"Playing princess is not the issue. The issue is 25,000 Princess products. When one thing is so dominant, then it's no longer a choice: it's a mandate, cannibalizing all other forms of play. There's the illusion of more choices out there for girls, but if you look around, you'll see their choices are steadily narrowing."

-- Lyn Mikel Brown, co-author, with Sharon Lamb, of Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters From Marketers? Schemes,quoted in a excellent article in the New York Times by Peggy Orenstein on how playing princess (and dressing in pink) has become the dominant fantasy of girls 4-8 years old--and what that implies about feminism and gender in our culture today.