Good Riddance
“Club Libby Lu is a place — first and foremost — where little girls can engage their imaginations and have fun being a girl. Yes, that involves playing dress-up, getting their hair done and the application of a little makeup. Those are the means to an end, though, with the end being how these activities make a little girl feel.”
- Mary Drolet, creator of Club Libby Lu
“The problem was that the club’s version of dress-up involved hooking girls as young as 3 on glittery tube tops, tight pants, boas, nail polish, lip gloss, tiaras and runway modeling. Princesses and pop stars — hence sex — were in. So, dress-up was cool and fun, if it was sexy. No pilots or doctors or astronauts or firefighters to dress as in this place.”
- Stacy Garfinkle, The Washington Post, “Buh-Bye Club Libby Lu”, 2008
This is such bullshit. “Princesses and pop stars— hence sex— were in.” So because a little 3 year old girl wants to dress up as a princess or a pop star, she will probably grow up to be a slut? That makes sense. No promiscuous woman today ever pretended to be a scientist, a pilot, nurse, doctor or artist.
Haha. I love the fabulous choice of words, too. “Hooking girls as young as 3 on glittery tube tops, tight pants, boas, nail polish, lip gloss, tiaras and runway modeling.”
“Jessica never had a chance. One trip into Club Libby Lu and she was hooked for good. She had lost her home and the custody of her children because she used all her money to satiate her fruity lip gloss and hot pink feather boa addiction,” says nobody. (It would make a good “My Strange Addiction” episode, though.)
I imagine the thought process of some people that are very happy this store closed goes something like this:
“That four year old likes to dress up in a tiara and tutu while dancing to Hannah Montana? What a brainless slut! It’s okay that it costs a ridiculous amount of money to host a dress-up party at a shopping mall instead of your own home. What isn’t okay is the fact that they let girls dress up as princesses and pop stars, but NOT firefighters! This is the ONLY place little girls can access tacky boas and fluorescent nail polish, and finally it is closed. We can all breathe easier knowing that the store that spawned prostitution is out of business.”
There are different types of girls. They grow up into different kinds of women. All of which have varying combinations of aspects that make them unique. Generalizing a woman into one bottle and labeling it is clearly a habit some people need to get over. Shaming one “type” of woman is bad enough. I understand everyone has different opinions, but this article encourages people to shame little girls who are exploring and finding what their style is and who they are through dress-up.
The comments section below the article and a previous article Garfinkle wrote about Club Libby Lu is shocking. I was surprised how many MOTHERS shame young children. They call girls in tutus and tiaras walking around the mall “prostitutes”. Some were saying they were happy they only have all boys. And some claim that they are feminists. I can’t help but laugh at how ironic that is. “I am a feminist, but I am determined to ruin this girl’s self confidence because she is passionate about using her imagination to manifest her idea of what she thinks is pretty at this stage in her life.”
Girls, like boys (surprise), grow out of phases. They want to be a pop star one week and a vet another. They like Dora the Explorer when they’re 5, but they don’t anymore when they’re 10. Understand what is age-appropriate. You should probably say no if your 4 year old wants to wear a crop top around the mall. Explain why she shouldn’t wear something so revealing and ask her instead if she wants to wear a glitter graphic tee. Make sure she wears tights under that dress or skirt she picked out. Do some parenting and get involved and help your child make appropriate choices instead of demonizing a store with good intentions.
(Source: Washington Post)
