A Feminist Countdown to 2011 ~ Day Fourteen

See the full calendar here.

A Feminist Countdown to 2011 ~ Day Three

See the full calendar here.

Parallel parking for girls? No problem.

My friend Jay sent me this great video, suggesting that perhaps it's a demonstration of the fifth wave of feminism. All I know is that this girl's got some skillz...



Via HuffPo.

The Princess and the Frog

So I'm curious about the newest edition to Disney's princess franchise, The Princess and the Frog. It opened last weekend, and it's one in a long list of films I want to see this holiday season (others include Blind Side, It's Complicated, Invictus, Nine, and Avatar). On a positive note, it features a black princess--about time, Disney!--although there's apparently been some controversy about the fact that her prince isn't also black. Personally, I'm not sure why that's a problem. An African American princess and a Latin American-esque prince? The more diversity the better, I say.

However...while I'm in full support of an interracial Disney prince/princess coupling (well, as much as I'm in support of any prince/princess coupling...so that's not saying much), the first time I saw the preview for The Princess and the Frog a few months ago, I was a bit edgy about the way some of the other characters were represented. I realize the film's set in New Orleans and so the characters need Cajun accents. I also realize that there are typically evil witches and wizards and sorcerers pitted against the heroes of Disney pictures, hence the witch doctor. But does the combination of these things--plus the grungy firefly with the missing teeth--in the first Disney film to feature a black princess make anyone else twitch a little with stereotype-overload?



I really want to like this film, but I'm a little worried... So, has anyone seen it yet? What did you think?

On Not Saying the Pledge of Allegiance

When I was in elementary school, I decided to stop saying the Pledge of Allegiance in school because my family was atheist and I thought it absurd that a pledge to a supposedly secular nation included the phrase "one nation, under God" (that said, I should've stopped using American money, too, but that seemed a bit complicated). This was not my parents' choice, but my own, and I went many years during pledge time either just standing up and not saying anything or remaining seated at my desk. After a brief explanation, teachers were very accommodating and no one ever tried to force me to say the pledge--and I wasn't alone, as a friend of mine (whose family was Dutch and also atheist) and a good acquaintance (who was a Jehovah's Witness) also didn't say the pledge. The (non-)response of my teachers and classmates is just a testament to how liberal my primary schools and teachers were (and, for the record, I went to public school). I felt I was taking a stand and, as an 8 or 9-year-old, that was very important to me. But, considering my environment, I wasn't taking a huge risk.

But this kid, who refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance in spite of his (then substitute) teacher's protests and classmates' teasing and in support of same-sex marriage rights, is my hero:



Also, check out this great rebuttal to the boy's detractors from a reporter at the Arkansas News.

With all the other crap going down right now vis-a-vis same-sex marriage and health care and the war(s) in the Middle East, at least there are a few good things left. Maybe the younger generation really will be different?

(Via Huff Po.)

Pitcairn Island

On Fresh Air yesterday, British journalist Kathy Marks spoke with Terri Gross about her new book, Lost Paradise, a nonfiction account of the child abuse sex scandal on Pitcairn Island. Pitcairn Island is a British outpost in a remote part of the South Pacific. It is and has always been extremely isolated, with no airstrip and reachable only by a grueling 6 or 7 day sea journey from Australia. Only about 50 people live there, most of them descended from British sailor Fletcher Christian and the crew of the Bounty, which fled there in 1789.

In 2000, while British detectives were on the island investigating rape allegations made by a 15 year old girl, they discovered evidence that suggested most of the adult male population, 10 men, had been sexually abusing the island's girls for decades. And most of the victims, who had chosen to leave the island over the years, had been initially raped as young as 7 or 8.

How does something like this not just happen but become an embedded community norm practiced without impunity for years? Marks' explanation is a troubling one: she says that Pitcairners had lived an isolated existence in a male dominated society where men were doing exactly what they pleased." Raping children, eh? Was there just not a good game on?

Marks says the women on the island (who had overwhelmingly been victims themselves) felt unable to blow the whistle on the abuse or even to admit such things were occurring. She says, "If you are the mother of a girl who's being abused, what can you do? There's no one to complain to. The people in authority are doing it as well. Your own husband and brother are doing it." Even 10 years later, there is still a very strong sense of denial in the community, which Marks attributes to patriarchy: "It's ingrained in the mentality of the men in Pitcairn that this is an OK thing to do."

As unbelievable as it sounds, she has a point. A Google search of the island doesn't turn up much more than fluffy travel journals that call it a paradise and praise the islanders' virtuous, crime-free lives. If any mention of the sex scandal is made, it laments the loss of manpower that occurred when 9 of the 10 men were sentenced to prison terms in 2004 – not the physical and emotional injuries endured by the first- and second-grade girls who were sexually assaulted. One site even made a big deal about how the jail hadn't been used since 1922.

Throughout the trial most of the international community hemmed and hawed over the British investigations, fretting about ethnocentricity and British cultural imperialism. I, however, find it a bit suspect for men to cry "Culture!" when they're caught with their dicks in little kids' mouths. Or when he wants to confine his wife to the home. Or when he wants to excise her clitoris. Or when he wants to forbid her from earning money or casting a vote. No matter what the atrocity, so long as the victims are all women, a pretty effective case can be made for cultural relativism. Judging by the reactions in the media and international community to the Pitcairn scandal, there are plenty of people willing to look the other way and let Pitcairners do to "their women" as they like.

A couple announcements

Occasionally people email me with links and press releases and such that they'd like me to post on the blog and while I'm not always the most timely of email correspondents, I do like to try to help out and publicize other blogs and organizations as long as they're relevant. So, here are a couple things that have come my way in the past few weeks.

Feel free to post your own news, links, blogs, etc. in the comments!

1. The All Girl Army is recruiting new young feminists for its network of blogs:

The main part of the All Girl Army site is the individual blogs for no more than 29 girls and women between the ages of 10 and 25 who identify as feminist, and a single, collective blog which highlights entries from the individual blogs, as well as news items pertinent to women and girls and topics given for more writing and discussion.

For more information, check them out!

2. The Fresh Air Fund is looking for volunteer families to host city-area kids so they can have a summer "fresh air experience":

THE FRESH AIR FUND, an independent, not-for-profit agency, has provided free summer experiences to more than 1.7 million New York City children from low-income communities since 1877. Nearly 10,000 New York City children enjoy free Fresh Air Fund programs annually. In 2008, close to 5,000 children visited volunteer host families in suburbs and small town communities across 13 states from Virginia to Maine and Canada. 3,000 children also attended five Fresh Air camps on a 2,300-acre site in Fishkill, New York. The Fund’s year-round camping program serves an additional 2,000 young people each year.

And, don't forget, feel free to post your own links below!

Two videos to brighten your Monday

This is from a few months ago, but I just discovered it: Carrie Fisher roasts George Lucas at the AFI Life Achievement Awards. As I recently re-watched Star Wars and have always adored Princess Leia (and, quite separately, Fisher herself), who is quite a feminist character (at least in the first two movies), this seemed appropriate:



And, for your further Monday cheering, check out the March 11 episode of Amy Poehler's Smart Girls at the Party (H/T Choices Feminist Campus):

Feminist Flashback #28

Since, my feminist flashback from two weeks ago featured Barbie, it's only right that I post Sarah Haskins' latest video as this week's "flashback" (obviously, I define that term very loosely). I think this may be one of my favorite Target Women segments yet:

Feminist Blogger Friday: Interview #3 with author Liz Funk

Come one, come all to the third installment of Fourth Wave's interview series with feminist bloggers and thinkers (the first two interviews can be found here and here and the next will be up April 10th). This month, I interviewed author Liz Funk, a senior at Pace University whose first book, Supergirls Speak Out: Inside the Secret Crisis of Overachieving Girls, just hit the shelves! FWF is thrilled to have Liz join us as part of her virtual book tour (click on the link to to check out other blogs she has and will visit over the month of March). And, as part of the promotion for her new book, I'll be posting contest details tomorrow -- you could win a free copy!

I really enjoyed reading Liz's book--it's informative, engaging and incredibly interesting--and you'll find that some of my interview questions are tailored specifically to the book, which her website describes as follows:

In the tradition of bestsellers, such as Ophelia Speaks and Quarterlife Crisis, Liz Funk’s Supergirls Speak Out sheds a disturbingly bright light on a condition that is spreading quickly from Generation X to Y—and even to little girls. Funk calls this being a “Supergirl,” i.e., a girl who believes that in order to be happy, she must excel at her job or career, have the best grades, wear the coolest clothes, date the best-looking boy, and have the perfect body size.

And now, without further ado, the author of Supergirls Speak Out, Liz Funk.


1. In your book, there seems to be a tension between the term “Supergirl” as a positive qualifier—Supergirls being high-achieving and smart and pretty and wanting to go places—and the Supergirl phenomenon as a negative thing—girls and women who are overachievers, who have a constant need to be perfect at everything, often to their own detriment, and who have an overwhelming and stressful desire to be at the top of their game at all times. And I wonder if, to start off this interview, you could talk a little bit about the connection between the positive and negative aspects of being a Supergirl and how one might negotiate those tensions?

Great question. Overachieving girls themselves aren’t a “secret crisis”—it’s the consequences that accompany overachieving, and achieving for the wrong reasons, that’s the problem. I’ll be the first to say that girls should reach for the stars and go for their dreams; after all, we need go-getter girls if we want more presidential candidates and women in business and women as public intellectuals, et cetera et cetera. The key is, we want young women to aspire for success for the right reasons. If girls are achieving because they’re looking to matter or to feel valuable because they don’t feel like they matter on their own, that’s the problem!

2. Okay, so it's not about achieving, but achieving for the wrong reasons. For your book you interviewed (almost) a hundred girls and women about their experiences, but you also rely on your own experience. And here you are: you’re only 20, you’ve just published your first book, and you’re about the graduate from college; you’ve arguably accomplished more than many people your age! How do you fit yourself into the Supergirl narrative? You’ve mentioned that you’re a “recovering” Supergirl, but what does that mean to you? Do you feel that by “recovering” you’ve overcome some of the negative aspects of being a Supergirl or do you feel it’s something you struggle with on a daily basis?

I truly believe that for any young women to get over being a Supergirl, she needs to have a mental meltdown of some degree and confront why she is working so hard and going so hard on herself. Personally, I had that mental meltdown my junior year of college and was really forced to take a second look at how I was living my life and why I was trying to find myself in my work and how others perceived me. Now I try to make more time for myself and one of my new year’s resolutions was to get more hobbies and to stop being fake—so I’m definitely still a work in progress. I try to be in a constant conversation with myself about whether I’m going too hard on myself, and I work to be mindful and live in the moment and not go into everything with really high expectations. That’s the worst part of being a Supergirl, I think: everything is disappointing. Being a “recovering Supergirl,” who can be open to exploring the wonder of life, is much more fun!

3. So, what made you decide to start researching Supergirls? Was it your own experience? The experience of your friends? A combination of things? And where did you come up with the term itself?

Growing up, I was always observing the girls around me trying to look like perfect 10’s—pretty, talented, smart, charming, desirable—who made this all look easy. However, occasionally the token “perfect girl” in high school or college would have a breakdown, and it would get people talking, saying things like, "Wow, I thought she was perfect." I wanted to look into these girls’ secret lives. And although I didn’t become a full Supergirl until my later years of high school and college, I definitely spent my whole life investing my identity in superficial things, like my weight, and my relationships with guys, and my career. Also, in 2006, Girls’ Inc. released a study called "The Supergirl Dilemma" that found that overwhelming numbers of tween and teen girls felt pressure to be perfect, and Duke University had done a similar study on college women not far before that, so I really wanted to do a broad study of the lives of overachieving young women between the ages of 13 and 30 and see what their lives were like.

4. And once you decided to write about Supergirls, how did you actually take those next steps to negotiate a book contract and set out to do your research? You talk a bit in the book about doing a lot of networking, but can you be a little more specific about what that networking looked like and how you came to meet the right people at the right times?

I moved to Manhattan in September of 2006 and was really determined to meet other women writers, magazine editors, and young authors so I could learn more about how to make a writing career a reality. I was always really proactive about writing to authors who I like and asking them to have coffee or lunch with me, or reaching out to writers whose articles I read regularly in publications I liked. Gloria Feldt, the former president of Planned Parenthood, has a really good saying that has sort of been a guiding light in my career, which is that it never hurts to ask!

5. Great advice! I have a quick question about one your Supergirls, Yolanda, who, at 27, is one of the older women you interview. In reading the book, I didn’t feel that she quite fit the high-anxiety mold occupied by most of your other high school and college-aged subjects. She seemed pretty put-together and had pursuits and hobbies outside of work. Do you think there might be a generational factor for Supergirl-ism—i.e. is it something more prevalent among girls and women who grew up in the 1990s and early 2000s? If so, why do you think that might be?

Yolanda was definitely on the chill side of the Supergirl scale, but I do think that she’s a great example of how overachieving young women can confront the pressure to be extra-sensitive and please everyone, and excel in the professional world. There definitely may be a generational factor—that the younger girls in Generation Y, like my age and younger, are a bit more high-strung than our big sisters—but I also think that it might be a geographic thing. Yolanda went to high school in Austria and college in Canada, so I think that she missed the U.S. hothouse effect, in that we raise our girls to be a bit hyper-active and hyper-sensitive as they pursue their goals. You’re right, though: although Yolanda was really successful and beautiful and charming, I do think that she expressed less aggressive Supergirl traits, because she was older and was comfortable in her skin and had already done a lot of the negotiating and learning about herself and her femininity that younger Supergirls in the office struggle with. And I think she had a lot more confidence than your average Supergirl… but she was still a total wunderkind banker.

6. In your chapter on feminism, you make a comparison to Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, arguing that the desire of contemporary women to do and be everything mirrors Friedan’s 1950s housewife who supposedly had everything she could ever want but was still discontent. What other aspects of earlier waves and generations of feminism do you feel warrant a second look vis-à-vis contemporary society? How do you, personally, negotiate the past while embracing the future of feminism?

I think feminism is cyclical, and when we don’t fully resolve issues, they come back again in different forms. Personally, I’m rather worried that we haven’t resolved the “raunch culture” issue and the “faux empowerment” issue that a lot of people were talking about a few years ago, especially in 2005, when Ariel Levy’s book, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture debuted. I feel like a lot of women dismissed Levy’s argument as condescending and chose to ignore this issue—that young women see their sexuality as currency to be traded for power and validation—and I predict that this problem is only going to boomerang back and get much worse if it’s not confronted. After all, if feminists—who care the most about women!—don’t take this on and have a calm-cool-collected conversation about how women see empowerment, who will? Outside of psychotherapy and Jamba Juice, feminism is the only proven method to help women live happier, healthier lives. Naturally, I’m kidding. A little.

7. As you mention in your book, a lot of young women today resist the feminist label. Do you have any thoughts about why this might be? And did you encounter any resistance around feminism from the girls and women you interviewed?

What’s funny about Generation Y and the Supergirls is that they seem to have no problem with the idea of feminism—most young people who I’ve met are totally open to women having equal rights and equal power, and many girls are eager to talk about the ways that they feel discriminated against and in a disadvantaged position. It’s the word “feminism” that people don’t like. And I really don’t have a solution, other than to encourage the girls who don’t want to use the word “feminism” to keep living feminism. For example, my freshman year of college, one of my friends took down all of the posters that the fraternities and sororities were putting in the dorms and wrote “GREEK LIFE HURTS WOMEN” on them in a big marker and hung them back up—which is a totally radical thing to do—and she didn’t consider herself a feminist. And I think with people like that, rather than arguing with them about the semantics, it’s better to just appreciate the shared sentiment and find commonalities. I mean, it’s sad that girls don’t want to shout “Yay feminism!” from the rooftops, but I’m glad that they are invested in protecting feminism’s legacy, even if they wouldn’t explicitly say that they are.

8. And what made you personally decide to identify as a feminist? Is it something that happened organically or was it a label you took on after some thought and/or trepidation? Do you have a feminist “coming-out” story you’d like to share?

It came about really organically. I first became interested in gender equality in middle school, and in the eighth grade, I did a project on Betty Friedan for social studies class and was like, “Oh, I guess I’m a feminist.” It wasn’t a huge deal or anything, it felt very natural to me. I was twelve, and I actually thought it was kind of cool! At that point in my life, I wanted to be the American ambassador to France, and I knew that I was going to need feminism if I wanted to make that happen. Since then, I’ve changed career goals, but I’m still a feminist.

9. Obviously, over-achieving and perfectionism can become all-consuming, obsessive and difficult-to-abandon pursuits. How do you recommend girls wean themselves away from the need to be a Supergirl? What’s a good place to start?

Young women need to realize their intrinsic worth. They need to figure out why they matter outside what they look like, how others perceive them, and what they’ve accomplished. They need to have a relationship with themselves, where they like listening to their thoughts and spending time alone with themselves, where they don’t berate themselves. Naturally, that’s a huge task to take on, but it starts with giving yourself some free time, spending solitary time by yourself to think and meditate, and treating yourself! A big part of this is cutting down on our use of technology; iPods and PDAs and text messaging are really distracting, and they keep young people from being able to listen to their internal monologues and have downtime during the day. But having that relationship with yourself is how you have a sense of self-worth!

10. Excellent, I always love an excuse to treat myself! So, downtime is essential, and you say that a symptom of being a Supergirl is a constant need for occupation, the unwillingness or inability to relax and just enjoy life. So, as someone who’s “recovered” and advocates taking time off, what do you like to do for fun? What do you find helps you unwind after a busy day of classes or writing? And, last but not least, what are you going to do once you graduate in May?

I watch so much television! I love 30 Rock, How I Met Your Mother, and Arrested Development—I am nearing memorization of the latter. I also love to paint and to read novels and to play the oboe; it took me about two months of daily practicing, but I can play the musical “Spring Awakening” from start-to-finish on the oboe. I’m not sure whether that’s cool or embarrassing. Ha!

I’m not 100% sure what I’m going to do after graduation in May; I know that I’m going to have a pretty chill summer (assuming I pass all my classes; in a truly un-Supergirl move, I have a MAJOR case of senioritis right now)—I want to finish writing the novel I’ve been working on for a year and read lots of books. Then, I think I’m going to move to Los Angeles; “move somewhere warm” is very high on my priority list, and I’m trying to take my own advice from “Supergirls”—taking risks, being unafraid to make mistakes and face trials, and being open to exploring the wonder of my life!

Thanks, Liz, for the great interview. I'm sure we all wish you luck in your future endeavors!



P.S. to FWF readers: Don't forget to check back tomorrow for details on how to win a free copy of Liz's new book!

White House Council on Women and Girls

I big hip, hip, hooray for President Obama, who signed an executive order today for a White House Council on Women and Girls:



H/T Jezebel and Salon.

Daughters.com

If you’ve ever challenged by the journey of raising or working with a girl (if? I should say when!), then you’ve wished you could get some ideas on what to do—and get them quickly. I think you’ve finally got a place to do that.

It’s a new website, www.daughters.com/, created by a group of folks who know girls just about as well as anyone, New Moon Girl Media.


Daughters.com features advice from experts and parents, an interactive community, and has its information and resources organized a variety of topics, from body image and building friendships to dating and communicating successfully. The site also includes:

• "Ask the Experts” Forum: Submit questions on parenting girls to New Moon Girl Media’s Expert Advisory Board
  
• "Parent to Parent” Discussion Board where parents, grandparents and caregivers of girls meet up, connect with and support one another on a vast array of issues
  


• Fully-searchable collection of more than 250 articles written by the top experts on raising girls—and real-life parents & stepparents of girls.
  


• Parenting Daughters Expert blogs by me and New Moon Girl Media Founder Nancy Gruver.
  

Here’s what renowned girls’ development specialist and author JoAnn Deak, Ph.D. says about daughters.com: “Parents of girls are in desperate need of a genuine, trusted ally available to help with the challenges of raising daughters. At daughters.com, parents can focus in and get the information they need with a few clicks of their mouse, instead of digging through online resources or reading entire books on a wide range of topics. As a result, parents will have more tools at their fingertips for raising their daughters, and more time to spend with their girls instead of searching endlessly for answers.”

So check it out, add daughters.com to your favorites & spread the word to other adults who care about girls.

What’s Happening to Dora the Explorer?

Have you seen how Dora the Explorer is being marketed nowadays? This once-proud symbol of girl agency & power now stars in sexed-up, passive incarnations in toy stores, on cereal boxes…and even, more and more, on her TV show.

Sign on to a petition and tell Nickelodeon to knock it off and restore Dora to her place of inspiration!!!

Girls Agenda 2009

Check out the National Council for Research on Women's blog The Real Deal and their round-up of exciting posts about the issues that most affect girls' lives today. Activists, scholars and young girls themselves wrote impassioned posts about their visions for Girls Agenda 2009. Truth be told, I was asked to write something, but my hectic schedule (and just generally being a doofus when it comes to missing good opportunties) prevented me from doing so; however, another FWF blogger, Joe Kelley contributed, so check out his post and all the other great responses.

(H/T Girl w/Pen)

Feminist Web Resource for Girls 8-12

IMHO, New Moon Girls is a resource without parallel for girls ages 8 to 12. It’s very unusual to find such a perfect resource for girls in this crazy, often toxic world they inhabit. So, I can’t recommend it enough!

This is a feminist-informed web community and magazine that “allows girls to develop their full potential through self-discovery, creativity, and community in an environment designed to build self-esteem and promote positive body image in the important tween years.” Not only is it award-winning, safe, and educational…it has no advertising, which is a big plus in my book. Plus, the magazine is created BY girls.

So if you have girls, work with girls, or know girls, I strongly suggest you look at signing them up for New Moon Girls.

Fatherhood PSA

Care of Appetite for Equal Rights, an awesome PSA from fatherhood.gov. I love how the dad in question isn't acting the least embarrassed by what some might call his "girly" behavior. Totally adorable.

Feminist Flashback #17

Yet another flashback PSA, Are You Popular? from 1949:



(H/T Sociological Images)

Feminist Flashback #13

A classic PSA film from 1951: Girls Beware. It provides surprisingly sound advice actually, especially considering it's over 50 years old, although some of it is pretty over-the-top...and what happened to girls having any agency of their own? Warning for possible triggering, although the references it makes to rape and unwanted pregnancy are incredibly oblique:



Enjoy the remaining hours of your holiday weekend.

Update: Ann over at Feminist Law Professors also included a link to the companion film Boys Beware, which warns boys against homosexual advances. You can imagine how that goes! So painful to watch.

So Sexy So Soon

The dangers of hyper-sexualizing children have been well documented. Dads (and moms) are distressed by, frightened by and sick of the onslaught of “sexualized” messages and images raining down on our daughters—and sons.


Two women for whom I have the greatest respect have written a guide for parents on how to deal with this problem: “So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect their Kids” by Dr. Jean Kilbourne and Dr. Diane Levin. Jean and Diane are veteran researchers and advocates on marketing to children and I’ve shared platforms with them many times through the years. This new book is very, very needed and very well done.

For children today, learning about sex too soon is only one problem. Another serious issues is what the authors call “the synthetic and cynical source of a child’s information.” Popular culture and technology shower mixed and developmentally inappropriate messages on young children who don’t yet have the emotional sophistication to understand what they are hearing and seeing.

The result: kids have distorted, unhealthy notions about sex, sexuality, their bodies, relationships, gender—the list goes on. On top of that, some kids are getting into increasing trouble emotionally and socially by engaging in precocious sexual behavior. We are left with little girls wanting to go on diets so they can be “sexy,” little boys getting suspended from school for sexual harassment, and parents in desperate need of guidance.

“So Sexy So Soon” provides it. If you’re the dad (or mom) of children today--or if you care about human relationships--read it.

(Joe Kelly runs http://www.thedadman.com,/ blogs @ http://www.dadsanddaughters.blogspot.com/ and has written books about healthy father-daughter relationships.)

A message to Sarah Palin...

...from some American girls:


(Janet, thanks for the link)

On a related note, even though I'm not thrilled about the prospect of talking to strangers (an understatement, really), I finally bit the bullet and signed up for some last minute volunteer shifts for Obama's campaign. Please don't assume that the race is already won. It could still be a close call on Tuesday, and I for one don't want to be heartbroken again like I was in 2000.