colored pencil, marker, ink, gel pen; 20×16”
“The princess stereotype is quite negative for little girls who idolize them. Girls suffer from low self-esteem, mental health issues, and disappointment. With the views that girls need to be saved by men and happiness comes from boys, girls don’t try to achieve things in life. On the opposite, boys who grow up with the princess and prince stereotype become more caring and compassionate towards women. They tend to be more protective of women and look out for them. But for girls, they develop anxiety, depression, eating disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, and histrionic personality disorder. All of these mental health disorders cause girls to shy away from doing things and causes them to resent themselves by how they look, act, and what they like. They question their looks and weight, their interests in things that are not considered “girly”, and they just tend to do things to grab a boy’s attention because of the desperation of needing the attention for validation.”
ARTIST BIO: Faith Smith is a Grade 12 student at Butler Tech School of Art (SOA).