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Strollerderby
Caitlin Flanagan made her name with the hackle-raising To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing our Inner Housewife, in which she asked her reader to cast aside the murky demands of professional ambition and assume her rightful place in the broom closet. Her new book, Girl Land, is another plea for a return to traditional roles, to a simpler time, when girls were weaned on romantic fantasies rather than sexts and porn sites. Disclosure: I have not yet read the book, and truth be told, might not ever do so. But I did listen to every minute of this riveting interview with the author on NPR, where she debates the premise with writer Irin Carmon, who reviewed the book and wrote about the bizarre interview on Salon.com.
Like many of us, Caitlin Flanagan has a problem with our “crass, corrosive, sexualized” culture. She wants more control over what girls are exposed to, and urges parents to stay involved in their daughters’ lives. I’m on board with all of this. The problem for me (and a whole lot of other ladies) is the world Flanagan thinks should be taking its place, and the way she suggests we should get there. The Girl Land Flanagan imagines is a fantasy pulled from her own past, which apparently involved a lot of reading romantic novels and writing in diaries. Flanagan sees the girlish attraction to romance as something innate, which I find odd in light of the promotion of this idea to girls from a very young age. But Flanagan embraces the idea of the happily ever after fantasy. Instead of dismissing the idea of the savior prince as unrealistic, she challenges us to find ways of making it happen for our daughters. How do we do this? By creating a world where girls are protected from exposure to harmful images, and allowing their time, and their minds, to be dominated by their imaginations. This sounds like a pretty okay idea.
Until you think about it.
She's conquered television, movies, and the bestseller list. Now Tina Fey heads to radio.
I’ll pretty much watch or listen to Tina Fey do anything. She should be declared the official Ambassador of Womanhood or something like that.
Now, the woman who brought us countless hours of Saturday Night Live laughs and kept the chuckles coming with her current sitcom, 30 Rock, is taking us inside the hidden world of girls. Continue reading »
A CDC panel has expanded their recommendation on the HPV vaccine to include boys. Finally.
After all the furor over giving this shot to girls, it’s great to see the CDC do the right thing and recommend it to boys as well. The virus can affect boys as well as girls, it’s only right that they also be vaccinated for it.
In case you’ve been living under a rock: the HPV vaccine protects against cancer-causing strains of the human papilloma virus. Because it’s usually sexually transmitted, some Republicans have made a big stink about the vaccine being a license for free sex.
If you’ve ever dressed a young girl, you know girls’ fashions can be problematic. There are the string bikinis for toddlers. There are the sparkly high heels sized for three-year-olds, just waiting to snap an ankle. There are endless frilly skirts, not so great for climbing monkey bars.
Then there are the t-shirts. There’s been a whole string of scandals recently about t-shirts with slogans like “Too pretty to do homework” on them. A lot of these awful shirts have been pulled from the market after a hue and cry on the Internet about their offensive content. Good work, Internet. Those bad shirts needed to go.
Sadly, they were just the tip of the iceberg. Jezebel took a good look at what’s still on the market for girls’ clothing, and it’s pretty scary.
We devote a good chunk of our blog space to decrying marketers and media for the way they represent girls. We quote psychologists and academics about the way these messages might negatively affect our daughters’ lives. We continue to fight gender inequality as women and mothers. And in other parts of the world, the discrepancy between the rights of males and females is even more striking.These inequalities deny the daughters of the world a fair chance. They endanger their futures, and sometimes their lives.
This is why a growing group of supporters is fighting to make today, September 22, Day of The Girl. A day for girls to be celebrated. A day for the world to take a look at how we can do a better job of caring for our girls, and giving them the very best chance for success. A day for us all to ask ourselves: What are you doing to make girls’ worlds bigger and better?
“We want the freedom to be ourselves, and to be treated as equals, regardless of sex. We want legislation and programs that ensure the rights and dignity of girls everywhere. We want a National Day of the Girl to explore gender discrimination and advocate for equality for every girl in the world. We want to create positive, concrete changes in how all girls and women are treated and perceived. We are asking President Barack Obama to support our year-long campaign to claim a day for girls everywhere.”
Today is the culmination of a year-long campaign to raise awareness for girls’ issues nation-and world-wide. If you have a daughter, or want to help improve the situation for girls around the world, here’s how you can help:
Continue reading »
JC Penney pulled this shirt when parents complained.
It’s been a banner year for inappropriate girlswear. Padded “push up” bikini tops. Butt-perking shoes. Tops declaring the importance of beauty over brains. Now Halloween season is upon us, with girls’ costume options ranging from (sexy) alien to (sexy) zombie. This trend is horrifying — but it’s not really surprising.
Attractiveness has always been the prized virtue of females in our society. It’s been a constant struggle for girls to get as much credit for being smart as being pretty. But this has been complicated by the triumph of the “bad girl” archetype. As explicit sexuality (i.e., porn) has become more accessible and accepted, its aesthetic has seeped into the mainstream. In the past, there were demure “girls next door” and prim “ice queens.” Now, nearly every female celebrity works an overtly sexy look.
Little girls want to look like big girls — especially the ones they know are celebrated by the world at large. They are eager to define their identities according to what is expected and appreciated. Which is what makes the increasing flow of messages that oversexualize girls and undermine their intelligence so disturbing and so dangerous. When a mom on the TV show Dance Moms complained about her 9-year-old gyrating on stage in fishnets, the coach countered, “But she loves it!” How can a parent combat the flow of products AND a daughter’s appetite for them?
The wrong message or harmless humor?
Lately it seems like there’s a controversial new shirt for children being produced every week, particularly shirts for girls.
The boom of inappropriate shirts has bothered me but I am also pleased by the immediate response of outrage by parents everywhere. It means we’re concerned and critically thinking about the messages being sent to our children.
However, unlike the ‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels‘ shirt or the ‘I’m too pretty to do my homework so my brother does it for me‘ shirt, the new ‘Allergic to algebra’ shirt being sold by Forever 21 isn’t really bothering me. Continue reading »
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