Tag Archive for "Children"

Posts Tagged Children

Feminism for Beginners: Kids Movies

Okay, we’re all grown up now and there’s no need for this discussion, right? Wrong. Kids are often at that age where their opinions are forming and when they can distinguish reality from fiction and fantasy. So these movies do much to further a bit of debunking on gender stereotypes. I’ve gathered a few of my favorite films and critiqued them on a feminist level.

National Velvet (1944)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNsWrMc3Ep8

This film starring a young Elizabeth Taylor is a about a young girl that wants to compete in the male only Grand National, a horse race, accompanying her is her friend who masquerades her as a boy and her supportive mom who has remembered her own experiences with sexism when she swam across the ...

By Chloe Angyal • 13 years ago

Early deployments in the battle of the sexes

I had a short piece up at Slate’s Double X blog yesterday about the lessons I’ve learned this summer while teaching summer school. As those of you who follow me on Twitter might know, I’m teaching third and fourth grade English and writing, as well as SAT prep. It has been an exhausting, enlightening experience, one that has endowed me with a new respect for all the teachers I’ve had, from professors and TAs to coaches and singing teachers. It is hard bloody work, and it makes me want to look up all my favorite teachers and thank them so much for what they did, day after day, so that I could grow up loving learning (in the ...

I had a short piece up at Slate’s Double X blog yesterday about the lessons I’ve learned this summer while teaching summer school. As those of you who follow me on Twitter might know, I’m ...

By Vanessa • 13 years ago

Angelina Jolie responds to gender policing of Shiloh

I generally wouldn’t give more attention to the ridiculousness that’s been created by tabloids around this, but considering the larger impact these sources have, it’s worth noting. During promotion for her new movie Salt, Angelina Jolie just had to be asked about her and Brad Pitt’s child, Shiloh, who prefers to wear “boy’s clothes” and wear her hair short.

As many of you probably already know, entertainment tabloids have been gender policing the shit out of the 4-year old and claiming bad parenting as Angelina is “turning Shiloh into a boy.” (You must read Miriam’s awesome post about why this is absurd and fucked up.) So I was happy to see her bite back a bit ...

By Jessica • 13 years ago

More American women choosing to be child free

According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, more women are choosing not to have children than did thirty years ago.

Nearly 20 percent of older women do not have children, compared to 10 percent in the 1970s…
“In recent decades, social pressure to play traditional roles has lessened in a broad variety of ways and there is more leeway for individual choice. This could play a part in lowering pressure for people to get married and bear children,” said D’Vera Cohn, a co-author of the report.
“Women have more options than in the past to build strong careers and to exercise the choice not to have children,” she added in an email.
…Cohn said another reason for ...

According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, more women are choosing not to have children than did thirty years ago.

Nearly 20 percent of older women do not have children, compared to 10 percent ...

By Jessica • 13 years ago

Girly Consumerism

Via Sociological Images comes this heinous credit card teether. It’s pink and the name on the card is “Ima Spender.” Gross. Though I suppose we shouldn’t expect better from the creator of baby high heels.
This reminds me of the Barbie “Fashion Fever Shopping Boutique” that came out a couple of years ago. The toy featured a built-in credit card swiper and a pink credit card that never ran out of money. The commercial is especially disturbing, with a chorus that sings “Buy It!” over and over again.

Transcript (of which I’m sure someone could write a whole thesis on) after the jump
Awesome…a toy that will ensure little girls grow ...

Via Sociological Images comes this heinous credit card teether. It’s pink and the name on the card is “Ima Spender.” Gross. Though I suppose we shouldn’t expect better from the creator ...

By Chloe Angyal • 13 years ago

My many mothers

Sunday is Mother’s Day (don’t worry, you’ve still got time to grab a card). I have mixed feelings about Mother’s Day, for many of the same reasons that I have mixed feelings about Valentine’s Day and other commercialized holidays. Like those holidays, Mother’s Day seems to emphasize buying stuff – cards, flowers, jewelry. And perhaps most depressingly, it encourages us to make a one-off special occasion out of something that we really ought to be doing every day, which is appreciating the women who brought us into the world.

When I was growing up, Mother’s Day meant bringing my Mom breakfast and a card in bed followed by lunch with my grandparents. And when the weekend was over, everything would go ...

By Chloe Angyal • 13 years ago

The Feministing Rom Com Review: The Back-up Plan

The Back-up Plan, starring Jennifer Lopez and some dude with killer blue eyes who you’ve never heard of, is about Zoe, a woman in her mid-thirties – I’m assuming, because her age is never specified – who, finding herself without a significant other and determined not to miss her chance to have a baby, decides to be artificially inseminated and raise the child alone. However, mere moments after said insemination takes place, she meets a gorgeous man who runs a goat cheese farm (seriously, cheese? Why didn’t they just make him a chocolatier? Or a purveyor of fine [insert other thing all women supposedly love]?). Stan, the cheese farmer, and Zoe, the former internet start-up employee who now owns a ...

By Chloe Angyal • 14 years ago

A first step in a feminist direction: The Healthy Media for Youth Act

Perhaps you’ve heard that France and Britain are considering photoshop laws: Laws that would require advertisers to indicate when an image has been digitally altered, or banning photoshopping altogether in advertisements aimed at people under a certain age. Last year, legislators on both sides of the Channel proposed legislation, arguing that highly photoshopped images, largely of female beauty, set unrealistic standards for young women and can lead to poor body image and eating disorders.
When the news of these proposed laws first broke last year, I suspected that American vehemence about freedom of speech combined with our tabloid tendency to scrutinize every last line, wrinkle and blemish on celebrity faces and bodies, no legislation of this ...