Tag Archive for "Children"

Posts Tagged Children

The personal is political: princess parties

As we wound round and round in circles, nice little breaks from the monotony of the chicken dance, my goddaughter, R., stared up at the “real live princess” with big, serious eyes. Every move the princess made–whether twisting a pink balloon into a phallic sword for her male cousin, or painting a butterfly on her tiny hand, R. studied.

Yesterday was my goddaughter’s sixth birthday. She loves princesses and her favorite color is pink. She alternated between a princess dress and a swimming suit with princesses on it. Even her stuffed animal kitty was dressed up like a princess, tiara and all. There was a princess pinata. You can imagine the ways in which these realities provoked some major gender analysis ...

By Vanessa • 12 years ago

U.S. organization paying HIV-positive women in Kenya to get IUDs

Anna Clark has a really important piece at The Nation about the work of Project Prevention (formerly known as CRACK), a previously domestic-based organization that has now spread their efforts internationally in the name of protecting children — by paying HIV-positive women 40 bucks to get an IUD.

That amount of money is actually quite a bit in Kenya, where the average household income makes $400 a year. So when you come across a person who is offering that kind of cash to team up with other HIV-positive women, create a business plan together and get free birth control, it sounds like a sweet deal, no? But the implications that this kind of program has around personal agency and ...

By Vanessa • 12 years ago

Tennessee Senate passes “Don’t Say Gay” Bill

Not an Onion headline, people.

Via Unicorn Booty, we find that a proposed bill that would make it illegal to use the word “gay” or “homosexuality” or discuss topics about being gay in Tennessee schools passed the Senate yesterday. Via Think Progress:

The bill would prohibit teachers from discussing of any sexuality except heterosexuality in grades K-8,” even with students who may be gay or have gay family,” according to Ben Byers of the Tennessee Equality Council (TEP). The committee amended the bill to require the Board of Education to study whether homosexuality is actually being taught in schools, but it will still institute a ban in February of next year. ...

Not an Onion headline, people.

Via Unicorn Booty, we find that a proposed bill that would make it illegal to use the word “gay” or “homosexuality” or discuss topics about being gay in ...

By Vanessa • 12 years ago

Gendered toy marketing, word cloud edition.

Hot damn, I love word clouds. This blogger create these based on two lists of products marketed as “girls” and “boys” toys, and the words used in television commercials advertising them.

I’ll quote my homegirl Eliza (age 10) as an appropriate response from this letter (which is amazing, by the way):

Hey I’m a Girl, and I HATE dolls! I also hate Barbies, pink, my little ponies, and glitter is okay I guess. But I don’t love it like boys think all girls do. But that’s just my opinion. […] I HATE pink. I despise it. HACK See I spat on it. That’s how much I hate pink.

Via.

h/t to ...

Hot damn, I love word clouds. This blogger create these based on two lists of products marketed as “girls” and “boys” toys, and the words used in television commercials advertising them.

By Chloe Angyal • 13 years ago

French Vogue fashion spread features sexy sexy children

They’ve been selling us women’s clothing using adolescent models for years, so it was only a matter of time before a magazine put couture on kids. An editorial spread in the December-January issue of Vogue Paris features more than a dozen pages of girls – not teenagers, girls – wearing couture, heavily made up and with their hair in up-dos.

The copy asks, in part, “What makeup at what age? How does one wear makeup at 13? What about at 70? Obviously not like one does at 20.” Styling a spread about choosing the right makeup when you’re 13 or 20 or 70? It makes complete sense to choose models who look like they’re about 9.

Predictably, the girls are posed in ...

By Chloe Angyal • 13 years ago

Kid-free flights? How about family-friendly culture?

Ever been stuck on a plane near a screaming child? Ever wanted to give that child (or their parents) a piece of your exhausted, legroom-deprived mind? Ever wished airlines could create child-free seating sections, or even entire adults-only flights? You’re not alone. Apparently, demand for such flights has increased lately, and the NYT posits that if some enterprising airline were to capitalize on that demand, we could soon see the birth of children-free seating sections or even a children-free airline.

An article in the weekend Times assesses the demand for and likelihood of child-free seating and flights. The article focuses more on the apparently childless people who are bothered by the screaming kids than on the parents who are probably ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 13 years ago

New report on the treatment of mothers and pregnant women in U.S. prisons

Yesterday the National Women’s Law Center and the Rebecca Project for Human Rights released a new report, “Mothers Behind Bars,” on the treatment of pregnant and parenting women in U.S. state prisons. The picture the report paints—like most glimpses into our broken prison system—is not a pretty one.