Two things caught my eyes this evening on Facebook.

One was the news that Gina Davis' foundation just got a great grant from Google to study gender roles in the media. Read the Wired article here.

The other was a syllabus from a new online poetry course from Yale University.


Ok -- first off, I think both of these things are terrific.

Girls in the media -- it's overwhelming sometimes how little things change -- how the images are still shockingly damaging, and the roles incredibly narrow still...

And the open classroom thing -- fabulous! Some of the best universities in the country -- probably the world -- opening their virtual doors to anyone who has the inclination. Education for education's sake -- purely -- from both directions.

But each -- and both within the span of the five minute news feed -- lead me to crystalize a few other thoughts I've been having.

There are a lot of amazing things for girls on the web -- social media seems full of them. I post a lot of them on the Facebook page. Girls are doing great things, and using the internet to broadcast their brilliance. As a former girl -- and a graduate of a women's college, ta boot -- I understand that this is a new access granted our daughters. It's stunning and world opening and exciting.

As the mother of both a boy and girl, I wonder where are the chances for my son. While I do not have any doubt that society will take care of my privileged, white boy creature -- I'm not sure where the growth and the excitement and the enthusiasm will come from. I want him to do some of the things I seem my daughter embracing -- thinking about the whole world, and changing it through social media and his own actions!

And then they Yale poetry course:
Frost
Yeats
Pound
Elliot
Crane
Williams
Stevens
Auden
Plus two white women and one black man.

I honestly believe that until we change the way we teach boys to view the world -- and teach the world to view boys -- nothing can change all that much...

I just watched a segment from Nightline "Porn Before Puberty".

Definitely food for thought this morning. I am constantly thinking and rethinking the boundaries in my own house... what strikes me after first watching this is that this child experienced sexual abuse perpetrated by the computer -- and that her response also seems in keeping with that... which is frightening and confusing...

I definitely need to spend some time writing about this... and talking to some professionals...

I Feel Pretty...

So here's what's on my mind today...

Last week I changed my profile picture -- for various reasons. Maybe sometimes it feels like cutting my hair or moving around the furniture... I like playing with the photos -- I like the big photos on timeline... I just did.

40 people liked it. I was really embarrassed. I mean -- very very sweet -- and friends from all different times and places in my life said all sorts of sweet things to me... always nice to hear. I felt very loved -- which in fact, I think I am. Very lucky to have the good sense to surround myself -- inner and wider circles with people I admire, who I know support me in life... I hope my children will find that warmth. Thank you, friends.

But the truth of the picture is -- I don't feel pretty. I took it on my computer -- because someone said I needed a not professional picture (I am also lucky enough to have professional photographers in my life...) -- but it's close, and appleish -- and I think I look like I feel -- which is kind of middle aged and tired. A little darkly circled. A little forced -- how on earth do you smile for yourself. When I take photos I make people laugh really -- I take 10 rolls of film until they forget I am there -- and my favorites are slightly blurred from the movement of the laughter in contrast to the stillness of my hands.

ANYWAY --

Today I am writing for the book about social media. So I went on a teenage friends page to check out what she's been up to lately. She is one of the sweet sweet girls I know -- a natural beauty with an innocence within. She is also "beautiful" -- with long legs and long blonde hair -- high cheek bones and a warm smile. On her page, over the last week, about 10 different people -- from many different times and places in her life -- told her how pretty she was.

And I wondered what effect this will have.

On her. I wonder if it makes her feel pretty. I wonder if it gives her real confidence. I wonder if she had a bad day, if she felt like a fraud. I wonder if a week passed and no one told her she was pretty if it would upset her... because she is 13. And that is what it feels like then...

And on her friends -- who are not so pretty.

Of course there are always pretty girls and not pretty girls...
but I do wonder how all of this plays out for them on line...

For myself, I don't think there's anything to be done, really... except remember, again, to notice for my daughter and my friends who are girls, not to comment on their clothes or on their looks -- but to ask them about their school work and their successes - their politics or their interest in language or math...

to share with them as much as I possibly can about love and kindness and the beauty of the world...
sigh.

 I also just shared this with my daughter on social media.
It's an article about yoga and transforming fear. My daughter has a phobia she has been really struggling with and we have been talking a lot about what to do about it.

Now -- we all know she's going to tear up at the Katy Perry one, and who knows if she'll make it through the first paragraph of this -- but I wanted to share for a minute what it is that I mean when I say that I like social -- that I like that my kids are on it (yes, the plurality happened this week...) and that I think there is benefit. Even as all of my like minded friends are appalled...

http://kripalu.org/blog/thrive/2012/10/20/rituals-of-transition-a-shamanic-approach-to-moving-beyond-fear-and-anxiety/

I just shared this with my daughter on social media. (I e-mailed it to her, too.)

I wrote a different kind of parenting article -- because sometimes our children dictate what we need to do...
It's about boys and emotional intelligence... the best thing about being a journalist is you get to call up amazing people and ask them exactly what you want to know!

Boys Are From Mars, Parents Are From A Different Solar System.

Clothes/girls/and conflict for casual Friday.

Casual Friday

Today is my first casual Friday post. My plan is that on Fridays I will let the guard down a little and talk about things that are on my mind that may be slightly off track from the usual media consumed messages. That said, I'm not sure anything is really unattached from the messages of the media... but I may be biased. sigh.

Anyway -- yesterday, September 14, the NYTimes Motherlode posted an entry about an issue I think (and fight) a lot about these days -- teen clothes. As it is so near and dear to my heart, I commented...


My just pre-teen daughter and I battle constantly about shorts... We have had the discussion about appropriate clothes for places and how others view them, but that's not the issue for us.

The shorts my daughter had looked sweet in at 11, suddenly looked sexy -- her legs sprawled up to her nose over night. On two separate occasions grown men, who I knew and who I trust implicitly, commented on those legs as they would a woman. 

I feel this is a safety issue -- the leers of a construction worker, ok -- but we all know that being the object of desire of a man can have far more serious consequences. 

In what could only seem like a Saturday Night Live skit, I found myself in therapy with my daughter discussing, for two weeks in a row, the length of her shorts. Finally she asked why it was that a school would have length limits. I said for respect -- and then I said that it was also so as not to distract the boys. That when they were preoccupied with girls' legs they were less able to concentrate on school.

She got very embarrassed and said she really didn't want to think about boys thinking that way.

Yes, responsibility and freedom and respect all come in to play here. But much of the conversation also has to do with sex -- what are kids are exposed to, how early (what ages grown ups are exposed to as sex objects) and what they are developmentally ready for. 

Control is only one part -- education, guidance and monitoring are still our jobs as parents.

I was likened to those who would ask women to wear veils. Well, I thought about the veiling argument for a long time. What I finally settled on was something to the dawning realization that we live in a male dominated society... Unfortunately I answered again.

Girls/women should be able to wear whatever they want. Abuse comes from the abuser. But the problem is two fold -- one that they don't always know (as in the case of my daughter) what they are putting out there -- but more than that, the consequences are hers. I used distraction to help her see out of herself -- but am more concerned with what will happen to her. Getting herself into sexually charged situations is something I feel strongly I need to help her to prevent. As always, of course, this is a personal parenting choice, stemming largely from my own knowledge of the world I would prefer not to have.

After a while, and another 10 continuing arguments, I wanted to talk a little more...

I've been thinking about this veiling argument all morning -- I think the problem is that by hurling it around that way it feels bullying. Of course I don't want to live in a society that shames women about their body. Everyone has a body -- bodies are beautiful. But I don't think that my teaching my daughter the real possibility of assault is something I can avoid.

Societally, I do think the issues are related, though. Girls are always taught to behave according to men's sexual impulses -- at least in the realm of this strain of conversation. The lack of clothes in our society is just as much a badge of that fact -- not a freedom based on health and well being.


This all sits horribly. On the one hand -- I am seriously thinking about all of this. I DO know that I come at it all from a position of fear -- and I would very much like to protect my daughter in any way that I can. I do know that if she is ever assaulted it will be nobody's fault but her assailant.

I also think we can't escape the sexualization of girls that takes place in the media -- in fashion -- in the world. I don't think it is harmful to teach are girls that there are different types of clothing.

I'm very unsettled by the idea that I am teaching fear. I already knew this -- but I wish it wasn't true. Still -- I can only teach from my own perspective.

What even most upsets me is that, again, we as a group of people, are so quick to attack each other over all of this. I have never known such judgement as I have as a parent. I really don't think we can talk about anything when all comments are leveled as bullying arguments and accusations.

I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on these matters.

For the record, I marched at Take Back the Night marches on Smith College campuses... sigh...