At the World Economic Conference in Davos, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg spoke on a panel about women in leadership. Did she speak about business strategies, quotas versus merit, politics, reproductive rights? No. Sandberg spoke about female ambition and how girls’ aspirations are blunted at an early age. She spoke about the ‘ambition gap.” She said that “we don’t raise our daughters to be as ambitious as our sons…Little girls are called ‘bossy’… Go find someone and watch them call a little boy bossy.” Sandberg talks about T shirts sold to kids that either read: “I’m smart like my dad” or “I’m pretty like my mom.”
The focus of Sandberg’s speech was the same topics I blog about every day on Reel Girl. Topics that many readers of my blog on SFGate repeatedly call trivial.
Sandberg says that a major obstacle to women’s achievement is that success and likeability are positively correlated for men but negatively correlated for women. I honestly believe this duality/ stereotype is fueled in the fantasy world where kids so rarely see heroines who are powerful and beautiful; smart and kind.
Sandberg says, “From early childhood through marriage we reward men for being leaders, taking risks, being competitive. We teach women as young as four to lay back, be communal. We need our boys to be as ambitious to contribute in the home and we need our girls to be as ambitious to achieve in the workforce.”
Before I go into the issues I have with this story, Beautiful Warrior should be in your collection. It’s the story of Wu Mei who defies expectations to become a fierce Kung Fu warrior. Wu Mei mentors Mingyi who doesn’t want to marry a brute and, with Wu Mei’s training, ends up beating him in a fight and liberating herself.
What is great and rare about this book: It features two female friends, one who mentors the other. Wu Mei doesn’t rescue Mingyi, she teaches her how to save herself.
While this teacher/ student relationship is extremely common in boy fantasy world, it is highly unusual for girl characters to experience it. Strong females often exist in isolation. If there are two strong women, one is usually evil. (And we all know the patterns of dead mother, wicked mothers, and the dreaded step-mother that dominate fairytales and keep positive female relationships at bay.)
This female friendship is so rare, please tell me if you see it in books, movies, or TV shows. I think its super threatening to the male power structure. I’d like to make a media list of examples. Of course this list will include a female protagonist whose best friend is a magical creature (such as BFF males Remy and Ratatouille from “Ratatouille,” Andy and Woody or Buzz and Woody from “Toy Story,” Hiccup and the dragon from “How to Train Your Dragon.” I could go on and on, the male buddy relationship is the most common plot/ theme of kids movies today.)
I also love Beautiful Warrior because, as I’ve written before about violence in kidlit, it’s metaphorical. Violence is as normal for kids to see in a story as it is to occur a dream and just as symbolic. In Beautiful Warrior, the violence is so clearly teaching larger life lessons, so much so that it seems even weird to call it violence.
So why does Beautiful Warrior get an S? I’m reviewing this book in part, because, though it’s clearly about strong females, it also features three stereotype themes/ plot devices that show up so often in feminist kidlit.
(1) Rebellion against marriage: Yes, its better than marrying the one she’s supposed to, but why does marriage have to be such a central issue in the story at all? Personally, I’m sick of it. When I come across this plot device, I sigh.
(2) References to sexism: Both Wu Mei and Mingyi become warriors, even though the story says its surprising for girls to act this way. While I understand, obviously, that sexism exists in the real world, and this kind of story can teach a great lesson in how to deal with it, why do kids have to hear so often about the low or different expectations for girls? Why do female heroes so often have to perform in this context? Why not jut show them doing heroic acts?
(3) The heroine ends up alone: This is another classic outcome in feminist kids stories such as the Paper Bag Princess. The men are obnoxious brutes and the women don’t marry them. But why do the females so often have to make this choice? Males rarely do. I think its pretty scary for girls to get drilled into them that being strong is oppositional to being in love. It’s the same artificial choice that they can’t me be smart and beautiful, while male heroes usually are, in fact their intelligence and strength makes them attractive. (One reason I was attracted to this story is because it’s title, Beautiful Warrior, defies that duality. At the same time can you imagine a story called Handsome Warrior? It sounds like gay porn.) This pairing of attributes actually seems to be the lesson learned from much of kidlit. It’s so stereotypical and annoying to deny females that wholeness. It’s one reason I absolutely love Brave Margaret (and that story could be the basis for Pixar’s Brave) Margaret gets to be smart, strong, and beautiful and ends up with a cool, hot guy who admires and adores her. Can’t girls have it all, too? We need more stories like that! Tell me if you know of any.
Are you looking for great books for young kids? I absolutely love these three. They all get Reel Girl’s top ***GGG*** Triple Girlpower rating. The prose is compelling and the illustrations are glorious. If you don’t own them, please get them for your sons and daughters. Seriously, boys too. They will be thrilled!
If you see an animated film today, it’s likely to include a token strong female character or two who reviewers will call “feisty.” In “How to Train Your Dragon,” Astrid; in “Toy Story,” Jessie; in “Ratatouille,” Colette. She’s supposed to make us feel like the movie is contemporary and feminist, unlike those sexist films of yesteryear.
The problem is that because Pixar or Disney has so magnanimously thrown in this “feisty” female (who may even have some commentary about sexism or male domination) we’re no longer supposed to care that almost all of the other characters in the film are male, including the star who the movie is often titled for and usually his best buddy as well. The crowd scenes in the film are also made up of mostly males.
“Feisty” isn’t a word that describes someone with real power, but someone who plays at being powerful. Would you ever call Superman “feisty?” How would he feel if you did?
The Smurfette Principle has evolved into the Minority Feisty. Now instead of a “token” female in a children’s movie, we may see a few females sprinkled around, a “minority” of them. Parents, the next time you watch a children’s movie, try not to let the Minority Feisty population distract you from the limitations female characters are almost always forced into. Ask yourself: Is the female the protagonist in this film? Does the narrative revolve around her quest? Or is she there to (play a crucial role in) helping the male star achieve his goal/ dream?
Imagine if the gender ratio presented in movies for kids was reflected in the real world. Girls would be a minority. Is that a world that you want your kids to live in? Why does the imaginary world have to be sexist at all?
Would you like some more evidence on child brain plasticity and how it’s affected by the child’s experiences?
Web MD is reporting on a new study:
The study followed 92 children from preschool into their grade-school years.
For the study, Luby and her team videotaped each parent and child while they completed an experiment called “the waiting task.”
Children, who were between the ages of 4 and 7, were presented a brightly wrapped gift, but were told they had to wait eight minutes before they could open it.
In the meantime, moms were asked to fill out a stack of forms.
“It really simulates a real-life parenting situation that people often face. You’re cooking dinner and your child is throwing a tantrum, and how do you juggle that?” Luby says.
“The maternal support had to do with how much positive parenting the parent showed: how much they reassured the child, how much they helped regulate the child when the child made bids that they needed that gift,” she says.
Later, trained assistants scored the moms on how well they helped their children through the stress of the task.
Researchers continued to follow the children, and when they were between the ages of 7 and 13, their brains were scanned using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Researchers were particularly interested in the size of a comma-shaped brain region called the hippocampus, which plays a role in memory and how we handle stress. Hippocampus size has been linked to factors such as stressful life events and depression severity.
Support Bolsters Brain’s Learning Memory Centers
Among the 51 kids in the study who had no symptoms of depression as preschoolers, those who got more support from their moms as they completed the waiting task had larger hippocampi seen in later scans.
OK, people, we are making it into mainstream America. How exciting is this?
The Wall Street Journal is reporting on a new study that only 2 – 3% of preschoolers spend their day playing. The problem with this?
Kids learn through play. When kids play, they’re not wasting their time. They’re learning everything from motor skills to social skills and numbers. Think of all the counting that comes with hopscotch, or with making two even teams. Those activities are a lot more fun than flash cards, but they teach the same thing: math. Kids playing outside also learn things like distance, motion, the changing of the seasons—things we take for granted because we got time outside.
This study is about vigorous play, so not the kind of LEGO play I’ve been blogging about, but the principle is the same: play affects brain development. I also love the emphasis put on active play because I think this is so important for girls, especially to learn healthy risk-taking. Read more about it here.
Parents, please: enough with the “we’re just giving kids what they want.” Children learn through play. Segregated toys are inhibiting kids’ brain development by severely limiting their experiences. Children’s brains have more plasticity than at any other time in life, that’s why they can learn languages rapidly. Once those synapses make connections or shut down, its harder for brains to grow later. Read more about all that here. And here. And here.
What can you do? Resist marketing. It’s messing with your kid’s brain. You are the parent. You’re the shopper, the one with the wallet. Buy wisely.
How?
Get your daughters out of the monochromatic world of pink. Or any monochromatic world. Your kid may resist. This may be a challenge for her because kids love routine. But, still, challenge your kid with toy choice the way you would with any other learning activity. Help them to branch out and encourage them to try new things. Get excited about the toy. Play with it with them. Most of all, they want your attention.
Schedule play dates with kids of the opposite sex. If your kid’s preschool tends to segregate by gender, or allows them to self-segregate, talk to teachers and the head of school about mixing it up. Kids learn when they move out of their comfort zone.
Read your sons books where the main characters are girls.
Show your sons and daughters animation where the main characters are female (Miyazaki is a great choice.) After we all see “Tintin” or “Lord of the Rings” or “Arthur Christmas” on the screen, the posters all over town, and then the video games that follow and the toys derived from the movies, all practically without females, it seems normal that there are so few girls represented everywhere except for the pink ghetto. The annihilation of girls passes us by unnoticed. Girls are half of the kid population, yet children’s movies today normalize an imaginary reality where females hardly exist at all. Then we all literally buy into it. How do you think that makes girls feel? What does it make kids think? What are kids learning about which gender is more important?
Let stores and toy companies know how you feel about their relentless drive to segment toys by gender in order to sell products. Write to the companies directly. Blog about them. Tell your friends about it on Facebook.
We are SPARKing this movement armed with Post-It notes and cameras in the blue and pink aisles. (Seriously, some stores have actually have colored their toy aisles pink and blue! When will it end?) With your Post-Its, make a note using slogans like “Where My Girls At?” in the blue aisle, “Your Girl Needs Joe, too” on a GI Joe, “This Is An Option For Everybody” and “What About Dads?” on the baby dolls.
SPARK advises to use statistics:
women make up only 13% of architects (I wonder why LEGO?), 14% of active US military (Where is G.I. Jane?), and 4% of executive chefs — so, why are all the kitchen gadgets pink when so many chefs are men?
I’ve thought about these kinds of stats a lot, and it comes down to this: if it’s low status, its assigned as “feminine” (cooking), and women dominate; but if its high status, all of a sudden it becomes “masculine” (being a chef) and men dominate. This bait and switch applies to the whole stereotype that boys like action while girls are more literary, good with words, and artsy. Unless we’re talking about the Pulitzer Prize or the latest exhibition at the MOMA, in which case, all of a sudden men rule the roost.
A department store in London, Hamley’s, decided to break out of the current trend and organize its toys by toy type instead of by the gender of the kid: arts and crafts, building toys, outdoor toys etc. Congrats to Hamley’s. Let’s hope the land of the free and the brave and its Targets and Walmarts learn something. In the meantime, parents need to shop carefully.
So in response to my last post, one commenter wrote that LEGO never said tossing the girlfigs out was OK, LEGO simply “observed” the behavior. I love this comment in response, so I’m sending it to you all:
LEGO is indeed saying that it is okay. Not just okay, but super, super okay. So okay, that LEGO would toss out the girl figs themselves so that the boys wouldn’t have to be inconvenienced to do so.
We found that little girls really enjoyed having male and female minifigures in their sets, while the little boys would take the girl minifigure out before playing.
Why does LEGO think it’s OK for boys to throw the girl figs aside? And that girls are just thrilled to play with male figs? And that’s “natural?” Seriously. What kind of “researcher” observes that behavior and decides to create a toy that segregates genders even more dramatically? Don’t they get that that’s the problem? Or maybe they just don’t care about behavior that should be noted as curious because it fits easily into the whole idea and practice of segmenting the market in order to move products.
The conclusions LEGO came to, stereotyping girls even more extremely, sounds strikingly similar to Disney male exces claiming that girls will see movies about boys but boys won’t see movies about girls. Could that preference have anything to do with the ridiculous limited roles girls have in movies? Look at just the latest one, “The Lorax,” where the female character is the “romantic interest” of the main character, a male. This is an animated movie for kids. Romance? How do you think girls feel watching themselves, again and again, in smaller roles than boys? Less represented than males? Do you think, possibly, they might learn to put a lot of attention into what they look like, the way girls in movies and LEGO sets do, and what boys think about them, not because that’s “natural” but because that’s how they get any part at all in the show?
