Princesshood Feminist groups want to turn fairy-tale heroines into propaganda tools.

Feminist groups want to turn fairy-tale heroines into propaganda tools.

Disney princess dolls for sale in Moscow last year.

‘We need a Disney princess who’s had an abortion,” tweeted a Pennsylvania branch of Planned Parenthood last week. Though the tweet was deleted, Planned Parenthood Keystone chief Melissa Reed stands by it. “Planned Parenthood believes that pop culture . . . has a critical role to play in educating the public and sparking meaningful conversations around sexual and reproductive health issues and policies, including abortion,” she said in a statement to Fox News.

Feminist critics have been waging war on Disney princesses since the 1990s, and they’re gaining ground. Peggy Orenstein’s 2011 best seller, “Cinderella Ate My Daughter,” called the fairy-tale heroine a symbol of “the patriarchal oppression of all women.”

Disney has been listening. In 2016 the company launched the Dream Big, Princess campaign, which recasts Ariel as a speed-swimming champion, Rapunzel as a gymnast and Cinderella as a dance prodigy. In an obvious nod to the feminist notion that traditional princesses are “damsels in distress,” Disney has edited out the princesses’ signature inner virtues of integrity, courage, optimism and heart, and replaced them with feminist-approved—but ultimately shallow—physical achievement.

Ariel’s main achievement is no longer her willingness to sacrifice for her dreams, but rather her skill as a swimmer. Instead of courageously standing up to the people holding her back, Rapunzel is now celebrated for her ability to use her hair as a lasso. Instead of moral strength in the face of adversity, Cinderella’s claim to fame is now her impeccable ballroom dancing. If these qualities represent anything other than physical strength and dexterity, the ad campaign offers no way to know.

All this completely misunderstands what fairy-tale princesses mean to little girls. Heroines who value physicality over morality might advance feminist ideology, but they’re not princesses. In any fairy tale, the princess signifies the feminine ideal. Her true heart, inner courage and pure motives are tested but never compromised. If a Disney princess were depicted having an abortion, it wouldn’t come across as merely a personal choice. Rather, it would imply that having an abortion is an expression of feminine goodness.

Girls intuitively understand the ethical symbolism of princesses. In an article for Psychology Today, Susan Scheftel, a professor of medical psychology at Columbia, argues that a little girl who loves princesses is casting herself as “the beautiful heroine of her own story.” These girls aren’t succumbing to an outdated representation of women that needs to be rewritten. They’re tapping into feminine wisdom that has helped girls grow into women for thousands of years.

Feminist groups want to reimagine Disney princesses in their own image, using the princesses little girls love as tools for propaganda. Planned Parenthood selling abortion as a feminine ideal is the ultimate villainous ruse. Like Snow White’s wicked stepmother, they want to offer girls a poisonous idea in a bright, appealing package.