Recently in Girls Category

Girls Write Now, an organization near and dear to my heart, has received the 2009 Coming Up Taller Award from the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. On November 4, at the White House, First Lady Michelle Obama presented the award to founder and executive director Maya Nussbaum and third-year mentee Tina Gao.

Girls Write Now, for those who don't know, matches high school girls in New York City with professional writing mentors. Their success is astounding. In addition to the ineffable benefits of creating lasting mentoring relationships, they also boast a 100% college attrition rate for their mentees for the last five seasons!

Way to go to all the incredible staff, young women, and mentors involved in making Girls Write Now such an incredible organization, fostering the next generation of women's voices. Consider supporting them if you've got the means or the time.

In response to the constant objectification of women, the recent gang rape of a 15 year old girl in Richmond, CA, the unjust incarceration of Sara Kruzan and even the highly publicized violence faced by Rihanna, conscientious rapper and activist Jasiri X has put out a track that discusses the injustice and inhumanity of these crimes.

Love it. Lyrics after the jump.

A study put out by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy has found evidence that the majority of teens at risk of unwanted pregnancy are not from low income and/or single parent families.

via Susan Reimer for the Baltimore Sun.

According to research conducted for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, only 28 percent of those who report having given birth or fathered a child as a teen lived in families with incomes below the federal poverty line.

And just 30 percent of those who report having given birth to or fathered a child as a teen say they were living with a single parent.

We are not only wrong - and probably bigoted - about whose teens get pregnant. Those of us in middle-class, intact families have our heads seriously in the sand if we think it can't happen to us.

This doesn't change that low-income families are disproportionately at risk of unwanted or teen pregnancy, but it certainly changes the demonized media image of the poor, black, single, teenage mom, so readily available to the national imagination. Looks like all those family values indoctrinated via abstinence-only education programs are not working out so well for all the "intact" families of America.

I wear a few hats on campus. Along with being a graduate student and a Feministing contributor in constant search of my next post, I am also the President of the Campus Coalition for Sexual Literacy (CCSL). CCSL, an org that is an affiliate to the National Sexuality Resource Center, promotes sexual literacy through community forums and serving as a liaison between students and campus health providers. This past Wednesday, with the help of HBO, film distributor Roadside Attractions, University of Michigan academics and student organizations, we held a private screening of Chris Rock's Good Hair 2 days before the film premiered in Michigan.

While the event, and the conversation that followed with the 300 audience members was powerful and revealing, the film really underwhelmed me. The sexist comments and the framing of black hair issues was striking. In addition, the portrait of Black hair excluded some important voices that were equally vital to the black hair conversation. However, the film did make a contribution by grappling with the relationship that decision-making about hair has with age. Lastly, it educated the masses about the harm involved with relaxers using two methods that are bound to be widely received--humor and famous people.

So let's break this down.

Rachel Simmons is a writer and a teacher who has penned two New York Times bestsellers. Not too shabby.

In 2002, Simmons' wrote Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls, which shed light on the "mean girls" phenomenon and examined for the first time the cliques and codes of teen girl culture in an academic but accessible way. Like Odd Girl Out, Simmons' second book The Curse of the Good Girl, is based on hundreds of hours spent interviewing and teaching young girls, which Simmons does all over the world. At her summer camp the Girls Leadership Institute, during the months she spends every year teaching at a girls school in South Africa, Simmons gets a rare, honest look inside the torturously complex inner workings of Girl World. The Curse of the Good Girl was written for the parents of young girls, so that their daughters can not only survive Girl World, but emerge as authentic and self-aware young women.

Simmons lives in Brooklyn and, during the course of our phone interview, managed to parallel-park her car according to that borough's complex alternate-side parking rules, while also answering questions about the many challenges facing the modern feminist movement. Again, not too shabby. As you'll see from her interview, Simmons is a very impressive lady.

And now, without further ado, the Feministing Five, with Rachel Simmons.

A new study shows that states that skew towards more conservative religious beliefs tend to have higher rates of teenage girls giving birth. (Shocking, I know.)

Researcher Joseph Strayhorn of Drexel University College of Medicine and University of Pittsburgh says,"We conjecture that religious communities in the U.S. are more successful in discouraging the use of contraception among their teenagers than they are in discouraging sexual intercourse itself."

Now, obviously studies like these have the whole correlation/causation issue going on - but from the work I did write The Purity Myth, this study makes sense to me.

If you grow up in an area where you're taught that sex is bad and contraception is evil (and that it can kill you), when you do have pre-marital sex - as 95% of Americans will - you're much less likely to protect yourself. Not only because you've been taught that condoms cause cancer and other such ridiculousness, but also because you may think that if sex happens in the heat of the moment - and you didn't plan for it like a bad, slutty girl - you're not as tainted.

I had to post a link to the new movie, Precious:

I am halfway through Push, the book by Sapphire that the movie is based on. It is not often that so many issues women face are embodied in one character. From racism, sizism, sexual violence, domestic violence, welfare issues, colorism, ablism, and many, many more -- this is the ultimate feminist primer! I am not quite sure what to make of how Precious' mother's character, played by Mo'Nique, is being framed as the "monstrous matriarch." On one hand, giving her villainous character, it seems fitting. On the other hand, what does it mean that the black single mom has once again gotten this branding? This is especially interesting considering the villainous male characters in the story that seem conspicuously absent from this trailer.

On another note, I posted earlier this week about Tyler Perry. He is serving as an executive producer of this film, alongside Oprah. Again, I think we can log some progress points for Perry on this one. It will be important to see what, if any, the trade offs will be.

But, after all, I'm just a cautious optimist. Preliminary thoughts?

Elizabeth Wurtzel, of Prozac Nation and Bitch fame, has a truly nasty review up at Double XX today about Rachel Simmons' new book, The Curse of the Good Girl. Rachel, as many of you know, blew apart the world of girl bullying with Odd Girl Out and started the Girls Leadership Institute. I was going to write a big ol' review of Rachel's new book after Labor Day, but I couldn't wait to respond a bit to Wurtzel's vitriol.

Wurtzel begins her review with a big classist, racist bang:

Elite institutions are not merely supposed to produce intelligent alumni--they are also supposed to teach rigorous thinking and create beautiful minds. Plainly, this is a mistaken notion on my part. Ever since the fancy schools started recruiting in the shtetl and the hood, elitism as a coherent narrative has declined to meaninglessness. It's now perfectly Princeton to be, say, a fitness-equipment infomercial mogul, clever and determined but also, in some deeper way, crass and wrong.

Crass and wrong? Try assuming that letting in a more diverse student body and/or encouraging diverse passions, points of view, ways of writing and interacting with the world is somehow debasing. Apparently Elizabeth longs for the good ol' days of overtly racist and sexist admissions and dead white men as the only philosophers that anyone thought worth reading. Seriously?

Then Wurtzel goes on to claim that Simmons has missed the boat in identifying what's really wrong with the kids these days:

In some cases the horror is that there is no horror. The good high-schoolers, the ones with Ivy League futures, are positively babied by their overprotective parents, who don't want their sons and daughters to do the things they did. Having gone through herpes-and-cocaine phases of their own, the Boomers and Xers who are rearing Dakota and Madison these days have scheduled them to death with cello lessons and tennis team--or a trip to the Girls Leadership Institute--until they have no time or energy for bad behavior.

Um, that's exactly Simmons' point, actually. She talks at length about the ways in which a girl's quality of life is diminished when she isn't able to take risks, fail and recover, go against the grain (whether it be her parents' or peers'), and speak her truth. She is essentially encouraging "bad behavior"--at least defined as behavior that is growth-producing, independent, scary, and, ultimately, rewarding. Perhaps Simmons prose was so straight forward that Wurtzel's elite-educated brain couldn't even understand the argument.

For me, this stinks of one woman trying to tear another one down out of pure jealousy and snobbery. To Wurtzel, it's only beautiful minds that matter. To me, beautiful hearts are pretty essential as well. (Rachel's got both, for the record.) Wurtzel seems to think that trying to write an accessible book based on tons of experience with real girls and a decade-long dedication to not just postulating or waxing poetic about girls, but really making their lives better, is beneath her and any bonafide authors.

Well, if that's the case, count me among the unbonafides. I'm much more invested in reaching people than sounding smart. That may make me dumb in Wurtzel's book, but come to think of it, I don't think I care. I learned that from Rachel, whose book advocates building a core made of something more solid than Ivy League diplomas, fancy vocabulary, or the approval of haughty intellectuals.

Thanks Rachel.

Last week was the World Economic Forum on Africa with a critical focus on the role of girls in the economic development of Africa. The World Economic Forums are a series of convenings led by a Swiss non-profit of the same name. Their platform focuses on the role of economic development and its relationship to social development with the simple vision to be, "the foremost organization which builds and energizes leading global communities; the creative force shaping global, regional and industry strategies; the catalyst of choice for its communities when undertaking global initiatives to improve the state the world." I suppose it is always hard to understand the depth of intent of these types of meetings without being present and while I am critical of top-down economic focused development plans for "developing nations," I think they still make profound contributions, if not just in giving us statistical and analytical data.

Maria Eitel, president of Nike Inc., and the person nominated by Obama to be in charge of the Corporation for National and Community Service (they run Americorps and Peacecorps) was at the meeting and took some interesting notes that I found via Huffington Post that included the following themes discussed at the meeting,

1. 1. Investing in girls as smarter economics
2. 2. Economic solutions are often masked by culture
3. 3. It's urgent - we can't wait. We must reach girls before they are 12
4. 4. Girls won't count until we count them...specifically
5. 5. A little bit of support is not enough

I think these are apt conclusions considering the precarious conditions for girls in Africa. But I do wonder is it empowering for these girls to have outside organizations doing development work? Or is that the only way at this point? I struggle with this questions a lot.

Hey crew. I'm here in New York City at the NCRW Annual Conference. I'll be live blogging all the sessions for the rest of the day, with a few other posts thrown in. The first session that I'm attending is Youth: Opportunities and Challenges for Building Pipelines for Leadership.

Supriya Pillai, Executive Director (ED) of the Funders' Collaborative on Youth Organizing:

1. Youth leaders already exist. We need to recognize that.
2. Youth leadership has to come from the inside. Young people of color need to be empowered to make change for themselves, in their own communities, in the best way they see fit.
3. Discussions around a leadership pipeline are not new. We need to start investing at the high school age, looking at young people of color as the engine for that pipeline.
4. Youth organizing is the best "after-school program." In winning and losing, especially losing, young people gain self-efficacy early on and learn about collective momentum.

She then talks about the example of Inner City Struggle in LA, which "goes beyond conversations about diversity to attack structural racism." Communities for Educational Equality. Their demand: young people of color need college. It is a human right. They created a curriculum called "A to G," designed to be a mandatory college prep course.

Major victories: the curriculum is passing statewide in California and they're trying to take it national. The key to their success has been young people organizing with their parents.

Supriya is amazing! I'm totally crushing on her.

Next is Kim Salmond from the Girls Scouts of the USA.

After a big new survey with girls about leadership, they have articulated a new framework for girls' leadership: Discover, connect, and take action. They are moving away from the typical Girl Scout model to a more deeply articulated approach that looks at the systemic influences in girls' lives. Only 9% of girls flat out reject the idea of becoming a leader themselves.

They're seeing a lack of urgency about women's leadership. Many see the change as "all done." The majority of boys and girls surveyed said that they wouldn't be disappointed if there wasn't a woman president anytime soon.

Next is Sally Stevens, ED of the Southwest Institute for Research on Women at the University of Arizona.

Linda Holmes, over at NPR, writes a moving letter about her fervent hope that Pixar can take it's unparalleled talent and use it to create a true female heroine. An excerpt:

Of the ten movies you've released so far, ten of them have central characters who are boys or men, or who are anthropomorphized animals or robots or bugs who are voiced by and imagined as boys or men. These movies feature women and girls to varying degrees -- The Incredibles, in particular -- but the story is never "a girl and the things that happen to her," the way it's "a boy and what happens to him."

I want so much for girls to have a movie like Up that is about someone they can dress up as for Halloween, as Anika Noni Rose said about starring as the voice in The Frog Princess. Not a girl who's a side dish, but a girl who's the big draw.

And I'd really, really like it not to be a princess.

Holmes references Tiana, the first black princess coming out of the Disney shop. There was an article this weekend in the Times about the whispers of controversy surrounding early viewings of her movie. Some believe that various aspects of the film reinforce racial stereotypes. It's hard to know until the rest of us have had a chance to check it out, but it's easy to imagine Disney screwing this up after their past racial missteps.

If you could sit in a story meeting with Pixar or Disney and pitch a feminist heroine for their next blockbuster film, what would you pitch?

Thanks to ang.halsted for the heads up.

The awesome Jessica Hopper has written a new book for girls about how to start your own rock band. What I love about this idea is it takes the brilliance of the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls and gives girls (and, um, adults, too!) who can't make it to camp a jolt of music-making inspiration.

Check her out on her book tour. And get the book for the future-rocker in your life.

And, for no reason other than it's Friday afternoon, let's play a vid from the Hopper-endorsed Katie Stelmanis. (I love the animation.)

Have a great weekend, y'all!

Mom, I promise I'll brush my hair next time.

Get The Double-Daring Book for Girls.

17 Again

A reader alerted us to this message at the bottom of the New York Times review of 17 Again, the new, sure-to-be Oscar-winning movie starring Zac Efron:

"17 Again" is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Girls are particularly cautioned.

After a quick plot synopsis (a dude's life was ruined because he turned down a basketball scholarship after his girlfriend got pregnant), reviewer Manohla Dargis notes "the story's obnoxious implications" are that "sex, meaning girls, can ruin your life." She makes clear that the movie's female characters are (surprise!) little more than simple stereotypes. So presumably this is what the "special girl warning" is referring to.

But if that is the case, doesn't sexist content merit a warning for boys AND girls? The assumption that a negative portrayal of women will only affect girls is simply crazy. Young people of all genders are deeply affected by repeated sexist portrayals of women in movies, music, and culture more generally. Yes, it can have very different effects on boys and girls. But how is it worse for a girl to think of herself as having to choose between harpy or sex object than it is for a boy to view all women as harpies or sex objects?

And what if the warning isn't a reference to sexist stereotypes of women? Honestly, I can't think of a single plot element that should prompt a warning for young women but not for young men, for the reasons stated above. Has anyone seen the movie? Any other speculation on what the warning refers to?

I am a huge fan of TED. I watch their videos every week. One of our readers sent this in and I thought it was really interesting. Brenda Laurel did years of research to design a game for young girls. She discusses that two types of people were her opposition. Male gamers and feminists. And what we have in common is we don't listen to children. Well, I know she isn't talking about me, hehe, but it is really interesting. It is from 10 years ago and things have changed in terms of video games and young girls since then, so even more interesting.

How do you create video games for girls?

via TED
Thanks to Colleen for the link!

Several years ago, I wrote a post about how I thought Barbie hadn't been bad for me. Sure, I said, I agree with criticism of the dolls' creepy blonde, blue-eyed, big-boobed uniformity. But, I wrote, for me the alternative gendered toy was baby-dolls. And at least Barbie was an adult who allowed me to play-act future roles for myself beyond motherhood.

Suffice to say, I would not write it this way if I were to set out to blog about Barbie today. (For better or worse, that's the nature of blogging. Your snap-shot opinions live on forever.) Even thought I didn't endorse Barbie in that post, and I said I understood that this toy is a truly destructive thing for most women, I didn't stop to fully consider -- or didn't really grasp -- the ways in which the "Barbie look" affected other young girls. (I told myself, this is a post about my personal experience. For me personally, Barbie wasn't so bad.)

I haven't thought about the post much since I published it. That is, until I clicked a link from JJP to this post Danielle Belton wrote at her blog, The Black Snob:

Along time ago at a kitchen table in an all-black, middle/working class neighborhood in St. Louis, Mo.'s North County a young Danielle Belton, age five, loved to draw and color more than anything in the world. My older sister, aka "Big Sis, bka Denise, didn't like to color, so I inherited all the coloring books she never used.

I could draw for hours and color for hours, but all I drew and colored were white people.

GO read her entire post. Her experience -- not mine -- is the baseline by which Barbie dolls (and their ilk) should be judged. And she provides a really powerful lens into a lot of the discussion around Sasha and Malia Obama.

Also, if you haven't already, go watch A Girl Like Me.

UPDATE: Veronica also has a good post on this subject.

I've written about the Girls Educational & Mentoring Services (GEMS) before, but I really had no idea how moving their work was until I watched the documentary about it, Very Young Girls.

The film weaves together the stories of about half a dozen teenage girls who have been sucked into "the life"--as they call it. "The life," as described through these vibrant, wounded girls is one typified by family insecurity and few resources, leading these girls to be incredibly vulnerable. In most cases, some guy with fast talk and some cash lures the girls in--telling them that he loves them and will take care of them like the father they never had--and before long has asked them to do "their part" by prostituting themselves. It's amazing to hear these young women describe the process of getting into "the life" because it sounds so incredibly cliche. It's stunning that it still goes on just this way, that these preying men (sometimes decades older than the girls) use just these lines, and that it works to systematically dismantle these girls' self esteem and sense of what is right for them.

Some of the most stunning scenes for me were those that involved men. In one, a packed room of men listen to a female police administrator explain the process of arrest for those soliciting prostitution. Presumably all of the men in the room--including young and old, Italian and African-American, Orthodox Jews, and everyone in between--have been arrested for just this crime. One asshole raises his hand and asks, "When do we get a break?" and the room erupts in laughter. I felt such a sense of repulsion, such a wave of anger, come up in me at that scene. I felt, I have to admit it, violent. I wanted to trap these guys in a room and make them watch themselves in the context of the rest of the documentary. I wanted them to have one-tenth of the pain and manipulation and imprisonment that the young girls sucked into "the life" feel.

The film engenders these kinds of feelings because it is just that powerful. The most redemptive part is, first and foremost, the girls. They are incredible, resilient, fighting, inspirational. And they are lead by the center of the film and the Executive Director and Founder of GEMS, Rachel Lloyd, who was once in "the life" herself and now dedicates herself every single day to getting other girls out of it. She is a force, an absolute model of what it means to seize your purpose and live it every day.

When the film was done, I felt such a deep sadness, but also the sort of outrage that is incredibly motivating. I immediately donated online (if the Facebook cause recruits 3,653 members in the next 98 days, there is a $5,000 pledge). I started telling everyone I know about it. I read up on the issue and promised myself that I'd write more about it.

The average age that young women become prostitutes is 13-years-old. You can't not learn more about this issue. Watch the film on demand on Showtime through March 3rd or hold a screening in your home. The GEMS site tells you how.

This advertisement for Chaser clothing was featured in a not-so-recent issue of Flaunt Magazine; it's about a year old but I still think it's too egregious not to point out. (It was the open mouthed thing that really put me over the edge.)

Via Ad Feminem, who has the company and magazine contact info for complaints.

I'm speaking at a conference on Saturday in Austin about relational aggression and body image (info here), and it's got me reminiscing about "mean girl" middle school and all the sad memories I have of feeling alienated and alienating others. My friends and I used to have something called "truth talks." Essentially we would sit around at slumber parties and tell one another "tough truths" about the events of the week...

Justin told me that he thought your outfit was ugly. I thought you should know.
Your new haircut doesn't look good. I wanted to tell you when you first asked, but I was afraid to.
Daniel doesn't want to go out with you. He wants to go out with me.

Ouch all around.

I think that Rachel Simmons' Odd Girl Out is the best text we've got on relational aggression and the underlying causes. In it, she shines a glaring light on the previously shadowed ways in which women undercut, criticize, alienate, and disrespect one another (not to mention themselves). She's does amazing work since it's publication through her Leadership Camp for Girls, speaking engagements, and consulting work through out the world. (Rachel has a new book coming out next spring--The Curse of the Good Girl--which I am so excited to read.)

Rachel has brought about a whole shift in consciousness with her groundbreaking first book. It seems that we are finally comfortable publicly admitting that women and girls do have the capacity to be highly aggressive. But it still feels like we are fairly stuck about what to do with this new field of "relational aggression" (covert bullying or psychological abuse). How do we actually make change? Rachel's camp is one model. The Ophelia Project is another.

I wonder what your personal take is. Why do you think adolescent girls, in particular, but women, in general, resort to competition, body snark, and passive aggressive manipulation? And most importantly, how can we stop it?

Fellow midwest diva Rachel sent along the following picture she snapped at a Target store in St. Paul, Minn.:

This wall decoration was for sale in the baby-items aisle. Apparently it's never too early to start fat-shaming and instilling body-self-consciousness! I wonder if parents who buy this also buy their infant daughters "high heels" and their six-year-olds padded bras? Ugh.

Elle, PhD noticed a little something (ok, a big something) about how some science kits are marketed to kids:

(Image via Elle, PhD)

She notes:

And while the "boy's" kit promises to boost your brain... the "girl's" kit promise to relax you and let you experiment with different fragrances. The boy's box is also covered with words like "go wild" and "erupt" and "blow your mind,"while the only thing that promises to be exciting about the girl's is the foaming and frothing of bubbles.

Then reader Maggie sent along a link to One-A-Day vitamins for teens:

It says, under the picture:

- Healthy muscle function with Magnesium (for Him)
- Healthy skin with Vitamins A and C, Copper, and Iron (for Her)

(Emphasis mine.) These are only two examples -- things I'd probably just roll my eyes at in the store and walk on by -- but it's worth pausing sometimes and thinking about how pervasive this messaging is. These aren't even cosmetic products! They're selling science kits and vitamins on the stereotype that girls want to smell nice and have soft skin, not strong muscles and big brains.

Related:
Heels for Babies: Not Funny.
Who needs credit cards when you have a junior vagina?
Barbie Girls and the culture of consumption
Because you're never too young to start adhering to patriarchal norms
Padded bras for six year-olds
Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers by Alissa Quart
Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters From Marketers' Schemes by Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown

Then to cheer yourself up, check out New Moon and Teen Voices, which provide non-stereotype-laden takes on girlhood today.

This PSA just about takes the victim blaming cake and plays off several inaccuracies about sexual violence towards young women.

TRIGGER WARNING.

Cara takes it to task at the Curvature. I am disgusted by this video.

Update: After thinking about this some more, I think what is upsetting about this is that it perpetuates the belief that rape is a young woman's fault and that if parents buy their daughters alcohol they are putting them at risk of rape. I am assuming that there is a harm reduction campaign around parents monitoring alcohol intake of youth by providing it for them and probably providing a place for them to drink it.

It is victim-blaming to suggest it is the fault of parents for buying alcohol or the fault of their daughter to be drunk and therefore gotten herself raped. What about telling young men to not rape drunk women? That is what the focus of the PSA should be. Perhaps another conversation about youth and alcohol consumption is needed, but let's not tangle the issues. Alcohol is not the cause of misogyny and sexual violence against young women.

New Moon, the magazine for girls by girls and the first place I was ever published (awww, how cute), has just launched a brand new online site for girls ages 8-12. It's totally interactive and completely safe. If you've got a girl in your life that needs a virtual space to express herself, learn from others her age, and generally feel heard, check it out.

There are certain headlines that I really never want to see. This is one of them:

Dora to explore older, racier market

For those who don't know the fabulous Dora the Explorer, she's the character of a top-rated Nickelodeon television show about a little girl who goes, well, exploring while also teaching children Spanish. It's a great show. But apparently, it's not sexy enough.

Dora the Explorer, the wide-eyed cartoon character adored by young children around the world, is facing a makeover amid competition from older, racier rivals.

Nickelodeon, the children's television network owned by Viacom, has been discussing a redesign of some Dora-themed toys and other merchandise that would make the character appear more feminine, say people familiar with the talks. (Emphasis mine)

Oh dear. Dora wouldn't be the first beloved cartoon character to get a sexy new look, but for some reason I find this more depressing than past "makeovers."

You can contact Viacom, who owns Nickelodeon, here.

Thanks to Morgan for the link!

Check out Girls Inc. new project, Dear World, It's Me, a Girl. They asked girls one question:

If you could send a message to the whole world about what it's like growing up as a girl today, what would you say?

Two hundred and seventy-five girls from Girls Inc. organizations across the United States and Canada wrote Dear World letters about growing up a girl in today's world and read them on videotape.They will slay you.