Think About It, Girls

Today at lunch, J and her little friend M, both 8 years old, were gleefully telling me how they had seen T “dancing and twirling” down the street to school the other day. They showed me how he had pirouetted “like a ballet dancer” and then giggling, remembered how some “big, strong boys” on skateboards [...]

Read Full Post »

Self Made Man

I have managed to read four chapters of A People’s History of the United States and it is a very interesting book, but I got sidetracked by Norah Vincent’s Self Made Man. It’s a journalistic account of one woman’s experiences in her eighteen months undercover as a man. I’d heard a blurb about it [...]

Read Full Post »

She Speaks To Me

On  my run today, while thinking on the discussions about gender bias and expectations, I heard this by Ani Difranco (from 32 Flavors).

And God help you if you are an ugly girl
Course too pretty is also your doom
Cause everyone harbors a secret hatred
For the prettiest girl in the room
And God help you if you are [...]

Read Full Post »

Is Gender Bias Real?

A male friend of mind said to me that he understood what I was saying in my post about having lost my voice, but he disagreed about the whole gender thing. He thinks that it is just as common for men in our culture to change from feisty to meek as they make the transition [...]

Read Full Post »

Where Did I Go?

Any closet Oprah magazine readers out there?
I had an “Aha!” moment today.
I was out for lunch with my parents, and conversation turned to my current situation. I said that in conflicts my overwhelming desire is always to opt out. That it always seems like less of a hassle to give in, forget about whatever it [...]

Read Full Post »

For the Everday Heroes

There is never a resting place in the struggle for personal and political integrity. When anxiety is high, and resources appear scarce, some individuals and groups will always operate at the expense of others. But we can long for and work toward that unrealized world where the dignity and integrity of all women, all human [...]

Read Full Post »

Girl Power

In lieu of any of the zillions of other things that she could have done with her afternoon, Junior Miss Twelve got into character. She took great pleasure in swooping around in her cape, vanquishing forces of doom and swiping drinks from her sister’s lemonade stand. I took special delight in her masked mania because [...]

Read Full Post »

In Defense of Female Relationships

Violence against women is an ongoing social problem, and it was brought to mind again by the recent death of a 25-year old woman in my city who was bludgeoned to death by her partner. While reading last night, I came across a simple solution. Women should arrange to live with their mothers AND their [...]

Read Full Post »

Women Are Different Than Men

“If you want men and women to earn the same, then you have to start paying the same salary to social workers that you do to building contractors.”
~Susan Pinker
This is an exerpt from Dr. Pinker’s new book, titled The Sexual Paradox: Extreme Men, Gifted Women and the Real Gender Gap. I haven’t read it, it’s [...]

Read Full Post »

The Invisible Women

I felt incredible frustration when I read BlueMilk’s post on Mother’s Not Making the Best Role Models.Not towards the author, just the issue. I feel angry that the work I do (and believe me, it IS work) is by it’s very nature, nearly invisible. I know that what I do is important, but I wish [...]

Read Full Post »

Feminism and Homeschooling

“Can women trade their careers for their families without sacrificing a few of their feminist values – the very values that inspired many of them to homeschool in the first place?“
This was the one of the questions that author Maya Schenwar addressed in the winter issue of the feminist magazine Bitch. A good question, and [...]

Read Full Post »

I Hope

When 11-year old L started grade 6 at school in September, she went through a several month period of fussing with her hair and worrying about her clothes.
I remember groaning inwardly, bracing for what I thought was the beginning of years of teen girl-hood, and mourning the loss of my little rough-and-tumble tomboy. Not so [...]

Read Full Post »

Distorted Reality

Some amazing shots of before/after photoshopping. Just goes to show how they get the magazine models looking the way they do, and that those images are not a reflection of reality.
I’m not one for censoring the reading material that enters this house, but I’ve already told L that I don’t want to see Teen People [...]

Read Full Post »

Feminist Mothering

While not exactly on topic, this stream of consciousness essay was inspired by a recent post by Marjorie at 280 Main Street, and her mental reminder that “a feminist family still needs to eat”, as well as the interesting conversations going on over at blue milk.
How is that I ended up here?  At home all [...]

Read Full Post »