Bring on Zog and the Flying Doctors *

Posted by Barbara on July 7, 2025 in Blog, children, Children's books, feminism, Women's equality issues | 2 comments

Ever late to the party, and probably because I am not on TikTok, I have just read about ‘princess treatment’.  Does this relate to the test where you are placed on a number of feather mattresses with a pea underneath?  Or perhaps the one where only a prince’s kiss will wake you from a 100-year slumber? Or perhaps the moment when you take a toad into your bed to find it transformed into a handsome prince? Or the time when you are made to keep house and home together to serve the needs of seven ugly little men? 

You get my drift, but allow me just one more: maybe we are talking about the household drudge who got to go to the ball and caught the eye of the prince, thereby having her life transformed forever.  Well it turns out that this latest version of princess-like behaviour as depicted on Tiktok is much simpler than the fairy tales: basically you are allowing him to take charge.  Who he, as they say?  Apparently your other half, who is definitely male and to whom you now defer.

Of course it is presented in a much more appealing way: someone called Courtney Palmer is presenting this lifestyle as a winner on social media and no doubt making a killing too. You get to dress up in pretty clothes and be paid for, generally spoilt with flowers, nice clothes and jewellery, and not having to think too hard about anything.  He takes charge.  This apparently is where some of Palmer’s message pressed a few buttons with women who have not been raised to kowtow to the other sex.  There is guidance as to how princesses speak; they don’t raise their voices or shout. Are they allowed to contradict I wonder?  And then there’s advice as to how to behave in a restaurant, where presumably the princess has been taken to by her ‘man’.  She allows him to order food for her and only speaks when she is spoken to. I’m sorry – did I hear that right? 

Apparently this last generated a comment from a former waitress who posted that if she observed a situation like that she would pass the ‘princess’  a note asking if she was OK and whether she wanted her to call the police.  And yes it’s funny, but not that funny, and personally I find it extremely disturbing.  When does being the princess stop just being fun and turn into a situation where she is being controlled a little more than she signed up for? How much independence of thought and behaviour is permitted? I do not use that term lightly; earlier this year I wrote a blog about Hard-won freedoms. I find it frankly disturbing that the virtual space is promoting just the sort of behaviour that prompted the feminist cause in the first place.

It’s lovely to be spoiled and treated well, but it is equally lovely to spoil someone and treat them well.  So go ahead and be a princess if you want to, but do make sure you get to call the tune and order the drinks at least half of the time.

* For an alternative present-day depiction of princess-like behaviour, do read Zog and the Flying Doctors by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.