Like so many girls who grew up with Barbies and princesses for role models, I not only had trouble accepting my own body, but being accepted by others.  I was teased in kindergarten for being chubby, because, even at this young age, children knew that it was bad to be fat.

The idea that thin is good and fat is bad is drilled into us from the time we can first understand the toys we love and the images we see on screens.  The popular dainty-waisted princess associates thinness with virtuosity, kindness, desirability, specialness, and worthiness of attention.

A few different items recently making the rounds on social media have been drawing my attention as both a feminist and a parent. You might have seen this video featuring a Scottish dad having a spirited exchange with his 4-year-old daughter on the subject of boyfriends. In the video we see the dad threatening to "break the legs" of any future boyfriend. Dad is also, apparently, going to hold future boyfriend’s family members "hostage in a cupboard" and is seen telling his daughter that she is "going to be a nun" and not have any boyfriends at all. Initially, I assumed that this video was being shared disapprovingly. But then I realized that the narrative from all of the posts sharing the video was Oh look at this dad and his cute daughter! How FUNNY. This fills me with unease. How funny is it really to replay these tired old tropes of fathers owning their daughters' bodies and seeing boys as nothing other than threats to their daughters' "virtue"?