No Make Up Series, © Steve Osemwenkhae,  2015

© Tara Cousineau, 2015; family photo circa 1972

Filed Under: Compassion, Courage, Mothers & Daughters Tagged With: Avon, compassion, Daughters, make-up, Mothers, Self Esteem

What’s your beauty legacy?

October 7, 2014 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

That’s the question that a new Dove film asks mothers and daughters. In documentary style, moms and their daughters (7-10 years old) are asked – separately – to write two lists: what they like about their bodies and what they don’t like.

The first time I watched the film, all of three minutes, I found myself holding my breath. Oh god, what are my daughters, now ages 14 and 16, adopting about the way I view my body or myself?

In the film, when the mother and daughter pairs’ lists were compared, the things they liked and disliked about their body were remarkably similar. If a mom complained about her legs, so did the daughter. If a mom liked her smile, so did the girl.

I watched the film a few more times, putting myself in the role as mom, and as the daughter…my 8- or 12- or 16-year-old self.

To be sure, some women will watch this film and say, “Oh here’s another mother-bashing moment.” Surprisingly, I don’t feel that way. And I’m in a profession that tends to examine childhood hurts and “empathic failures” of parenting to a fault. Instead, I found the film to be a teachable moment. The moms and girls were relatable and endearing;  it made me take pause.

And that is the whole point of the film—coming to a moment of self-awareness about the ways we may be influencing our children, intentionally or otherwise.

It also invites a retrospective lens on what beliefs we may have carried forward that may not have been our own to start with.

Mom and Tara at Beach-Daisy in Hair copyWhen I reflect back on my childhood I remember feeling skinny, awkward and ugly. I was the girl who stuffed a training bra with tissues, with little added result. Yet, this self-consciousness didn’t come as some sort of message from my mother. In fact, she missed, and often dismissed, any coming-of-age angst I may have expressed. But no matter. Culture was an influential teacher, even in the hang loose, hippie heyday of the 1970s where a bra was a non-essential.

As my luck had it, my mother was an extraordinary beauty. I admired and felt proud of her natural good looks as some badge of honor I could benefit from. “Your mom is so pretty!” my girlfriends would say. She was much more than that.

My mom handed down an appreciation of the European aesthetic she grew up in, a value for arts and culture, and the gift of grace. She had an aptitude for pulling herself and her two girls together with virtually no financial resources. In hindsight it’s no surprise that she became an Avon Lady selling cosmetics door-to-door, sashaying into the homes of dour housewives, who were charmed by her German accent and her Sophia Loren looks. She had a talent for helping them feel beautiful not only with make-up and perfume samples, but with the wholehearted attention she poured over them.

I doubt any of her customers, largely middle and lower class women living on the coast of Connecticut, had any idea whatsoever that our family was on food stamps, that her husband left the family bankrupt, and that we relied on the generosity of friends to help get us by.

The beauty legacy I inherited from a beautiful woman was not about the shape of my nose, the thickness of my thighs, or the texture of my hair—timeless issues that so many girls obsess over. As the Dove’s Legacy film portrayed, moms are central role models for their children. They pass on beliefs and feelings about beauty, self-worth and so much more.

Mom, Girls and Banana Curls copyThe legacy that I inherited was this unspoken rule that under no circumstances could anyone know that we were poor. The trick was we had to have a really good cover. The only way that my sister and I could travel through life was to look very put together, neat and clean, and yet trendy. My mother had style. She sewed our outfits. She frequented the local second hand shop, trading our old clothes for the newer, “gently worn” items of the more fortunate.

It was a childhood lesson in “fake it until you make it.”

This had its consequences as my sister and I became teenagers. I remember my first date, the late bloomer that I was, in my sophomore year in high school. A friend’s older brother, the lanky star of the basketball team, invited me to the homecoming dance. I was excited and terrified at the same time.

My girlfriends’ mothers were buying the current fashion of the early 80s: the dreamy Gunny Sack dresses with lace and high collars. Surely we could not afford a Gunny Sack dress. I cried about it. My mother, to her credit, agreed to buy me a short sleeve blouse of the coveted brand. We then went to the fabric store and bought three yards of a sage green print – to match the ribbon trim in the blouse. We sewed a long flowing skirt. And despite my mom’s resourcefulness, I felt ashamed and angry. I feel badly about it now, but that’s a teenager for you. (Today it’s overpriced Uggs and Lululemon yoga pants that are a topic of contention between my girls and me.)

When I met my date’s mother, holding a cocktail in one hand and a cigarette in the other, she lavished over me. She droned, “Why, honey, aren’t you simply lovely. You look like a doll.”

I died inside. Indeed, I felt like a Madame Alexander collectable doll. The worst part, of course, was the only judge was me.

Later in college when I started dating a handsome soccer player, I laughed out loud when he later told me that he thought I was a rich girl from the exclusive township of Greenwich, Connecticut. I seemed untouchable, he noted, and this inspired his pursuit.

It’s funny when I think back that this was the beauty legacy I inherited: to be well put together, look wealthy (not poor), and appear out of reach so that no one could know the real story of my life.

This morning I watched my younger daughter getting up an extra half hour early for school so that she could straighten her long hair with an iron. I remember I did the same, but with hot curlers.

No matter what our mothers may want for us, or say to us about how wonderful we are on the inside, or complain about their own body image, there’s no doubt that girls are raised in part by a much larger force: our culture. My older daughter laments about her thick (and luscious) hair that other girls would die for. My younger daughter thinks that she has a round, fat nose which couldn’t be farther from the truth. Yet, I understand girls are a by-product of the communities they live and play in – off line and online. Unquestionably, mothers can’t help but hand down their beliefs or “legacies,” including those that go beyond looks or body image.

ImageIt’s interesting to me that my girls are keenly aware that our family is not rich. Self-comparison is the name of the game in adolescence, especially observing the haves and have-nots. They complain that I’m still driving a 14-year old, rusty mini-van because soon they want to drive a much cooler car. Our house could use a paint job. And we’ve never taken a family vacation to Disney World.

Yet, they have no real idea of what it means to be poor, either. That’s because I have done my best to protect them from the experiences I had as a child, which were largely shrouded in secrecy and shame. I can’t say that this is a good thing. My girls have been well protected from the plight of a broken home, relying on food subsidies, or having to put up a good front. They can only imagine it and, frankly, no kid wants to be lectured about it.

I have no doubt that they will experience losses and hardships. Struggle is necessary, as is failure. That’s the only way to understand what it means to fully live in the world. It requires having to draw on inner resources and resilience you don’t know you have until you are tested by life. At the same time, I am mindful that the lessons I want to teach my daughters is not about the necessity of fitting in or standing out – paradoxical messages they get from society – but of the imperative for kindness and compassion. But mostly, I want them to know they have beautiful spirits and a life of purpose.
It’s a subtle teaching and I have no idea if it will work, but I find myself shifting how I speak to them, which de-emphasizes their looks, social dramas, or complaints.

How’s your spirit today?

Be open to the unexpected surprises.

Smile and see who smiles back.

What made you laugh?

Name one delightful thing you experienced today.

Savor the moment.

Do something nice for someone.

Say thank you.

They pretend to ignore me or roll their eyes. But I don’t mind. The point is our lives are full of riches. And one way or another, they will absorb it. That’s the legacy I hope to pass down.

 

* * *

Resources:

See Dr Tara’s recent article on Dove’s Self-Esteem website.

Dove kicks off the 5th Annual Self-Esteem Weekend at the United Nations on Oct. 9.

  • Watch Legacy at www.Dove.com/Legacy and tell the world who you #FeelBeautifulFor on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
  • Visit www.Dove.com/Legacy or Facebook.com/Dove for more information on the 5th Annual Dove Self-Esteem Weekend, to access free self-esteem tools and resources specifically created for moms, mentors and teachers to motivate and inspire young girls.

*Disclosure.  I am an expert global advisor to the Dove Self Esteem Project, which has a social mission to improve body confidence in girls. I provide expertise on evidence-based content and curriculum development to support educational initiatives on self-esteem and positive body image in girls. My participation on the Dove Self-Esteem Project advisory board is not an endorsement the DOVE products. The opinions stated on my blog/website are my own.

Filed Under: Compassion, Courage, Mothers & Daughters, Role Models, Self-Esteem, Teenagers Tagged With: beauty legacy, body image, coming of age, Daughters, DOVE, Mothers, Self Esteem

What Selfies Can Teach Moms

January 29, 2014 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

Moms, do you shiver when your daughters constantly take selflies.

Do they mock you when you take one of yourself?

Been there, done that!

This video from DOVE might change the way you view your daughter’s obsession with selflies. Or it may not. You decide.

It’s worth a peek. If anything, it may make you think about how your body image and expectations for beauty might influence hers.

Filed Under: Inspirations, Mothers & Daughters, Role Models, Social Media, Teenagers Tagged With: beauty, body image, Daughters, DOVE, Mothers, Self Esteem, self lies, social media

Fame, Fortune and the Fallacy of Self-Esteem

October 2, 2013 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

Listening to musicIt’s that time of year! It’s the blind auditions for The Voice. Of course, my 13-year-old rushes through her homework and begs to watch it. I admit The Voice is entertaining. It takes the old talent formula one step farther by not having a visual of the contestants—to rule out the entrenched cultural biases on appearance, beauty, style and stage presence. It’s supposed to be a more fair approach—and in some ways it is.

But the end game is the same. People win and lose.

Hey, I don’t mean to be a party pooper. Or, as my daughter likes to tout every once in a while, “Gee, Mom, don’t rain on my parade!”

The Cost of Fame

But here goes my rant. We have come to a moment in our culture where the most important value cited by many preteens, according to one survey by the Children’s Digital Media Center at UCLA, is: Being Famous. We are now a culture of ranking, rating, and rewards. The current generation of young adults is referred to as Generation Me. It is the most narcissistic group since researchers have assessed personality traits in the population. And each younger generation is more self-absorbed than the preceding one. Some argue that American’s obsession with self-esteem has gone too far.

Now, I have to admit as a shrink, I believe it has.

We want our children to feel special, worthy and to succeed. We want to protect them from harm’s way, from disappointment and failure. These are important values. In fact, school systems and coaching programs have instituted self-esteem programs in their curriculums and personal development approaches. My girls both have so many ribbons just for showing up to dance or camp or whatever. In fact, kids today grow up accumulating a lot of stars, stickers, and plastic medals. But at what cost?

What is self-esteem?

Self-esteem is a global self-evaluation of one’s worth.

It is a self-judgment. Our culture has fostered a belief system, which has trickled down into many educational venues, that by handing out rewards we will boost children’s self-esteem. This is in part in as reaction to previous parenting approaches that were authoritarian and punishment-oriented. But we’ve gone to the other extreme. Our culture has constructed messages and programs around the notion that we must protect children from experiences of failure. As a result, children learn that self-worth is based on how well they do at something (or not).

I regret not having my girls in the Brownies or Girls Scouts. Earning badges for actually learning a skill by working independently or in a group is a worthy endeavor. I did it as a kid. Many of my female friends did, too. That was before Title IX and all the wonderful opportunities for girls’ sports programs came into being (of which my daughters have benefited). But still.

My most profound experience was when I was 18 and on a leadership course where I had to lead a disgruntled group of my peers – across the Masai Mara in Kenya. I had to learn to deal with conflict, confront bullies, read a topical map (no GPS), and instill a sense of collaboration with others. I was scared S@#$less. But it was a defining experience. The reward? Getting to our destination with no calamities, with enough supplies, and group brainpower.

Self-esteem programs by and large are not correlated with positive outcomes. The very premise is wrong. The problem in part is how people measure “self esteem” – using by a measure which is global in nature (Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale) – which assesses feelings of confidence without assessing how or why a person feels that way.

There are just as many bullies, criminals and prejudiced people with high-self esteem as there are with low self-esteem. The only consistent correlation is that people with high self-esteem tend to also report feeling happier.

Our culture has gotten it backwards. Self-esteem doesn’t foster success and achievement. It’s the other way around. Learning by trial and error, and in fact through failures and disappointments—and overcoming them—is what helps a child develop the grit, resilience, and stick-to-it-ness that leads to a sense of self worth. Self-compassion researcher, Kristen Neff, writes about the problem with the concept of self-esteem:

High self-esteem is NOT associated with being a better person, just with thinking you are!

The Benefit of Failure

We need to let our kids fail, make mistakes, and then learn to deal with the consequences, repair the mistakes, and learn from the experience. Better to let this happen within the support and understanding of family, friends, and teachers, rather than on the public stage (which is where many kids want to be in order prove themselves and most will never get there). The healthy path to self-esteem is not to use indiscriminant praise and prizes. Children come to believe they deserve praise and admiration no matter what they do. Rather, our role is helping our children feel worthy because of who they are, such as the kindness they bestow, problem solving skills, creativity, and the courage they have.  These are moments that occur in the small acts of daily living in which children are connected to—and in service—to one another.

Filed Under: Inspirations, Rants & Raves, Self-Compassion, Self-Esteem, Social Media, Teenagers, Well-Being Tagged With: Self Esteem, Self-Compassion, social media, Well-Being

The Sweetness of Self-Compassion

September 17, 2013 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

three friends eating pancakesOne of the staples in my daughters’ diet happens to be maple syrup. I’m not really proud of that fact. Yet, we are an avid pancake family and reserve most Sunday mornings for a pancake feast. Both Sophie and Josie are experts at making them now.  I’m more proud of that fact.

Between Sundays, it’s often frozen waffles before school, hopefully with the addition of some fruit. As so I was staring at the Vermont maple syrup bottle this morning. We err on the side of pure maple syrup when we can, rather that the food-colored corn syrup of Aunt Jemima or Ms. Butterworth. It’s sugar maple season here in New England, which means a few trips to farmers markets for the real thing.

I realized that the difference in maple syrup, the real vs. the fake, is sort of like the difference between self-compassion and self-esteem. Kristen Neff, PhD, who I was able to meet recently at a workshop on mindfulness-based self-compassion skills, has written about the difference in these two self- concepts. This subject is very important to me as it relates to children, teenagers and parenting. We live in a culture that elevates the notion of self-esteem to the ultimate heights of personal wellness. Without self-esteem we are nobody.

In general self-esteem is a global evaluation of self worth. Am I a good person or a bad person? Am I worthy or love or not?

The problem is not whether you have self-esteem, according to Dr. Neff. It’s how you get it.  In our culture to have high self-esteem you have to be special and be above average. And really, it’s not ok to be average. Think about it. This can lead to kids building themselves up – often by putting others down. This typically happens through social comparison and power plays.  Of note is that there are just as many bullies with high self-esteem as with low self-esteem.

Self-esteem is also contingent on success. When we fail or don’t meet our ideal standards in our heads or in relation to what we perceive others to have, we become really hard on ourselves. This is particularly so for girls and women. The standards for being beautiful are so high and impossible to achieve that many girls learn to feel terrible about themselves. Girls’ self esteem begins to plummet around age 10 and 11, and there are very real effects from the inner self-critic that develops – including self-harm behaviors so common today (eating disorders and cutting to name the most egregious). This happens with boys too, on the sports field or school yard, having to prove their ability to be tough, powerful and loyal to the pack.

Self-compassion is not a way of judging oneself. To the contrary, self-compassion is a way of treating ourselves kindly. There is no judgment at all.

Neff has outlined three core components of self-compassion:

1) Treat yourself with kindness as you would treat a good friend.

We are harsher to ourselves that we’d ever be to a friend. Believe me, I hear these stories in my practice. Self-criticism is both damaging and isolating. It separates us from others; it leads to depression and anxiety.  Kindness to oneself is an antidote.

2) Embrace common humanity.

In general the concept of self-esteem is “how am I different (or better) from others?  Self-compassion asks a difference questions: How am I the same as others? Who am I connected to on this planet?  Reminding yourself that you are not alone in your feelings and experiences is comforting.

3) Being aware or mindful of our moment-to-moment states of mind.

Tune in to the chatter. Tune into the world right now.Notice what is happening. What is meaningful in the moment? What are we saying to ourselves? You might surprise yourself with what you discover. We don’t’ notice the pain we suffer when we aren’t tuned in. Most of our internal thoughts are negative. This is the brain’s negativity bias, a natural inclination to be altered to danger. BUt now the danger is inside our heads.

Why to we do it? Why are we so self-critical? 

In part we can’t help it because our brains are built to jabber away. But we also have this belief we need to be hard on ourselves in order feel motivated to do things, to reach our goals, to accomplish something. If we are too kind to ourselves or give ourselves a break, we often consider this to be self-indulgent. This it drilled into our minds from early childhood. “Think about others first!”

Self-criticism actually undermines our ability to succeed because it triggers the body’s physiological threat system. Ironically when we are hard on ourselves, according to Neff, “We are both the attacker and the attacked.” Our bodies are in a constant state of high stress, which can lead to depression, irritability, and fatigue.

Self-compassion, on the other hand, taps into the body’s self-soothing system. It  fosters nurturing. Instead of activating stress hormones, being kind and self-compassionate releases the feel good hormones, like oxytocin.

How to best motivate our children?  When children make a mistake or do something bad, jumping into reactive criticism is not helpful. That can breed shame and isolation or explosive behavior. Taking a compassionate approach is accepting that humans make mistakes; and your child can get a message of understanding and support to repair the mistake or overcome a failure. “We all make mistakes.I know it feels bad right now. Let’s think about his and how I can help you make it better.”

The research is now unequivocal that self-compassion is important in wellbeing. Self-compassion is related to positive states, like happiness, life satisfaction, making healthy choices, and feeling connected to others. (For the research go to Neff’s website: http://www.self-compassion.org.) In her estimation, when looking over a decade of study on the topic, Neff says that self-compassion offers the benefits of self-esteem without the pitfalls of self-evaluation, social comparison and self-criticism. Self-compassion gives a sense of being valuable and being human, flaws and all. It’s not about fake it until you make it. Cultivating self-compassion is about developing authenticity.

Really, it is like pure maple syrup: raw, imperfect, genuine yet delicious.  I think I’ll have to bring this up at our next pancake breakfast.

Resources:

Take the quiz: How self-compassionate are you?

Listen In: Dr Kristen Neff’s Tedx Talk on the difference between self-compassion and self-esteem

Filed Under: Courage, Inspirations, Teenagers Tagged With: Self Esteem, Self Worth, Self-Compassion

An Arrow Through the Heart: The Merida Makeover

May 13, 2013 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

“Why? Why would they do that?” Lamented my 13-year-old daughter.

Yes, it’s another sad Disney tale. You see, I showed her the Merida makeover. Merida is the gutsy girl in Brave with bow and arrow, who stands up to her parents with typical teen rants, challenges cultural traditions, and seeks great adventure. If you don’t know this Disney princess, she’s one of the few, who from the get go, shows gumption. She came as a relief to many moms, including myself, to have a female character with wit, confidence, self-reliance… and also empathy.

movies-princess-merida-before-after
(c) Disney/Pixar

I had been at my desk when Josie bobbed in from the school bus. I was looking at the before and after images of Merida that A Mighty Girl posted. A Mighty Girl did a mighty thing by creating a Change.org petition last week to challenge Disney’s leadership on their decision to glamorize Merida for her induction into the Princess Collection.  As of today – in a matter of days –  the petition solicited about 125,000 signatures.*

Josie peeked over my shoulder to take a closer look the makeover. She squinted, pulled her head back, leaned back in for scrutiny. “She’s looks ugly!” she exclaimed. “I want to sign the petition, too!”

Later, I read what Peggy Orenstein had to say on this latest Disney transgression, author of Cinderella Ate My Daughter.  She’s tired of it all.  Can’t blame her. So am I.  On her blog post she goes through the makeovers of the various Disney princesses and it’s not pretty.

But I’ve come to realize that the media and retail industries will simply be giving moms plenty of teachable moments with our daughters and sons when it comes to media literacy and how unrealistic beauty ideals in our culture affect us.

My husband is in the brand strategy business and I updated him at dinner on the Merida controversy. What is Disney thinking? His view was dispassionate. Having been an art director in NYC, traveled the unforgiving ranks to creative director only to become an entrepreneur and consultant, he painted the corporate picture for us.

“Somebody sent a memo to give Merida a makeover for an event or promotion. Some unsuspecting art director follows the instructions, offers some versions, sends the redesigns back up the line. A brand manager picks one set of  the new Merida he likes, and in a matter of seconds it’s a done deal.”  In other words, there was little thought to the meaning of the change (or the consequence), and there was certainly no checking in with FANS.  Like seriously? Don’t they know that we have a generation of empowered co-creators?!

Disney is trying to sell product. It’s as simple as that. But it seems they really need to take a hard look at their decisions, rash or otherwise. Disney lost their compass on this one.  Wasn’t the intent of Brave to offer a new story for girls? Let’s hope the petition to “Keep Merida Brave” changes their minds.

You’d think this could be a pretty useful case study for understanding your customer. But the likelihood that this would reach the Harvard Business School case studies is probably slim. Something like this is not going to put a dent in Disney stock or shift their corporate core values. But the sad truth is that many consumers are pretty numb to what they are being sold and many moms and dads might not even have noticed the Merida makeover once it hit packaging. After all, the Disney’s princesses start to look rather …similar.

MissRepresentation.org is trying to raise awareness of media limiting portrayal of girls and women, not only with their film but with their #NotBuyingIt twitter campaign and upcoming app. It will take grass roots efforts like A Mighty Girl and MissRep, and the cadre of girls empowerment initiatives, to not only raise awareness but to help consumers raise their voices.

Josie is just hitting that vulnerable place where looks matters so much (it’s 7th grade after all). In anticipation of her all-girls gymnastics banquet, the buzz the past month has been all about their dresses, hair and shoes. Of course, their outfits are then vetted by each other via Instragram. This is not about boys at all. They are glamming it up for a girls’ night out that will last about 3 hours where they dance themselves silly in bare feet.To avoid the potential tears if she doesn’t quite meet her mind’s eye on the day of the event, we practiced the hair-do last night with a curling wand… a contraption I have no experience with. It comes with a glove to avoid burning fingers. We figured it out with trial and error and she became pretty deft at it within an hour. Ironically, her hair looked just the new Merida.

In this makeover nation I asked Josie what if anything, in her opinion, Disney could change about the original Merida – even for the better.  Her answer:

Nothing.

* * *

*UPDATE:  The Change.org campaign to Keep Merida Brave was a success in part. Disney will keep the original Merida on its website, but the fight is far from over.

Filed Under: Courage, Mothers & Daughters, Rants & Raves, Role Models, Social Media, Uncategorized Tagged With: A Mighty Girl, courage, Daughters, Disney, dresses, female, girls, girls culture, heroines, media, moms, mother, petition, Self Esteem, social media, teachable moment

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