Book Review: Redefining Girly: How Parents Can Fight the Stereotyping and Sexualizing of Girlhood, from Birth to Tween

Redefining Girly: How Parents Can Fight the Stereotyping and Sexualizing of Girlhood, from Birth to Tween by Melissa Atkins Wardy
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I was more curious as to how this information would be presented, rather than looking for a new resource. I've been reading and actively analyzing gender stereotyping for a long time. I think this would a be a great resource for someone new to the arena. Because as the author correctly states, "once you see it, you can't unsee it". How the media and retailers are dictating childhood is awful. What's terrifying is how many parents follow along, sometimes even accepting it even tho it makes them feel uncomfortable ,especially when it comes to the way girls are becoming objectified at younger and younger ages).

There's a lot of this that I think works for raising boys and girls. Many of these approaches I've used with my son since his birth. Gender neutral clothing and toys, encouraging arts and sciences rather than superhero/princess play (not that it's not present. I am a Batman fan, raising a Batman fan), being outside and playing hard, etc...these are things all kids need. There's also a lot of emphasis on the importance of boys and girls playing together, and making sure they are in environments that encourage this and how to deal with spaces- schools, daycares,doctors offices, etc- that can fall into the rut of separating by gender.

But there are definite problems with the book. First, Wardy skirts around slut-shaming often. She talks a lot about having open dialogues with your daughter, about how to deal with circumstances when she wants to wear clothes that may not be age appropriate. But instead of emphasizing just that, it can become a discussion of "what sort of attention do you think you'll get?" or "Do you understand the message an outfit like that gives?" Wardy's daughter is not a teenager, and I'd be curious to see how these conversations go when she does have one. I guess we will see on the blog?

She also doesn't seem to talk a lot about body confidence, other than the fact that we should encourage healthy eating habits and an active lifestyle. The one time weight is mentioned, it's that we should be worried about the rise of obesity. Young children, girls in particular, will go thru phases of thinning out and gaining weight. I felt like there could have been more discussion as to how to help with body confidence,again, other than healthy eating habit and active lifestyle! You can be both of those things and it does not ensure that you will have a physical physique that will safeguard your confidence.

One thing that caught me off guard is her absolute hatred of Monster High Dolls. Yes, she hates Barbie, and Bratz are awful, but Monster High Dolls ("Meanie Monsters" she calls them) had their own special write ups several times. Here's what bothered me "Girls that dress like that often don't have full and happy hearts, and they use clothing like that to get attention and make themselves feel full". I like Monster High dolls because they are so far from human reality. They are complete fantasy. But I feel like her conversation with her daughter is actually teaching her how to view people who are different, or alternative, as something to fear or that they mean.

I was also uncomfortable with Wardy's idea of "Branding". How she "branded" herself and how to try and find your child's "brand". I don't feel like you can really go up against companies trying to brand themselves to your child, and then turn around and try and do it yourself. It felt unnecessary. Encourage your child without trying to pigeon hole them. They are going to go thru phases and try out new things, sometime to push our buttons, and other times to test their own limits and levels of comfort. I think it would be ridiculous to try and keep them "on brand". So parents, toss that idea aside because it's trash. You can have a happy, thriving, adventurous kid without "branding".

Again, I didn't hate the book, but I'm sure you can see there was more I disliked than liked. But if I were approached by a parent or family member who was testing the waters, I think this would be a good starting off point of noticing the world around and how to engage in conversations with family, friends, teachers, doctors, dentists, retailers, etc... to try and be part of enacting change.



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Book Review: Food: A Love Story

Food: A Love Story by Jim Gaffigan
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I really wanted to like this. But I think Jim Gaffigan and I just feel just too differently about food for me to find much humor in this. I would never consider myself a foodie, but the foods we love/hate are completely opposite. So after the great introduction, which had me laughing out loud, the jokes fell flat after a few chapters. I gave it a good shot tho, making it over 100 pages, and skipping forward a few more chapters just to double check but no...I just could not enjoy this book.

It doesn't really feel like a love story about food, more like random commenting on food. It's a shame...because I really loved Dad is Fat, and I still think this has a great cover. I wonder how many other foods they tried before settled on the hot dog.


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Book Review: Getting The Pretty Back

Getting the Pretty Back: Friendship, Family, and Finding the Perfect Lipstick by Molly Ringwald
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I found this book when I was shelving the biography section. "O hey- I love Molly. This should be good!" I mean, Pretty In Pink and Sixteen Candles are 2 of my most favorite movies. But then I read some of the reviews and I didn't know if I wanted to read it. A lot of the reviews were unforgiving, and I didn't want to ruin whatever idea I had of who Molly Ringwald is.

First off, it's not really a biography. Which is really disappointing, I would have loved to have read her autobiography and hear all the details of growing up in the Brat Pack, living in France, working on Broadway...but you don't really get any of that. Instead you get Molly Ringwald trying to help you find your pretty. Which is cool, I guess. Having 2 kids, I have lost some of that.

So here's what I've taken from this book:
- I need to find a black turtleneck. I used to have them, looked great in them, but I haven't owned one in years. I'm finding one this fall.

-Black Honey by Clinique is a *great* lip color. Another staple I used to have, why had I forgotten this? Need to add this back into my tiny makeup collection.

-Definitely making a cheese plate when people come over. Goat cheese, Brie or Camembert, English Cheddar (the real stuff, for sure), Gouda, and a blue cheese...That sounds like a nice time to me. Why were so many people in the reviews hating on the cheese plate? Cheese is delicious.

- I need to find a good, everyday handbag. It may be time to invest in a grown up purse. That's sort of scary for me.

-I've never had Bouillabaisse, but I want to try it. Honestly, I just want to have more time to eat good food. I agree with a lot of her sentiments on food.

-A beret sounds like a good idea...

-...and so does buying new underwear.

I've fallen into the mom rut.

Of course I'm never going to find (or fit into) a Yves Saint Laurent vintage trench coat. But I don't have to. Reviewers seem really hung up on that and the Hermes scarf (which, again, you don't have to buy, but is it wrong to learn how to tie a scarf? I think not...)

And I don't agree that only skinny people should wear skinny jeans. CLothes are for everybody as long as it makes them feel...wait for it...pretty.

The book never feels quite self-help, and it's written in a pretty informal girl-friend kind of way. In spite of myself, I found myself enjoying it, even tho I avoid both chick lit and self help like the plague. It fall into my "quick easy read" category.

NOW...time to shop and eat some tasty food.


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Worst book of the year? Already?

Geek Girls Unite: How Fangirls, Bookworms, Indie Chicks, and Other Misfits Are Taking Over the World by Leslie Simon
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

It was at this quote, I quit reading this book:

"Patti Smith, on the other hand, was not one of the lookers, but her overwhelming stage presence and protagonist musical style made her utterly captivating, endlessly powerful, and oddly attractive". (pg 96)

FUCK. OFF.

There is nothing "unifying" in the author's tone about geek women and fandom. Which is a shame, because she's nabbed a fantastic title and written a shit book. I feel like this would only be a title worth reading for someone who wanted to pose as a geek. It's like she wiki'd and wrote all the talking points of geekdom.

I do hope that someone does one day write a proper book on women and fandoms though. Shame this wasn't the one.


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Working Mummies

Working Mummies by Joan Horton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Since going back to work, Oz has had some anxiety. Now when I leave I hear a lot of "I miss you" and "Don't go"'s. It breaks my heart, but I love my job and it's only part time, so I know he'll be fine. And in the long run, it's important that I keep doing what I love.

So while I was shelving children's books the other evening I found this and it couldn't be more perfect for us. It's Halloween ghoulish, and it's talking about something on both our minds.

Overall, I love it. The illustrations are fantastic, the rhyming cute. I want it for my collection of children's ghoulish books. The only reason I'm giving it an "official" 3 stars is because the jobs are...well, a bit on the traditionally female side. I would have loved to seen a bit more diversity (a Police Officer, a Lawyer or Judge...).

And personally, I loved that it included a librarian (even though title is librarian assistant, but who knows? One day I just may get that Masters and official title!).

"This mummy's a librarian.
She has a great selection
Of rare and wiggly book worms
In her specimen collection."

That page alone was what I needed to share with Oz. And the illustration is of a Mummy with short hair and glasses. So pretty darn close to perfect.


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misconceptions

I finished Naomi Wolf's Misconceptions: Truth, Lies, and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood. I feel a bit mixed about the book on whole, and as it's the first book of her's I've read, I'm nervous that the other titles that she's written won't live up to my expectations. But I'll share my thoughts on this one, starting with the good first.

I enjoyed how this was such an exact journey of her path to motherhood, through pregnancy, labor & birth, and into discovering this new balance and sense of self that comes with being a mother. There are so many things about the entire process that women just do not share with each other. Because of judgement? Fear? Feeling that *this* feeling of joy/anger/resentment/exhaustion is somehow unique only to you, and to share that would be a risk. You don't want to scare the women who are thinking about motherhood, or pregnant, or even new. You don't want to risk being ostracized from whatever group you belong to (groups that are oddly, thrown together just because you are now a parent. People you would have never met or necessarily talked to before. Now you share this commonality, and are thrust into parallel lives that now mean FRIENDSHIP).

This particular quote I felt expressed similar feelings I had at the time:

"I was mourning, protesting a point of departure in the road that I could never retrace. An "I" would go forward, swept irrevocably on the by the tide of the natural order, and that "I" would sit on the sofa hour after hour and be someone's Lithium, someone's Lethe, someone's Popsicle- someone who would come to be a love of my life, but whom I did not yet know. And the "I" would reconfigure eventually around that need, and take joy in it, and spin a new identity. But it would never again be the "I" it had been before" (pg. 106).

...and honestly still have. Motherhood is both more complicated- and at the same time, simpler- than I could have imagined. The identity I had before is sometimes in conflict with who I am now. It's a strange journey for sure.

I also enjoyed Wolf's examination of both the medicalized and "natural" (I prefer the term unmedicated) approaches to childbirth in the United States; and the conflict she felt in what she wanted and idealized, and the one that she felt would make her feel safest. Unfortunately, the system failed her, like it fails hundreds of thousands of women every year. It is at this point, I struggle. I see so many women who go into have their baby with the mindset "I don't care what happens, I just want my baby to be fine and healthy", and sadly put both their physical and mental well-fair unknowingly in jeopardy. And instead of discussing this, it becomes par for the national standard dialogue of how we are expected to bring our babies into the world.

Without going into all the details about my birth experience, I have to say I felt like I was getting the best of both worlds. By all the research I had read, having my baby in the UK was already a plus in my favor in achieving the delivery that we had hoped for. Which is why when I see the UK system glorified, I cringe. The midwives in the UK are underpaid and overworked. I don't carry the blame (at myself, and the system) that I did for the first year or so and anger and disappointment in myself. But I do believe that their system is stressed. That said, I would go back and have another baby in the UK. I am still terrified of having one in the US, especially in light of the fact that the currently government is pushing to place all rights of the fetus above those of the mother. But I digress....

What I wish, and what Wolf points out so well, is that both communities need to be working together to provide the best opportunities for birthing mothers.

"...there are for the most part only two doors that most of us have access to. Each camp- the traditional high-tech hospital route and the natural childbirth approach- has great skills to share with the other. Each camp needs to be talking with the other in a relationship of equality and respect, collaborating with the other and creating a birth culture and real choices for women out of the best that each has to offer. Women would be best served if all birthing establishments were shaped by the insights of both camps." (pg. 202)

That quote. THAT QUOTE. I believe it so much.

So the things I didn't like about the book....
Well, in the afterward, Wolf addresses the criticisms I (and apparently a LOT of readers) came away with after reading it. The biggest being that this is a very singular look at these "Misconceptions". For the most part, it's about white upper middle class women coming to terms with motherhood. And it causes a big disconnect (at least it did for me). So I'm not going to harp on it. I also hated that she referred to the Le Leche League as "fascists" because I think the work that they do is important. Sometimes, whether intended or not, Wolf stirs the Mommy-Wars pot, which is always disappointing.

I wish that women could for-go the judgement and present a united front when it comes to motherhood; parenthood. It's hard. And it's harder when you feel like you're having to defend and justify yourself at every turn.

So that's my review. The end.

Fuck off Skinny Bitch

Skinny Bitch: A No-Nonsense, Tough-Love Guide for Savvy Girls Who Want to Stop Eating Crap and Start Looking Fabulous! by Rory Freedman

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


I picked this up off the library shelf because I had heard that it was a pretty funny, informative read. I found it to be wrong on both counts. If I had known about it's "Vegan or Bust" attitude towards nutrition (and fear-mongering) I probably wouldn't have bothered.

This book isn't funny. If anything it only perpetuates woman-on-woman hate and self loathing for one's body. If you want to be skinny, you have to really hate yourself and be willing to no longer enjoy eating food at all, ever again.

They actually suggest holding off eating until you are absolutely ravenous. Don't eat breakfast until you can no longer stand it, and don't eat lunch until you are insane with hunger. How is that healthy?

O that's right. THIS BOOK IS WRITTEN BY MODELS.

When a book suggests "Donate Blood. You can save a life and lose weight at the same time" (pg. 182) something is wrong. Very, very wrong.



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Coraline Review

Yesterday, we went to see Coraline. I was very excited about seeing this because:

1. I love Neil Gaiman, and I thoroughly enjoyed the book it was based off of.

2. It's stop motion animation, from the same director of Nightmare Before Christmas

3. Looks amazing.

And I would say that, yes, overall it met all my expectations and was stunning to look at. I don't think that it HAS to be seen in 3-D, I'm sure I would have enjoyed it just as much in 2-D. I also loved that Coraline has blue hair. It was a small touch that I found charming.

BUT (there's always a 'but'), a very important element of the story was changed, and left me disgruntled at the end of the film. While the book is based on Neil Gaiman's book, the story was written for the screen by director, Henry Selick. In the film, a character by the name of Wybie is introduced into the narrative, even tho he does not exist at all in the book. I was okay with this, Coraline thinks mostly internally in the book, and this character allows her to interact and bring across her character. Because we all know, internal monologues in films can be VERY boring. So Wybie didn't really bother me....until the last few moment of the film.

I will carefully try not to give too much away, but in the book Coraline "saves the day" by her own careful planning and ingenuity. In the film, Wybie rushes in at the end to save the day. Which to me, only perpetuates to little girls that a boy will always be there to solve the problem, save them from danger, etc. I hate to push that sort of feminist rhetoric on what is otherwise a charming children's film, but I hate that they took away such a wonderful, positive ending; and instead put a "safe", "old-fashioned" ending on it.

Otherwise, I would say, go see it. It's a fantastic film and I was secretly hoping that one day I have a little girl as imaginative and brave as little Coraline.

 

Friday the 13th

It had to be done. Going to see Friday the 13th on Friday the 13th was a treat that I could not resist. 

From the initial get-go I was skeptical of the new installment in an otherwise stale franchise. Don't get me wrong, I love Fridays 1-7 (in particular I love Part 4: the Final Chapter with Crispin Glover AND little Cory Feldman. It's just too good to be true), but I drew the line and hated Jason Takes Manhattan, or as I call it, Jason Rides a Boat. I couldn't finish Jason Goes to Hell and flat out refused to watch Jason X (in space, really?). And when they announced a new Friday the 13th they said it was going to be a remake. A REMAKE!?!?!

So I hated it from the start. There is nothing wrong with the original, in fact, I find the original to be very right indeed. But as they started releasing info, and then actually a picture of the new Jason, it dawned on me that it can't be a remake. (SPOILER): Mrs. Vorhees was the killer!!! Jason doesn't arrive till part 2! Needless to say, I become more excited about the impending arrival of the new Friday. AND I was ecstatic when they released that they would be playing it on Friday the 13th. Marketing scams like this I willingly oblige to play into. It adds to the fun (see also, the remake of the Omen that was released on 6-6-06. Brilliant! Rob Zombie made a MAJOR error in not pushing for Halloween's release to be on, what?, HALLOWEEN. Marketing and audience would have been done, finished, finito.). 

Opening night and a full house. One of my favorites. And then the movie started and the disappointment can over me in waves. First, the premise that this group of kids are hiking through the woods looking for a crop of weed was stupid. AND the fact that it was so close to Camp Crystal Lake, also stupid. As Griff pondered, how did all that weed get cultivated with Jason running around so close by?

I continued to feel disappointed until it suddenly dawned on me. Once again, THIS IS NOT A REMAKE, thus it's a-okay to enjoy. And then 2, IT'S JASON. So once I had this little shout out with my brain I allowed myself to enjoy. It was also the first Friday movie I had seen in a cinema. So I took a chill pill and enjoyed.

When I decided to that, there were a couple pleasant surprises. For example, there was a lot of little "in" jokes and references to those who have seen all the other Fridays. And all the annoying people died, and who doesn't love that?

But even when I resigned myself to the fact that it was good for a Friday the 13th movie, I have a few issues. First of all, it was annoying how big and loud Jason was, but he was incredibly quiet when it came to appearing behind someone. Also, how the hell did he get on top of the house so quickly?

My biggest problem though, is a personal one. Because you see, I hate fake boobs and more than that I hate pornographic sex (and all that that implies). In the 1980s, you saw a lot of films that jokingly address teen sex and how awkward and funny it was. Now though, all the girls have fake boobs, and people behave like they are starring in a porno. I miss funny awkward sex of the 80s and I wish it would come back. 

So that's my little commentary on Friday the 13th. It had to be done....