Viva la Feminista

The world of girls magazines is a scary place. Walk up to the magazine aisle of your fave drugstore and flip through girl-centric magazines...then try to sleep well at night. Recently Girls Life came under fire for exclaiming the secrets of dream hair on their cover while Boys Life was all about planning for a solid career. Someone "fixed it" via Photoshop . I have a ton of issues with the original Girls Life cover, but have some issues with the "fixed" cover as well. First of all is the shaming of the actress on the original cover. Olivia Holt is yet another young woman trying to have it all through the Disney empire. She sings! She dances! She karate chops! She acts! Having a teenager myself, I have watched plenty of Disney shows. And while there are some things to improve in their narrative, you gotta give props to these teens who are slowly building their own empires...critique of Disney aside cause I'm already on a way tangent. Next, while I love...

I gave birth to one daughter, but I do consider every girl in the world a daughter. It's a cheesy thought, yes, but it is true. When I fight for women's rights, I am not just fighting for myself or my daughter, but for all the girls around the world. That cheesy notion became all too real last night. Francesca Escoto wrote a quick post about a conversation she had with her daughters last night : As we are making arroz-con-leche, my oldest asks: “Why are the major league sports male dominated?” Gulp. My middle child responds: “What? Baseball is only for boys?” I think I’m gonna cry. Without me being able to answer coherently, my middle child goes on: “Why is everything for boys? Even my teacher says she prefers boys.” My oldest: “Mom, has there ever been a woman president?” My answer: “Not in the United States.” Middle child: “Even the president of the U.S. is a male-dominated sport?” I wanted to get my virtual friend Veronica Arreola and put her on speaker phone. Ver...

This year’s theme is “ Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures ” and one of the prompts is: How can we, as a culture and as members of the global community, involve, educate, and inspire girls in a positive way? This is easy. Listen to girls. Make space for their voices. Educate them. Of course in reality, it's not that easy. Too often we witness the powers that be conspire to silence girls. It is this silence that Rachel Simmons outlines in her must-read book, Odd Girl Out . When we tell or show girls that their voices are not valued, they silence their feelings, thoughts and yes, actual voices. They turn inward and all the fury they should be screaming about is pushed deep into their soul. And it hurts them. While a part of the Nobel Women's Initiative's delegation , I lost count of how many women, young and old, happened to mention in their testimonies that at some point in their lives a parent told them that women weren't worth much. That it was no use for th...

The newly revised and updated edition of Odd Girl Out is a must have for every person who is parenting or educating a girl. This was the first book I grabbed once my fall classes were over. A bookshelf of books have been taunting me since August, but this is the one I had to read first. Why? I think it's because I have a daughter. She's eight and in the 3rd grade and we've already had two incidents involving bullying. The first was in preschool and the second was last year. Both incidents were handled by teachers are administrators in a manner that Simmons suggests in Chapter 12: the road ahead for teachers and administrators. That chapter gives some wonderful suggestions on how to set up a school or even a classroom to be as bully-proof as possible. Obviously no place can be bully-proof, but one thing that Simmons points out is that one way to address bullying is to have a transparent and predictable system of consequences. If a student knows that Sally and Maria are ...

The kid is not just a smarty pants kid, but she is also pretty observant about the world . I would like to think it is due to me being honest with her about media issues and not denying her voice when she speaks up. She also has a super cool aunt who wrote a book about Reality TV and does media criticism for a living. It is quite a proud moment for me when I get to point out Photoshopping on magazine covers to her to show her that no one is that perfect. But I know I can't do it alone. That is why I was excited to learn that the Girl Scouts has new "journeys" (what they call curriculum units) on media and story telling. I was lucky to get a chance to ask Dr. Andrea Bastiani Archibald, Developmental Psychologist at Girl Scouts of USA, about the new media units. I asked her how we can raise girl leaders without feeding into the "good girl" stereotype. I know I catch myself talking to the kid about being a good role model or a leader, I find that what I...

Dear Target, Payless and other sellers of shoes, As the mother of an active seven-almost-eight-year-old girl, I am asking you to please, please, please stop selling a zillion types of sandals for summer and only a limited types of actual shoes, especially sneakers. Here is a what the Target girls shoes site looks like: Note that there are *85* different types of sandals and only 15 different types of sneakers. Yet the best sellers include a boot, a sneaker and an active sandal/shoe. The Payless site looks to have the same representation of sandal versus real shoe. We stick to the lower end of shoes because well, when you have a girl who tears through shoes faster than her foot is growing out of them, you don't want to invest a lot of cash into shoes.But even at Nordstrom there are three times more sandals compared to athletic shoes. OK, some of their sandals are actually functional... Over the last few years the different type of sandals for girls has escalated and it is ...

As a blogger, I am still constantly amazed at how fast some of our stories spread around our world. The story of first-grader Katie being bullied for liking "Star Wars," hit a chord with many SW fans. It went viral with such fury that Star Wars blogger Bonnie Burton responded : As any Star Wars fan worth his or her weight in midichlorians can tell you, there is no one single “type” of Star Wars fan. Star Wars fans are both genders, all ages, all races and all nationalities. [...] My point is, ladies love Star Wars too, and we should all support their right to geek out just like the guys. Little girls need to know they have every right to pick up a lightsaber as the rest of us. Star Wars itself is full of strong, independent female characters who wouldn’t have taken any guff from 1st grade boys who clearly don’t know their Star Wars characters.  To that I say "Hell yeah!" But I also want to say to Star Wars & George Lucas...You can do more. Yo...

For Finding Ada 2010 , I would like to talk about Engineer Your Life. It's a website that is geared towards girls, but anyone can visit and learn, and focuses on why a career in engineering is rewarding and fun. They have a list of 10 reasons why you will love your career in engineering. Parents and those of you lucky enough to have an impact on young people's lives, please encourage them to visit this site. There is still such a stereotype that engineering is just about rockets and bridges. I blame years of physics and calculus classes for reinforcing this view. As we saw in Minnesota a few years ago, bridges are important. But we don't quite teach that in our schools. We also don't teach our children that engineering touches our lives and will shape the future. That is why we need to point them to the area about finding their dream job. There is a stereotype, that bears fruit in real life, that girls are more likely to be drawn towards careers that clearly ben...

Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls edited by Melinda Tankard Reist is a collection of essays/charges against the world-wide phenomena of the pornification of childhood thru advertising, marketing and pop culture. This was a great book to read as the authors are Australian and sometimes I wonder how much of our collective reaction to porn and adult images going mainstream is a reflection of our country's Puritanical leanings. For the contributors to Getting Real , the problem is embedded in not just faux-feminism, but a twisting of feminism by marketers and others to make women believe that if they are "in charge" of their sexuality, then there isn't anything wrong with stripping, making out with other women to turn on men and so forth. About half way thru the book I came across a few statements that made me think, "Wait a minute...This isn't a feminist book!" So I did some investigating of Reist and found that she is part of a wo...

This was originally posted at Girl w/Pen Do you ever think, “Duh!?” when you read a news story about how fattening movie popcorn or fast food is for us? I get that same feeling when I read that yet another research study has been published proving that girls and boys are equally good at math. How much more proof do we need? Professor Marcia Linn’s paper focuses in on why there are differences in girls confidence around the world. The answer? Social expectations. [PDF link] A society’s gendered division of labor fosters the development of gender differences in behavior by affording different restrictions and opportunities to males and females on the basis of their social roles….if the cultural roles that women fulfill do not include math, girls may face both structural obstacles (e.g., formal access to education is limited to boys) and social obstacles (e.g., stereotypes that math is a male domain) that impede their mathematical development. Many people like to believe that we...

Girls' Studies by Elline Lipkin was a great little read. I don't mean to be flip about this book. It's well written and chock full of information about the fledgling field of girls' studies. It's just that I've read enough about girls' studies that I actually knew most of the information in it. That said, Girls' Studies is in the Seal Press Seal Studies line and I do believe that this would make an excellent addition to a women's studies course or even the basis for an entire course on girls itself. It's also a great summation of the research on gender roles and how they impact our girls (and boys) as they grow. It's not pro-girl as much as it is anti-gender stereotypes/gender roles. I'll say it again, if we can smash the box girls are put into with stereotypes, we can also free our boys from the patriarchy box too. There is a lot of discussion about 'standard behavior' and how it has swung from boys to girls and how neithe...

Originally posted at AWEARNESS WOW! I can't believe the response my post about girls and computer science on Wednesday received on Twitter. Thanks. Many of the retweets were of "don't forget us too!" variety, so to follow up on the popular post, here is a quick run down of just a handful of the amazing groups working to recruit girls to computer science and keep them interested. Please, please add additional ones in the comments! Anita Borg : This is a powerhouse organization that works to connect tech companies to women. ABI offers workshops, publications and information aimed to develop leadership skills; celebrates and highlights the success of women who are changing the face of technology; and provides programs that change the way technology is created, learned and taught. One peek at their board and you'll see that the movers & shakers of technology are gathering at ABI to bring more women to the keyboard. Read the rest of the resource list over a...

This week I'll be sharing reviews of books that deal with the gender of our children and our parenting. I am the mother of a six-year-old girl and as long time readers know, I keep on eye out on how girls and their toys are sexualized. As an advocate for education equity, I keep tabs on the changed that our sons and daughters are making n the classroom. As a feminist I get told that we're post-feminist, the battle of the sexes is over and it's our boys who need a revolution. To that I say hell no and hell yes! Women may be the majority of workers but we still are paid only 78% to a man's dollar (even less so for women of color), tracked into low prestige and low wage careers and we still carry the burden of caregiving for our families. The feminist revolution is far from over. The next stage will be to free our brothers from the claustrophobic gender role box. If you read media depictions of why boys are falling behind you see feminists being blamed, but also ...

Supergirls Speak Out: Inside the Secret Crisis of Overachieving Girls could be loaned out at preschool or kindergarten orientation. It should be on hand for all elementary school teachers and administrators. Reading the stories inside is one warning shot after another to parents, teachers & others in our society who keep telling our kids, girls and boys, that if you don't do well in elementary school, you can't get into the top high school and then you might as well start picking out safe schools for college. I go on a lot about being in the Chicago Public School system, but it's true. That's the name of the game. Growing up in the suburbs in a one high school district, it was more about making sure you did well in elementary so you got into at least the honors track in middle/high school. So there is a lot of pressure to get kids going on the right foot & I'm all for that - except that subtle & not-so-subtle messages we give kids about screwing up (get...

My Dora watching started way before my daughter came along. One day I was flipping around the TV channels and stopped on a cartoon of a Latina. A Latina that looked like my sister-in-law. My husband & I quickly got her son, our nephew, hooked on Dora. Success! Thus we knew that Dora would have a place in our life. I've seen and enjoyed more Dora than an adult woman should admit to, but I have. I remember that my husband & I were fixated with where does Dora live? As Latin@s of Mexican decent, we always jump to Mexico first. But it was the episode with El Coquí that did it for me. One quick web search for the Coquí turned up Puerto Rico. This made sense with the lush jungles and forests that Dora & Boots spent 22 minutes discovering. Part of the press release on New Dora that hasn't gotten a lot of buzz is that Dora & family are moving on up to the big city! As tweenage Dora, our heroine has moved to the big city, attends middle school and has a whole new...

Mattel finally let us in on how the new Dora will look . I have to admit that she doesn't look as bad as I thought she would. She looks like almost any 10-year-old you would see running around this world. If this was the image for a new cartoon with a smart and adventurous Latina as the lead, I think we'd have a party to celebrate. But it's not. It's our dear beloved Dora the Explorer. Mattel & Nick are upset at us moms for attacking the tweening of Dora: "I think there was just a misconception in terms of where we were going with this," Gina Sirard, vice president of marketing at Mattel, says. "Pretty much the moms who are petitioning aging Dora up certainly don't understand. ... I think they're going to be pleasantly happy once this is available in October, and once they understand this certainly isn't what they are conjuring up." But even with a nice drawing of New Dora, I'm still not happy with this move. First, New Dora will ...

Over two years ago I picked up on a warning that Hoyden About Town posted about: Dora was growing up. She wasn't growing up in the Jodi Foster way. She wasn't packing her beloved BackPack for Yale, UCLA or Evergreen. She was thinning out and getting sexy . Mattel, the makers of all things Dora (except the ones at the flea market), has said : As tweenage Dora, our heroine has moved to the big city, attends middle school and has a whole new fashionable look. What’s more, she now has a rich online world in which girls can explore, play games, customize, and most importantly solve mysteries with Dora and her new friends. Adding to the play value, Dora’s online world is interactive with the new doll line. Mattel & Nickelodeon somehow think that if Dora grows up with the audience, that they won't lose market share to a certain doll who is celebrating her 50th birthday. What is scary about this change is the Dr. Frankenstein aspect of th...

Danica McKellar, aka Winnie Cooper, has a new book out. In reality it is the sequel to her first book, "Math Doesn't Suck" where she aims to teach you some pre-algebra topics (pdf): By the time you finish reading them, however, you’ll be a whiz at tons of pre-algebra topics, including integers, negative numbers, absolute value, inequalities, the distributive property, working with variables, word problems, exponents, functions, graphing, and tons of ways to solve for x. OK, if that scared the bejezus outta you, stop now. While I didn't quite like the concept of teaching "girl" math, there is a real need to make science, math & engineering more girl-friendly. Even I, the math nerd I am, zoned out each time we had to do a problem about shooting two bullets or when two rockets would meet. I'd rather spend time trying to figure out how long it would take a fish to outswim a predator. McKellar is sticking to her girly examples and well, I have to admit...

If you could be 13 again, would you? I would if I could bring You're Amazing! A No-Pressure Guide to Being Your Best Self by Claire Mysko with me. I'm not exaggerating or sucking up to Claire, whom I met at WAM!. I don't think high school would had been too much different, but I would had felt far less lonely. Mysko discusses body image, stress and stereotypes with the sensitivity of a loving big sister or that cool older cousin. She opens each chapter with data from the Girls Inc. The Supergirl Dilemma report (Girls Inc produced this book). While it is a source of many depressing moments (e.g. 84% of girls said that girls are under a lot of pressure to dress the right way.), it does set a starting point. Mysko goes on to discuss strategies for the girls in order to overcome obstacles and meet challenges. She also includes conversation starters for approaching trusted adults. The book is frank and doesn't talk down to the girls. Like any good "self-help...