Love this:
“according to a high-level Huffington Post source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, but with a distinctly Greek accent.”
This is why we need women in power positions (even if they don’t pay bloggers.)
Read the rest here.
On CNN.com, Courtney Martin and Katie Orenstein write about how to have more Sheryl Sandbergs.
At that time, about 15% of opinion pieces were written by women, though the imbalance was largely under the radar. The opinion page became a particularly contentious space for an outpouring of women’s voices in this overdue conversation.
Nationally syndicated columnist Susan Estrich called The Los Angeles Times’ leadership out for sexism on its opinion pages. Anne Applebaum of The Washington Post argued with Estrich and said she resented being called a “female” journalist. And Maureen Dowd of The New York Times, echoing one of the most commonly held beliefs about why women don’t have parity, wrote that women weren’t fairly represented because they are afraid of being attacked and care too much about what others think. They lack confidence…
To assume that a lack of confidence is the reason so few women are intellectual leaders is too simplistic. When a woman doesn’t go for a big corporate job like Sandberg’s or says no when television producers call, saying she doesn’t have any confidence implies it’s an individual choice made in some sort of sociocultural vacuum.
As women, in many cases, the impulse to do something out of the norm of our peer group, like write an opinion piece or ask for a promotion, has simply never occurred to us. If it does, we don’t act on it. Our girlfriends aren’t doing it. Our female colleagues aren’t doing it. Why should we?
At The OpEd Project, we cultivate new voices, training minorities and women to inhabit their place as narrators of the world.
Read the rest here.
Women, tell your stories. No one else can do it for you. Read more on that here and here.
If you read Reel Girl, you’ve probably noticed my primitive blog address: http://margotmagowan.wordpress.com
A couple years ago, right when I started blogging, a kind reader got me the name “Reel Girl.” I think he was on Web Hero. My ex brother-in-law had gotten me margotmagowan.com maybe ten years ago, he was on Go Daddy. My New Year’s resolution was to transfer the names, sort it all out, and get a professional address for my blog (www. reelgirl.com). So about two weeks ago, my husband started talking to Go Daddy and getting the process rolling for me– three great men helping me out, which is quite nice, but I wasn’t paying much attention. Being the procrastinator that I am, I hadn’t gotten around to finishing the process, but I started seeing Go Daddy in the news for being against SOPA and then for being sexist. Apparently, Go Daddy has been sexist for a long time. Then I watched the Superbowl yesterday and I saw one of the most offensive ads I’ve seen in my life. It was for Go Daddy.
In the ad, Danica Patrick and Jillian Michaels were using a naked model as a billboard (for much of the ad her head is chopped off the screen) writing things on her body like: “Get yours now” and “Get noticed.” They ask: “Who won’t notice a hot model in body paint?” It’s so depressing to see two women objectify a third, especially Danica Patrick who excelled as a Nascar driver, a sport dominated by men. She could be such an inspiring role model for girls and women.
This morning, I went to Go Daddy’s website where there was another horrible ad. Next to a photo of the Pussycat Dolls, the copy reads: “Too hot for TV.” Is this an advertisement for a web hosting company or porn? Two nerdy guys see the Dolls come out at them and wonder if they’re in heaven.Who is this ad for? Obviously, not me. This version of heaven sounds like the Taliban’s.
The Pussycat Doll ad promises that Go Daddy will improve your business with “E-commerce tools and 24/7 customer service” but obviously, Go Daddy couldn’t care less about its female customers. Clearly, to Go Daddy, women are not business owners or bloggers. They’re just objects.
So then I called Go Daddy. I told them I no longer wanted them to host Reel Girl. I told them that their Superbowl ad was offensive and horrible and it treated women not like customers, but like dehumanized them. The woman I spoke with was polite and helpful and said I would get my money back.
I hope all women bloggers and business owners stop using Go Daddy. I hope men do as well. I hope Danica Patrick gets a new job.
Just went to the Go Daddy site to put in the links to this post and the Pussycat Doll ad is no longer on the front page. Could they be listening?
I’m compiling your suggestions in one post. This is a list of what I have NOT seen or read. I will add to it as you do and remove when I officially rate. If you don’t see your suggestions included here, they are elsewhere on Reel Girl already reviewed. To check those, in “categories” click: Reel Girl recommends, Most girlpower, or GGG. Keep the suggestions coming!
Books
Imogene’s Last Stand
Once Upon A Heroine: 450 Books for Girls to Love
Lets Hear it for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14
Sadie and the Snowman
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
Words In The Dust
Millie Gets the Mail
Gwinna
DragonSong and DragonSinger by Anne McCaffrey
Dragon Slippers by Jessica George
Dealing With Dragons
The Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordan: The Red Pyramid, The Throne of Fire, and Serpent’s Shadow
The Melendy Family: The Saturdays, The 4 Story Mistake, Then There Were Five, and Spiderweb for Two
Don’t Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North American and England
The Maid of the North: Feminist Folk Tales from Around the World
Sophia and the Heartmender
TV
Adventure Time
My Life As a Teenage Robot
Atomic Betty
Avatar: Legend of Korra
Wordgirl
The Mighty B
Movies
Matilda
Nim’s Island
Fly Away Home
The Secret Garden
Anne of Green Gables
Tinker Bell
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Nancy Drew
National Velvet
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
Samantha: An American Girl Holiday
The Fox and the Child
Where the Lilies Bloom
Hoodwinked
Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
Labyrinth
Princess Mononoke
Spy Kids
Howl’s Moving Castle
Anne of Green Gables
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.
SPARK has just initiated the Toy Aisle Action Project.
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.
In my post about “Tom and Jerry,” I wrote about the exclusion and stereotyping of female characters. I didn’t write about the extreme violence in the cartoon. If I blogged about other animated male duos who relentlessly, brutally attack each other– Sylvester and Tweetie or Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd– I’d also complain not about the violence, but that the girls have gone missing as well. In fact, on my blog that rates kids’ media on how appropriate it is, I’ve hardly written about violence at all. Why?
I’m no fan of tons of blood and gore, but I also believe that violence is a crucial part of fantasy play. I don’t take the violence in fairy tales, myths, or stories literally. That is, I think of the violence in narratives mostly as a metaphor. For example, you could look at the story of David and Goliath as primarily a violent one (along with many stories in the Bible.) David kills Goliath. Or you can look at as story about the little guy going after the big one and winning: Erin Brockovitch taking on a corrupt power company. We all look at the story that way, right? So much so that the characters have become part of our language when we describe contemporary battles.
What happens when that language leave girls out?
Everyone slays dragons. In myths, in our dreams, in movies, we see it happen visually and literally on huge scales. In our own lives, we do it every day, in ways that are smaller and less dramatic, but can seem enormous in the moment: getting a project in on deadline, winning a debate, or organizing a messy closet.
I also think the violence in narratives provide useful metaphors and imagery for kids to experience emotions in a healthy way. Little kids live dramatic lives. They don’t get to go to a movie and they feel like their whole world is caving in. Narratives are a safe way to practice experiencing intense emotions: they actually see a world cave in.
Just in case you’re missing my point: I’m not advocating for violence where the males are always the heroes and the females are the victims. Violence shown as men hurting women in kids’ media, the way it is in the adult world of “entertainment,” is not my goal. I’d like to see female heroes acting bravely. If we had more female heroes, it wouldn’t be weird to show female victims as well.
If my opinions on violence sound too loopy for you, here’s what Peggy Orenstein wrote about it in Cinderella Ate My Daughter:
“Violent play is not by definition bad or harmful for kids. Any child shrink worth her sand table will tell you it can help them learn about impulse control, work out the difference between fantasy and reality, and cope with fear….Children of both sexes crave larger than life heroes. They need fantasy. They also, it seems, need a certain amount of violent play…something that allows them to triumph in their own way over this thing we call death, to work out their day-to-day frustrations; to feel large, powerful, and safe.”
Click here to see Reel Girl’s Gallery of Girls Gone Missing From Kids Movies in 2011.
I wasn’t sure what the point was. I’m 42 years old. I didn’t get Facebook. Why would I want people to know what I’m doing all the time? It seemed like an invasion of privacy. I used to get paid for writing. Now everyone is an opinion writer and most people do it for free. I resented that.
I started blogging when someone asked me for help starting a blog. She asked me for advice because I’m an opinion writer, but I knew nothing about blogging. So I started a blog to learn how to do it to see if I could give her some tips. Immediately, I found blogging gratifying. You feel like you have something to say, you say it, and then you put it out to the world. It’s easy, its free, and anyone can do it. No pitching editors. The gatekeepers are gone. That’s pretty cool in some ways. It solves the issue that is frustrating to so many writers as far as distribution. You need to communicate to someone. Even if no one reads what you wrote, putting it out there is key.
Of course, that has a negative side. Blogging can be messy, sloppy, spontaneous. I used to have editors. And the commenters, don’t get me started. Anonymity breeds thoughtlessness. Especially, it seems, when unnamed commenters respond to women who blog.
But everyone is writing now, and that’s good. Instead of making a phone call, people send emails or texts. And again, the negative side is people may be communicating less directly, hiding behind technology. But it is kind of cool that everyone is writing– on Facebook, Twitter etc. Also, I find Twitter and FB develop some writing skills. You have to be so economical with your words. That’s a useful practice for any writer.
Then there’s the whole ChapStick experience. ChapStick took down its sexist ad because of the power of social media. If not for social media, that ad would be everywhere right now. Social media got JCPenney to stop selling in sexist T shirt. FB and Twitter facilitate political and social movements from the revolution in Egypt to Occupy. Bank of America and Wells Fargo got rid of their new, ridiculous fees in part because customers used social media to express mass distaste. As with Netflix. Consumers have more power so big business has less.
Now I like Facebook. I love keeping in touch with my friends and relatives, seeing photos and getting updates. It’s also great to use FB to connect with people who care about the same issues that I do.
I still need to make some money though.
What do you think? Has social media improved your life? Do you feel more connected or more isolated? Does it make the world a better place?
Hillary Clinton makes the cover of Time
Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s Miss Representation— a documentary about how mainstream media contributes to the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America– aired on OWN last week. TV viewers learned the following stats, listed below. Makes you think twice about taking your kid to a movie.
Only 16% of protagonists in film are female. Only 7% of film directors and 10% of writers are female.
Between 1937 and 2005 there were only 13 female protagonists in animated movies. The female characters in G rated movies are just as likely to wear revealing clothing as in R rated movies.
Women and girls are the subject of less than 20% of news stories. “When a group is not featured in the media… it is called symbolic annhilation.” Martha Lauzen, Center for the Study of Women in TV and Film
“All of Hollywood is run on one assumption: That women will watch stories about men, but men won’t watch stories about women. It is a horrible indictment of our society of we assume that one half of our population is just not interested in the other half.”
– Geena Davis
Here’s a a link to Reel Girl’s gallery of girls gone missing from 2011 kids’ films.
More stats and facts here.
Last week, New York Times reporter and Motherlode blogger Lisa Belkin posted about Duke University’s sexist frat party invites which asked women to show up dressed slutty. Just as troubling as the actual invite, Belkin writes, was that women did, in fact, show up dressed slutty. Belkin writes that a generation ago, women were leading Take Back the Night Marches at college campuses. She wants to know: What’s changed?
Amanda Marcotte, blogger for Slate’s XX Factor, responds to Belkin that dressing slutty can be fun. Marcotte is annoyed that Belkin, like so many before her, conflates clothing choices with real social inequalities. Marcotte says a woman can be smart and dress in a skimpy skirt.
Belkin responds that she doesn’t see the men dressing skimpy.
Marcotte replies that her goal here is to dismantle gender norms; if men didn’t fear being emasculated by others, they probably, too, would enjoy wearing skimpy outfits and being lusted after by their peers.
But who gets to be sexy? And why?
The messed up gender disparity here is that men, for the most part, get to be sexy for what they do. While women, for the most part, only for how they appear. One major thing that sucks about this difference is that the “training ground” to support it starts so early- back when we’re little kids. My blog, Reel Girl, is all about the gender difference imposed so young on boys and girls through kids’ TV, movies, books, and toys. In kidworld, the boys get to do stuff. The girls expose their belly buttons and bat their eyelashes and wear different outfits.
In high school, the established pecking order is further enforced- the athletes or the funny guys are the hot ones. A funny girl or athletic girl might be considered hot, but she’s not sexy because of her skills or talents, but in spite of them. And then, of course, next on the social agenda are college frat parties, and then comes the “real world.”
Women, by the way, are not considered sexy based on how they appear because men are visual. Or any other idiotic social Darwinist theory/ explanation about how gender inequity is just “natural.” The reason for the gender difference about who gets to be sexy is this: Men are the guys in charge. For women to have sexual power and political, social, or economic power is threatening to men as a group.
I believe the major reason women are held back is because dangling the carrot- if you achieve, you will be sexy- is a huge motivator, because being sexy is fun. Men have a direct route while women are met with various with dead ends.
The solution to this enforced gender duality is not, alas, to be smart and wear a short skirt all at the same time. It’s to change these stats on American women, who make up 52% of our citizens and 46.5% of our labor force.
Women hold only 15.2% of seats on the boards of Fortune 500 companies.
Women are just 19% of partners in law firms.
Women represent 17% of the United States Congress.
Throughout our history only four women have held the office of Supreme Court Justice.
There are currently only six female governors.
Women make up 14% of all guest appearances on the influential Sunday television talk shows; among repeat guests, only 7% are women.
Only 15% of the authors on the The New York Times best seller list for nonfiction are women.
Only about 20% of op-eds in America’s newspapers are by women.
Women make up 8% of all writers of major motion pictures.
Women are 17% of all executive producers.
Women are 2% of all cinematographers.
See my first post on Belkin’s NYT story where I wrote that not so much has changed in the past twenty or thirty years for women on college campuses or elsewhere.
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