4 - ‘Sacrificing Dreamers’: A Regression in the Disney Princess Phenomenon
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2024
Summary
The fourth wave of princess films were released in 2009 and 2010. Women's roles and rights had continued to progress. Within the military, women served America in the Afghanistan War from 2001 to 2014, and in Iraq from 2003 to 2011. Ann Dunwoody became the first woman four-star general in 2008 (Army News Service 2008). Within government, women continued to progress into higher positions. In 2001, Elaine Chao was the first Asian American woman appointed to the Cabinet, her role being the Secretary of Labor (Bush White House n.d.). In 2007, Nancy Pelosi was the first woman speaker of the House (Pelosi n.d.). Hillary Clinton was the first woman to be nominated by a major political party but lost the overall nomination to Barack Obama (MacAskill and Goldenberg 2008). However, Hillary Clinton, like Republican Sarah Palin, had to deal with significant sexism in their 2008 campaigns (Carlin and Winfrey 2009). In 2009, Judy Chu was elected to the House of Representatives, she was the first Chinese American woman to serve in Congress (Chu n.d.). On the Republican side, Sarah Palin became the first woman to run for vice president (Barnes and Shear 2008). Within the legislature, abortion remained an ever-present issue, with Congress passing the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2003, criminalizing performing an abortion once the baby is being delivered (Congress 2003). In 2009, The Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act was passed to support victims (who were often women) of pay discrimination (Congress 2009). However, there was also stagnation and regression. In 2005 Hurricane Katrina caused devastating financial damage and took many lives, with the victims of the natural disaster being mostly African-American (Mollet 2020: 105). In 2007 and 2008, the financial crisis ‘hit African-Americans especially hard’, once again excluding people of colour from the American Dream (Mollet 2020: 106). In 2008, Barack Obama became the first African American man to be elected President of the United States, and Michelle Obama became the first African American woman to serve as First Lady of the United States. Although this did not erase the barriers people of colour had and continued to be facing, it certainly started to progress things in the right direction.
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- The Disney Princess PhenomenonA Feminist Analysis, pp. 97 - 118Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2023