*Spoiler Alert: in order to critique this show, I need to reveal some plot points.

Zombies do not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or ability…people do. This sad truth played out in the short but compelling 6-episode first season of AMC’s new show The Walking Dead. Zombies eat any living thing they come across – scary but not evil creatures because they don’t have a functioning brain which would allow them to be human, to distinguish right from wrong.

 Admittedly, I haven’t read the graphic novels of Robert Kirkman, on which this series is based. So, I’m not 100% sure who to credit for the plot twists that portrayed the violent racism of a white supremacist, the vulnerability of daughter and wife to a physically-abusive man, and the terror of a woman fighting off a former lover who is trying to rape her. When the hospital is invaded by “walkers” (a.k.a. zombies), the living soldiers choose to execute ill and disabled patients rather than try to rescue them. [Mind you, the zombies do not seem to move fast enough to cause problems for someone armed with a semiautomatic weapon, but the choice is still made to sacrifice these lower status people.]

 If a common enemy should unite, then social scripts of bigotry and bias should disappear. As one character notes in the season finale, human beings may have reached their point of extinction. The question is whether the zombies or our own human failings are to blame.

With record ratings, the Wall Street Journal and other sources report that this Sunday night’s finale attracted 6 million viewers.  I may not be the typical fan of this show, so I wonder: will most viewers remain focused on the horror of a gruesome, fictitious zombie epidemic? Or, are there others like me, who despite flinching every time a zombie lunged for a bite of human flesh, left the season finale feeling acutely aware of the very real pandemic that plagues almost all societies: that potent combination of bigotry and selfishness which manifests as one of the many ‘isms. I’ve yet to see a ‘walker’ lurching down a street, but I have encountered far too many living human beings who lack empathy, respect, and compassion for each other and for the diversity of life on this planet.

On my other blog, I recently posted a review of the book Origins:  How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives (Annie Murphy Paul, 2010). I wasn’t particularly fond of the book.  It offers an overview of research being done in the last few decades to determine fetal origins, or the ways in which people are affected—perhaps for generations—by what happens during the time that they are gestating.  Despite the author’s good intentions, I found it to be a troubling book.  As I recounted in my review, even as a woman who isn’t pregnant, I felt uncomfortable reading, like I was being indicted for not being careful enough while I was pregnant, back in the day.  While Paul acknowledges the danger of this research being used to bolster already culturally prevalent “mother blame,” she frames her work in the hope that it can provoke broader cultural change and positive evaluation of mothering, from the point of conception onward.  I said I didn’t think it worked, and that I did, in fact, feel blamed.

What I wanted to talk about here is not my review but the comments it received.  I’ve had a number of responses, and the thing that’s interesting is that many have been lengthy.  Folks haven’t just been weighing in—”I disagree!”—but offering counterarguments or lengthy explanations of how fetal origins research is or isn’t valid.  Some have been arguments based in personal experience, others have been based in professional expertise (medical anthropology, for instance, or anesthesiology).

So my question is, why did this matter enough to readers that, in responding, they essentially wrote blog posts of their own?

I think the answer is that parenthood is a high stakes endeavor, particularly for the middle-class (overwrought?) parents cohort I belong to.  More specifically, motherhood is a high stakes endeavor—and I say this with all respect to my partner, who is an outstanding father to our daughter, but who doesn’t face the pressure that mothers routinely face.

All of us who are in the realm of motherhood—either as parents or as scholars of motherhood—know this.  The internet is full of jokes about “mompetitors” that friends regularly send me.  This piece from Salon maps out the topics you simply can’t discuss, and it’s not wrong:  breastfeeding, attachment parenting, the family bed, and crying babies are topics I’ve found to be so highly-charged that I’m incredibly careful about talking about them, even with very close friends.

The reason I read Origins is that I’m currently doing research into prenatal testing, and that’s another subject that’s so high stakes that many of us simply don’t talk about it at all.  When some of my friends have been pregnant, they haven’t shared the news until after they’ve had the amniocentesis that determined that this is a pregnancy they’re actually going to continue.  I’d hoped that Paul would discuss this aspect of our cultural assessment of the fetus, but she didn’t.  She did, however, share that many of the studies base their assessment of prenatal health on postnatal IQ scores, a fact that I found very troubling.

We’re raising kids in a culture that’s perfectionistic and that seems to believe, by and large, that we—as mothers—are always wrong.  If something “bad” happens involving our child (such as short attention spans, low IQ scores, or asthma), it’s our fault.  Since we’re already pummeled with this viewpoint, scientific research that says, “And it’s true while the baby’s in utero, too!” isn’t necessarily helping matters.  This isn’t to say that the scientific research is or isn’t valid.  I’m not a scientist, and my skepticism about some of the studies Paul reports on isn’t definitive.  What I’m saying is that this science is emerging from and feeding into a culture that has some very troubling, individualizing, and sexist views.  I think my readers are attuned to that culture, as well, and it makes all of us a bit defensive.

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The good news is that Tangled is funny, fast-paced, humorous, and visually stunning.

The bad news is that it re-hashes the same old story – that as a woman you can either be a princess awaiting her prince or an evil stepmother/witch, that if you are male, you get all the action (in many senses of the word) and that beauty equals white, blonde, thin, and young.

This bad side of the story is ironic considering Disney’s recent announcement they won’t be making any more princess films. Instead, what they have done, is made a princess film but not named it after the princess – how groundbreaking!

As Margot Magowan notes, Disney’s announcement could be a good sign. “Great! No more damsels in distress who end the movie by landing a man,” she writes. Alas, as Magowan and others document, it’s not about ending the helpless princess meme, instead, it’s about making sure the movies have big enough audience appeal (read: appeal to boys and men, not JUST girls and women).

Apparently, to appeal to the male demographic, “swashbuckling action” is necessary, as are the inclusion of many mega-muscular man characters. In order to make the film “gender neutral” Disney has privileged male characters over females – to the tune of countless key male figures in the movie and only TWO – yes TWO – key females – Rapunzel and the evil Mother Gothel.

As it is Disney, media giant, making these representations, they carry inordinate cultural weight. As Magowan writes, “ because this boys club completely dominates kidworld, their privileging of males over females with no care at all, their disregard for half the population, is really sad.”

This male privileging of the story is apparent from the first image in Tangled, which opens zoomed in on a wanted poster of Flynn Rider, as he narrates “This is a very fun story and the truth is it isn’t even mine.”

The “fun” story involves the kidnapping and imprisonment of Rapunzel – the female protagonist that Disney execs decided didn’t deserve to be front and center. And, even though Flynn admits the story “isn’t even mine,” the story becomes very much about him and less about Rapunzel. While this has been called a “gender neutral makeover,” it seems to me it is more of a masculinist makeover.

As noted by the film’s producer during production, “We’re having a lot of fun pairing Flynn, who’s seen it all, with Rapunzel, who’s been locked away in a tower for 18 years.” Ah, a man of the world who has “seen it all” with a woman who knows nothing as she has been “locked away” – how egalitarian and gender neutral!

In addition to the male lead Flynn, Rapunzel has the requisite animal sidekick – a male chameleon named Pascal. And, once she escapes out into the real world – she encounters a plethora of males – the horse Maximus (how is that for a testosterone fueled name?!?), the thugs that serve as Flynn’s former thieving buddies, and, finally, the many light-hearted ruffians from the pub, The Snuggly Duckling. Additionally, Rapunzel’s Father (the King) is focussed on in a few scenes meant to emphasize how much he and his wife (the Queen) still miss their daughter. In these scenes, his hulking, bearded figure dominate the screen, his face torn with sadness – while his diminutive wife (the apparently unimportant queen) stands below and beside him as comforting helpmeet.

As for Rapunzel, imprisoned within the tower since a child, she is a waiflike female with big eyes and a teeny tiny waist that sings about doing chores with the refrain “wonder when my life will begin.” To add to her miniscule waist, Rapunzel is stereotypically overly emotional, swinging from one end of a mood swing to another as often as she (and others) swing from her long golden locks.

By films end, she has lost these magical locks after Flynn cuts them to save her life – and her remaining hair – no longer magical – turns brown (talk about latent color symbolism!). Her “happy ending” involves being returned to her real parents and marrying Flynn – who, the movie makes a POINT of emphasizing, proposed to her, not the other way around.

Admittedly, there are moments where Rapunzel is portrayed as brave and heroic, as when she tells Mother Gothel “for every minture for the rest of my life I will fight” or when she heals Flynn, saves them both from drowning, and is instrumental in their escape from the Snuggly Duckling and various other chase scenes. She is, no doubt, an improvement on Snow White, who could only sing to animals and happily clean up after seven dwarves. Yet, as Scott Mendelson indicates, her bravery is framed in a “condescending ‘girl-power’ punch or two” way – it is the exception to her character, rather than the rule. While Flynn is all masculine adventure, power, and cunning, she is all long blonde locks with a hint of you-go-girl attitude to appease a 21^st century audience.

Obviously the (male) execs at Diseny wanted to stay true to the fairy tale roots and thus kept Rapunzel white and blonde, kept the evil witch character, and kept the rescuing prince (though admittedly amping up his role) – but even keeping to this narrow white and male privileged script, could they not have thrown in some female animals and or patrons at the Snuggly Duckling?

And what possessed the film-makers to have Flynn immediately call Rapunzel “Blondie”? Yes, it’s so funny when we identify women by their looks and body rather than bothering to learn or remember their names! (Not to mention the cultural associations with being called “Blondie” such as the assumption one is dumb, “over-sexed,” and/or good for no more than a pretty appearance).

Moreover, as Renee of Womanist Musings points out, the glorifying of blonde hair – yet again – is problematic. She writes:

“As a Black woman, I know all to well how complicated the issue of hair can be.  Looking at the above image [of Tangled’s Rapunzel], I found that I could not see beyond her long blond hair and blue eyes.  I believe that this will also become the focal point of many girls of colour.  The standard of long flowing blond hair as the epitome of femininity necessarily excludes and challenges the idea that WOC are feminine, desired, and some cases loved and therefore, while Disney is creating an image of Rapunzel that we are accustomed to, her rebirth in a modern day context is problematic, because her body represents the celebration of White femininity.

…

Notably, Mother Gothel, Rapunzel’s evil abductress, has dark hair and eyes and non-Caucasian features.

According to Christian Blaulvelt of Entertainment Weekly, “Mother Gothel is a dark, dark character. I mean, she’s a baby snatcher.” Ah yes, and she is dark in more ways than one – her dark skin, hair, and clothing contrasting with the golden whiteness of Rapunzel.

Alan Menken, the musical composer for the film, similarly notes that “Mother Gothel is a scary piece of work. Nothing she is doing is for the good of Rapunzel at all. It’s all for herself” Emphasizing her manipulative relationship with Rapunzel, Menken admits, “I was concerned when writing it. Like, will there be a rash of children trying to kill their parents after they’ve seen the movie?” Wow – how about worrying if there will be a rash of children who will see DARK-SKINNED mothers (and non-wedded ones) as evil and sinister?

In addition to carrying on Disney’s tradition of problematic representations of race, the film also keeps with the tradition of framing females beauty obsession as evil and “creepy” (Flyn’s words) rather than as understandable in a world of Disneyfied feminine norms. A mirror worshipper to rival the evil queen in Snow White, Gothel is presented as a passive-aggressive nightmare — she is the tyrannical single mother that is so overbearing Rapunzel must beg for the opportunity to leave the tower.

To sum up, in this “gender neutral” remake, we have a film dominated by male characters that focuses on the magical golden hair of a white princess who must be saved from an evil dark witch. Yes, it’s funny with strong dialogue and good songs. Yes, it’s a feast for the eyes and provides many laughs. Yes, I love the fact Rapunzel has more verve and spunk than her princess predecessors. But, no, Disney has not cut its ties to a white male-privileged view of the world. Not even close.

.

We love to puzzle over the rise in employment for women vs the decline in employment for men. Is it about psychology? (Leads to speculation about men’s feelings of inadequacy.) Is it interpersonal? (Ends in “what does this mean for marriage?”… or how can we relate this to attachment parenting, [ffs]?).

But the big, giant, huge social forces of racism plus capitalism might help too: to wit, today the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) has published an analysis of Bureau of Justice Statistics data that indicates that incarceration in America reduces our male employment rate by 1.5 to 1.7 percent. The paper, “Ex-Offenders and the Labor Market,” follows the CEPR’s paper “The High Budgetary Cost of Incarceration” that was released last June.

Each year we produce around 700,000 “ex-offenders” … and those people’s prospects on the job market are undermined. Meanwhile, more than 90 percent of those ex-offenders are men. And a disproportionate number of them are African American.

“It isn’t just that we have the highest incarceration rate in the world, we have created a situation over the last 30 years where about one in eight men is an ex-offender,” said John Schmitt, a Senior Economist at CEPR and a co-author of the report with Kris Warner, also from CEPR. Schmitt blogs on more details of his report here.

Consider this: When you are thinking about gender and trends in employment consider that in America, doing time is a social institution we’ve organized for doing gender. It is another one of our “man laws.”

-Virginia Rutter

Last week baby name expert Pamela Redmond Satran, co-author of Beyond Ava & Aiden, published a piece at The Daily Beast about how more and more parents are choosing gender-neutral boys’ names, reflecting a different ideal of masculinity (Boy Baby Names: Gender Neutral Trend, from Cullen to Cameron).  I’m quoted at the end:

“Among my generation of parents, our nontraditional boys’ names—vaguely androgynous, nonmacho, or just plain unique—reflect our own desire to raise sons who will be as comfortable pushing dolls in strollers as pushing trucks,” said Deborah Siegel, Ph.D., author of Sisterhood, Interrupted and founding partner of SheWrites….“But what I wonder is this: Will a boy by a different name really be that much more sweet?”

It got me thinking.  Offspring of a generation that believed boys and girls were made, not just born, I know better.  But the nature/nurture debate rages on.  And sometimes I wonder whether social expectation has replaced biology as destiny.

I mean, if social expectation, and not biology, shapes who children become, does that somehow put an unfair burden on us to create the self-confident, athletic, truck-loving girls and sensitive, doll-hugging boys we were raised to achieve?

Clearly, I’m in a bit of a knot about it all.  Probably just because I just haven’t had much sleep.

Would love to hear what YOU think.

Maybe it’s because my daughter squealed with delight when she saw the cover to the latest catalog that showed up at our house, but I’m not totally aghast with the fact that Mindware is selling a “science is fun!” spa kit. Yes, I still get upset when I see microscopes painted pink to attract girls, I don’t think women in science & engineering need to be sexy to attract the next generation of scientists & engineers and I’m still torn about computer science Barbie.

But my daughter’s seven now and is, well, quite the girly girl.

Yes, she still kicks butt on the soccer field and earns straight As, but she’s also very much in touch with her girly side. She loves to get her nails done (which I limit due to the toxicity of nail polish). She also is finally old enough and I think agile enough to really do her own hair.

She does girly in her own way. Too much pink for me at times, so it wasn’t too much of a shocker when she told me that she was putting the spa kit on her wish list.

To be exact, I handed her the catalog and asked if she wanted anything from it for Solstice or Christmas. She also really wants the Tasty Science kit, a spider robot to scare her dad with, thought about the butterflies, but figured our dogs would eat them, definitely the mega-connect-the-dots books and a whole bunch of other straight-up-non-gendered science toys. Thus my daughter is not being attracted to science by a face mask, rather she sees two of her interests colliding.

And when I’m working in the community or even talking to students on campus who aren’t sure where their place is in science or engineering, I ask them what their passion is. Not what they want to do when they grow up, but their passions. Music? Art? Dance? Hiking? Social networking? I can find the science, engineering, technology or math in that and then I tear into my “get as much math as possible, calculus if you can, done in high school” speech.*

Most of the commenters at The Frisky thought that Jessica was making too much of this. I see their point. But with the glut of “paint it pink and girls will love it!” toys around, I don’t blame her either. The spa kit isn’t what I would get her myself, but as the years swirl past me, I have learned I need to pick my battles. Am I really going to throw down over a spa kit? Plus Mindware’s search box on the left doesn’t ask if you want to search by gender, which is a HUGE sign of progress.

So do I wish my daughter would squeal about a microscope? Kinda. But she did gawk at the chemistry set!

* I say that because most engineering schools/colleges will start their curriculum at calculus for first-year students. Thus if a student enters and isn’t ready for calculus, they can feel (or made to feel) as if they are ‘behind’ and that’s quite an enthusiasm killer. Also, if you are ready for calculus your first year, you have just about the entire college catalog open to you. More math = more choices.

Well, my little dragon v. bee dilemma got nothin’ on this adorable, brave, and wonderfully-supported-by-his-mama five-year-old little boy from Kansas City who decided he wanted to be Daphne from Scooby Doo for Halloween.  Heartfelt kudos to that mama, who defended his — and her — choice at her blog, Nerdy Apple Bottom, and on CNN. The photo she took of her soon went viral, generating at least a million hits and more than 26,000 comments. Tara Parker-Pope wrote about it all yesterday in the NYTimes (“When Boys Dress Like Girls”).

Some spot-on, fierce words from the boy’s mama, to the moms who gave her — and him — trouble:

If you think that me allowing my son to be a female character for Halloween is somehow going to ‘make’ him gay then you are an idiot. Firstly, what a ridiculous concept. Secondly, if my son is gay, O.K., I will love him no less. Thirdly, I am not worried that your son will grow up to be an actual ninja so back off.

Back off indeed.

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I had the pleasure of spending last weekend in the presence of Isla, a four-year-old who LOVES Toy Story Two and LOVES Jessie even more. When the scene highlighting Jessie’s back story came on, she jumped off the couch and ran towards the television with a look of rapture on her face. Once the song finished and the main narrative resumed, she chanted “More Jessie, more Jessie!!!”

Sadly, if her parents bring home Toy Story 3 for her to enjoy (released on DVD November 2^nd), she will find there is not more Jessie. Rather, the male toys are still front and center. Meanwhile, the female toys have gone missing (Bo), fallen in love with Ken (Barbie) or gone soft for Latino Buzz (Jessie).

Though Toy Story 3 opens on a female-empowerment high, with Mrs. Potato-Head displaying mad train-robbing skills and Jessie skillfully steering Bullseye in the ensuing chase, from there, the bottom drops out of the film’s female quotient. Out of seven new toy characters, only one is female – the purple octopus. This is far worse than the one female to every three males ratio documented in children’s media by The Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media.

When I first viewed the 3^rd film, I was almost giddy as Mrs. Potato-Head and Jessie chased a train in the opening scene. Alas, after this first scene, the movie went back to its male focus, throwing in rather sexist and homophobic banter along the way. For example, Mr. Potato Head says at one point “No one touches my wife, except for me!” while another character suggests she needs her mouth taken off. As for Ken, he is depicted as a closeted gay fashionista with a fondness for writing in sparkly purple ink. Played for adult in-jokes, Ken huffily insists “I am not a girl toy, I am not!” when an uber-masculine robot toy suggests as much during a heated poker match. In the typical way homophobia is paired with misogyny, the jokes about Ken suggest how funny and scary it is for a man to be either feminine or queer. Admittedly, Barbie ultimately rejects Ken and is instrumental in Woody and Co’s escape, but her hyper-feminine presentation coupled with Ken’s not-yet-out-of-the-toy-cupboard homophobia make this yet another family movie that perpetuates damaging gender and sexuality norms.

Though the film ends with young Bonnie as the happy new owner of the toys, Woody would have to become Wanda and Buzz become Betty in order for the series to break Pixar’s male-only protagonist tradition. Finally a female-helmed film is on the horizon though – Brave – too bad the protagonist is a princess (how original!) and Pixar recently fired the female director (it’s first ever).

This is not to say that Pixar’s films are not funny and clever. And I would agree that in many regards Pixar films are an improvement on Disney. But need we settle for “better than Disney”? Can’t we ask they also make films with female protagonists, with racial and class diversity, without homophobic jokes, and, ahem, with FEMALE DIRECTORS?

Some 43 years after Mowgli’s love interest in The Jungle Book sings of her future daughter, “I’ll send her to fetch the water, I’ll be cooking in the home” her metaphorical daughters populate not only Disney films, but also those of Dream Works and Pixar. Alas, not only do these animated daughters still accord to gender norms for the most part, so too do their creators – most animators, screenwriters, directors, and producers are still men, completing Mowgli type adventures in the Hollywood jungle, adventures that still place boys front and center while keeping their female counterparts as figurative water fetchers.

Brenda Chapman, the female director who seemingly broke away from the sticky Cinderella floor to slipper through the glass ceiling into what is reportedly the Pixar boys club was sadly turned back into a non-directing pumpkin– no fairy tale ending for her as the director heroine of Brave, a film she wrote and has been developing for several years. Instead, Mark Andrews has reportedly taken over director duties. The title of his Pixar Short, One Man Band, is a fitting way to describe what seems to have become Pixar’s one-note ode to male helmed and focused films.

While changes in directors are common in the film world, Chapman’s firing caused quite the stir as she was Pixar’s first woman director – all eleven previous films were directed by (and featured) men. Pixar is not unique in this regard: As Sharon Waxman & Jeff Sneider write, “The animation industry is not known as a warm and fuzzy place for women.”

And, it was only this year that a woman finally won Best Director at the Academy Awards, despite the fact women have been involved in filmmaking since its beginnings in 1896.

Tracy L., a former film development executive with 12 years experience in the industry, responded to Chapman’s dismissal as follows:

“The bigger issue here is not the firing but why Pixar has never had a female director to begin with. The bigger story to my way of thinking is the utter lack of female input behind the scenes and the lack of female protagonists on screen.”

In films, this lack of women behind the scenes seems to translate to a certain type of woman character on screen–one who is less heroic, adventuresome, independent and important than the male robots, toys, cars and humans that surround her.

With Disney figuratively cutting Rapunzel’s powerful locks by making Tangled more boy-focused, and now Pixar taking away Chapman’s directorial wand, what’s next–a film about a female warrior who suddenly becomes a gooey-eyed animal lover? Oh, that’s already been done (Pocahontas). How about taking a you-go-girl patriarchy-defier and stealing her voice? Oh, that one is taken too (Little Mermaid).Wait, I know: a movie about a matriarchal society filled with female power-players that have to be saved by a tremulous boy. (Oops, that’s Bug’s Life).

So, I want to add my virtual voice and echo four-year-old Isla “I want more Jessie!” Come on, Pixar, get with the Bigelow effect already: encourage more women directors and more female friendly story-lines! Really, now, let some women lead your (or at least play in) your one-man band, would you?

My twins turned one last week. She Writes, the start-up I’ve been nurturing, turned 1.25. Needless to say, this is the year Halloween nearly blew me by.

I bah-humbugged it all the way to Tuesday. While shopping for diaper wipes online on Wednesday, a neon orange tagline from the crypt—“Last minute deals on Halloween costumes!”—caught my eye. Who in their right mind could resist images of cuddly babies in bear suits? I landed on a bee costume for Baby Girl (just $12!) and a dragon suit for Baby Boy ($18). The joy of these purchases? Priceless. And that’s how it hit me: At one year old, my babies were people. People who wouldn’t remember what they wore for their first real Halloween, but people who would newly experience the magic of disguise.

So what do the disguises I chose for these here babies say to them, to you, to me? Bees are busier and daintier than dragons, and they make honey, though let’s not forget: they sting. Dragons lope, and breathe fire. I thought about a ladybug for my son, to match my daughter’s bee, then vetoed it. He’s really more a dragon-y type of guy. And so it goes. Gendering—imposed by even the feminist among us—begins.

“Babies are born to parents who have a host of assumptions and expectations about gender, whether or not they consciously endorse those expectations. Studies have shown that parents have a tendency to see boys as more boyish and girls as more girlish than they actually are,” says Cordelia Fine, author of the new book Delusions of Gender, in a recent interview at Salon. Until they reach age two, my babies apparently won’t know which side of the gender divide they’re on. Gender, at this early stage, is what we heap on.

So why all this fuss around costumes and kids? Because eventually, it matters (and stay tuned, Penners, for Peggy Orenstein’s Cinderella Ate My Daughter, coming soon!). Though my babies are only one, in an era when pre-packaged girl costumes are sluttier-than-thou and boy costumes are more violent than ever and make Freddy Krueger look quaint, masquerade is rarely the innocent thing it seemed in the days when my friends and I dressed as a bunch of grapes.

Dressing up—whether it unleashes a hidden identity or helps us try on a role—makes us feel, deepens our sense of play, enlargens our sense of who and what we are. And dressing up the way a sexist culture tells us to makes us small, current articles in defense of Slutoween aside.

To be sure, at this stage in my children’s life, this whole debate is a lot less about them and a lot more about me.  But here’s my question: at what age do new parents like me need to start to care?  At my babies’ pre-linguistic stage, can’t Halloween be just what it’s supposed to be…light and silly and fun?  Or are costumes–like gender, perhaps, itself–always already predetermined scripts, coded so heavily with trickery that we can’t enjoy the treat?

Can a dragon and a bee ever just be…a dragon and a bee?

***

(For a fellow traveler’s internal dilemma on it all, see Lynn Harris’ “Raising Girls in Princess Culture: Does it really affect girls’ gender roles?” over at Babble last week.)

I posted a partial version of this post on Friday at www.SheWrites.com, and used the photo of my twins to kick off a caption contest. Got a caption for it?  Do share by posting it there!

Yes, I’m still here!  The twins turned 1 last week and it’s time for me to re-enter.

A quick list of what’s been catching my attention of late:

Rita Aren’s blog, Surrender Dorothy (I’m way hooked)

Stephanie Coontz’s commentary, “Why Mad Men is TV’s Most Feminist Show”, in the Washington Post

The SPARK Summit and social media extravaganza, where I signed books sitting next to Jean Kilbourne, author most recently of So Sexy So Soon and one of my all-time feminist heroines, met her daughter the fabulous Claudia Lux (hire her, people!), and got to catch up with organizer Deb Tolman, who is a one-woman powerhouse herself

Robyn Silverman’s Good Girls Don’t Get Fat: How Weight Obsession is Messing Up Our Girls and How We can Help Them Thrive Despite It

Girls Write Now.  Always.

Responses to She Writes’ Domestic Violence Awareness Month writing prompt

What’s been catching yours?