Guess Who - Children and Gender Construction

What a great clip for kids about being whatever you want!

Consumerism

Today we took Jane for a haircut.  We have been going to this kid’s salon for about four years now.  I like it a lot because the stylists are used to kids and are really patient with them.  This particular salon also offers birthday parties where they give the kids ‘up-dos’ (complete with glitter hairspray) and manicures.  (YIKES!)  We ran out the door just as they were rolling out a red carpet (literally) for what, I assume, was some sort of fashion show.  What are we training these kids (insert girls here if you want) into???  This useless consumerism is just a little much for me.  I find it bothersome that as a culture we actually encourage the preening and prancing that comes with this sort of ordeal.  What life lessons are we gaining from this experience – preparing for a role on the ‘Real Housewives’ series?

To me, this seems like an outright push towards consumerism.  I admit that consumerism is something we have struggled with.  Jane is a big fan of Spongebob, but we have recently gone on an all-PBS diet due to too many ads for the ‘Touch and Brush’, ‘Aqua Globes’ and other brilliant products.  It seems that there is no limit to what a 6-year-old can want with just a small amount of prodding from an ad.  Avoiding channels with ads have certainly decreased the amount of items she asks for, but the influence of consumerism is still there even if you take away the commercials. 

How do you get away from the attitude that we always want more, want better, want newer?  The ‘Walmart culture’ that asks why you would fix something when you can buy a new one for the same price.  Let me know if you figure this one out.

A Work of Artifice - Marge Piercy

The bonsai tree

in the attractive pot

could have grown eighty feet tall

on the side of a mountain

till split by lightning.

But a gardener

carefully pruned it.

It is nine inches high.

Every day as he

whittles back the branches

the gardener croons,

it is your nature

to be small and cozy,

domestic and weak;

how lucky, little tree,

to have a pot to grow in.

With living creatures

one must begin very early

to dwarf their growth:

the bound feet,

the crippled brain,

the hair in curlers,

the hands you

love to touch.

Body Image

Ugh.  This is one that probably everyone deals with. 

Body image is something I have always struggled with.  Having a child (especially a daughter) is difficult in this respect, because I am trying my best not to pass these problems on to her.

I realized a few years ago that the way I feel about my body now, as a size 14, is probably the same or even better than the way that I felt about it when I was a size 6.  Why is that?  If I was smaller before then, according to our cultural standards, I should have been happier, right?  I realized what many of you probably have.  My body image is not actually tied in any way to my body.  I am told that no matter what - I must feel dissatisfied with who I am – and so I am.

In reality, although I am ‘overweight’, I am probably in better physical shape than I have been most of my life.  I try to eat more ‘whole foods’ and less fast food, many health problems have become managed and my asthma is to the point where I can actually walk a several flights of stairs without being winded.  Despite knowing this, weight is still something that affects so many decisions that I make.  Where I sit, what I say, who I talk to, how I act.  Why do we let this permeate so much of our existence?

Despite making a conscious effort, I know that I am not always good about the way I speak around my daughter.  We try to never talk about people dieting or losing weight and instead talk about making healthy choices in our food and activities.  But I know she will pick this crap up.  We are so saturated in body image that even if you avoid traditional mediums you can never fully avoid the reach of advertising and peers.

An amazing article I read about this is, “The Body Politic”, by Abra Fortune Chernik.  In it she talks about a health store clerk telling her she was the healthiest person of the week because of her low BMI, all the while she was close to dying because of anorexia.

Some statistics about weight and eating disorders: (Statistics from the chapter entitled,“Hunger”,from The Beauty Myth, by Naomi Wolf)

-          Half the women on college campuses suffer at some point from an eating disorder.

-          Babies have shown stunted growth by mothers underfeeding them

o   In the U.S., 99% of boys are breastfed, but only 66% of girls and girls were given 50% less time to feed.

-          Studies show that women may live longer and be generally healthier if they weighed 10-15% more than life insurance figures suggest and they refrain from dieting

-          When poor health is correlated to fatness in women, it is due to chronic dieting and the stress of self-hatred, not their weight.

-          A study by J. Polivy and C.P. Herman found that prolonged and periodic caloric restriction resulted in a distinctive personality whose traits are – “passivity, anxiety and emotionality’

Instead of women focusing on doing what is healthiest in both food and exercise, we have decided to focus on the unhealthy obsession of fitting into a certain size standard.  How do we keep from passing this on to the next generation?

The Princess and the Frog

A while ago Jane and I went to the dollar theater with some friends to see Disney’s, The Princess and the Frog. A good time was had by all, but after thinking for a short bit about the film this is my initial assessment.

Pros:

-It’s about time we have a black Disney heroine.

-I am happy to say that both parents are alive at the beginning of the film. Partway through the dad does die, but it is at least a change from the typical dead mother.

-Tiana is a strong female role model with a good work ethic and sense of adventure, she has a dream of owning her own restaurant and saves every penny she makes as a waitress to make it happen.

-The New Orleans culture is fun and a good twist on the usual Disney music

Cons:

-Since it was first announced I have questioned the decision to adapt an existing fairytale, plugging in an African American heroine.   Why not make your first black princess be from a real African story?

-Recycled material. Disney movies are all starting to seem eerily similar. The villain was basically Jafar, the sidekick was the guy from Enchanted, the alligator was Little John. They even did the Aladdin twirl and smile and the “do you trust me?”.

-The main guy was useless. Ladies - don’t expect that you can take a lazy, good for nothing, womanizing “prince” and all of a sudden change him into a hardworking, caring, good citizen simply by loving him, it won’t work.

- It seems like they either glossed over the race issues too much or not enough. To my memory all the rich or powerful people were white, “Big Daddy” the real estate agents etc. the African Americans were the laborers, food service and voodoo practitioners.  Either make every class of people mixed or address the fact that they aren’t – it seems to leave kids with the assumption that this is just the way things work.

- This story starts off strong - wish on a star but follow it up with hard work too if you want your dreams to come true.  Excellent advice.  Tiana works really hard taking extra shifts as a waitress, saving every cent and sacrificing time with friends in order to make her dreams of owning a restaurant to come true. Half way through the movie the ‘voodoo woman’ tells her that she is missing the point and achieving your dreams is not about working harder, Tiana WANTS a restaurant, but what she really NEEDS is love. (Mind you, the love she has for her deceased father or her mother won’t suffice – only ‘true love’).

In the end she stays a frog and seems content to live happily with her “frog prince”.  Then, in a gigantic twist (  ;)  ) when they get married (as frogs) and she turns back into a person (did you catch that – only marriage can turn you back into a person), he turns back into a prince and he finally can buy her dream restaurant for her. See girls, you don’t need to work hard for your dreams, just find a guy to bankroll them for you.

-Here is my final complaint – why are such a high percentage of movies for children focused around marriage and falling in love? This is something that should not even be on a five-year-old’s radar screen and yet in a huge amount of movies that is the main thing we are selling.

My advice - watch Mulan. Still the best Disney princess movie yet.

Love Your Tree

I love this clip from America the Beautiful.  It is a great message for all women.

Homage to My Hips – Lucille Clifton

these hips are big hips

they need space to

move around in.

they don’t fit into little

pretty places.  these hips

are free hips.

they don’t like to be held back.

these hips have never been enslaved,

they go where they want to go

they do what they want to do.

these hips are mighty hips.

these hips are magic hips.

i have known them

to put a spell on a man and

spin him like a top!

I love the way this writer talks about how her hips cannot be held back, how they need space and can't fit into little pretty places.  This is a woman who is comfortable with making room for herself in the world.

Dealing with Dragons

I was reading the current issue of Ms. magazine last month and was really excited about the cover article on ‘Click Lit’.  It surveyed several books that are feminist in nature, most were for tweens and teens.  This is something I constantly am looking for, there is so much great literature out there but often it is problematic from a feminist perspective.  Most of the books in the article are a little old for my daughter, but I did run out and buy, "Dealing with Dragons" , by Patricia C. Wrede.  It is excellent!  The story is so compelling and the main character has really great qualities.  One of my favorite parts explained the roles of Kings and Queens in the dragon’s world and how they were different roles that either gender could fill rather than tied to a specific gender. 

The only thing I found difficult is how the book highlighted the fact that this princess was different.  I appreciate what the author is trying to do and that most people are so steeped in the princess culture that this is a necessary occurrence.  However, I would like to see more literature that presents people (including princesses) behaving any way they would like.

I believe this is a predicament that ties closely to Dr. Sandra Lipsitz Bem’s essay, “Feminist Child-Rearing” (sorry, I couldn’t find a link for it).  In this writing she explains the way that she raised her children gender-neutrally so literature was difficult to find.  As a result of that she didn’t give them traditional feminist children’s literature like, “William’s Doll’, because it would highlight the fact for her children that some people thought it inappropriate for William to have a doll.

While I think it is good for Jane to understand that those views are out there and learn how to address them, I also don’t want her to feel that she and any one like her has to fight a constant battle to be who they are.

Grey Hair

I recently saw one sister pull a grey hair out of another sister’s head and I started thinking about it.  What is it we are so afraid of?  That someone will realize that we aren’t 16?  (I think the cat is already out of the bag!).  Personally, I like the way my hair looks with a few silver hairs sprinkled in and am perfectly fine with getting more.  (I also acknowledge that, having had my daughter when I was young, I am glad for a reason to not be confused with the babysitter as often).  I also have my 30^th birthday peeking around the corner in a month or so and am ready and waiting. 

It just seems to me that we have gotten so we associate beauty and youth so closely to each other that we can’t see one without the other.  If someone looks older we necessarily see them as less beautiful.  I’m not really sure how we change this.  Until we do, my daughter will keep helping me get grey hair!

'Jane'

I’m surmising that I might do a fair amount of talking about my daughter here and to protect her privacy I’ve given her a pseudonym.  So, after much thought, the winner is Jane.  After one of my favorite people, Jane Addams, and that was almost her middle name.