Strollerderby : girls

Please, Pixar, No Princesses

Amy Kuras — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:01:00 GMT

So Pixar’s latest, “Up” seems to be a big hit, earning rave reviews and scoring big at the box office.

But it prompted Linda Holmes, blogger for NPR’s pop culture blog Monkey See, to write a heartfelt open letter to Pixar.

“This is not an angry letter. It is especially not an angry letter about Up, which I adored,” she begins. “I could have sat in the theater and watched it two more times in a row….
So I'm not complaining; I'm asking. I'm asking because I think so highly of you.

Please make a movie about a girl who is not a princess.”

She points out that Pixar is making some of the best movies around right now, and that while they have very strong female characters, none of them are in the fact the protagonist, the person whose story it is. I didn’t realize this until I read her lovely and sweet blog, but wow, she’s right.

Holmes calls on Pixar to remember those “little girls with Band-Aids on their knees” who don’t see themselves on screen all that much. She want girls to have a great movie like “Up” that features someone they can dress up had for Halloween.

I agree. I have one of those little girls with Band Aids on her knees (and pretty much everywhere else a kid can fall over) and while she’s newly in love with the Disney Princesses and everything pink, purple or sparkly, she’s also a fearless little adventurer.

Holmes ends her piece with: “I'm just saying, keep them in mind, those girls in Band-Aids, because they want to see themselves on screen doing death-defying stunts, too.”

I hope sometime soon, the phenomenally talented people at Pixar take her up on it. Not just for my girl, but for my son, too.

Kid's Hair Chewing Almost Kills Her

JeanneSager — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:01:00 GMT

That's it. I'm scheduling a haircut for my daughter.

After years of pulling it out of her mouth and saying "don't chew on your hair," I read this: a five-year-old in England swallowed so much of her own hair that it formed a rope that was constricting her organs.

Yes, her hair almost killed her.

Yum. Is it bad to say I chuckled a little at the fact that they called this Rapunzel syndrome (Rapunzel, Rapunzel, poop out your hair)? Come on, she survived! The tot, Millie Wallis, was suffereing from stomach aches for months, and visits to the doctor and hospital turned up nothing for half a year. Finally an "internal scan" revealed a large foreign object in her stomach. They thought it was a tumor until they went in and found the rope of hair, stretching from the stomach down farther in the digestive tract, cutting through her bowel.

It's a worst case scenario, I know. But it's none too pleasant pulling hairs out of your kid's butt because they've swallowed them and they're just sort of hanging out there (sorry for the TMI), so my warning still stands - let them eat cake . . . not hair.

Image: Daily Mail

via Jezebel

Ten of the Best Lines from Kiddie Lit

Toys R Us Can't Be Serious. But They Are.

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Thu, 21 May 2009 20:30:00 GMT

Does your daughter have a burning desire to play Ouija board? But clearly she can’t since the game is totally for boys? Well, for only $19.99, you can make your daughter’s dream come true, because Hasbro just came out with a new “just for girls” Ouija board!

What makes this edition different from the original Ouija board that can be handmade in minutes? I’ll give you one guess. You got it: It’s pink!

Not only that, but this new edition also comes with 72 question cards, since a big problem for young girls is that they always freeze up when it’s their turn to ask a ghost a personal question about their lives.

According to the product description, girls needn’t worry their pretty little heads any longer:

It has always been mysterious. It has always been mystifying. And now the OUIJA Board is just for you, girl. With 72 fun questions included, you'll never run out of things to ask. Who will call/text me next? Will I be a famous actor someday? Who wishes they could trade places with me?

Who would have guessed that a splash of pink is all it takes to get the catty, boy-crazy girl ghosts to spill the beans?

You might be interested to learn that the game is marketed for girls between the ages of eight and twelve. Now third graders don’t have to worry whether that “special someone” will send them a text. They can just ask a dead person! Progress never looked so good.

Image: AV Club

Don't Ask If We're Trying to Have a Boy . . . or a Girl

JeanneSager — Fri, 01 May 2009 17:28:00 GMT

My friend cried hysterically when she found out her first baby was going to be a boy. Now, two boys later, she says she'd likely only get pregnant again if she could guarantee another boy.

So what's the most common question she's asked about the possibility of number three? "So, are you going to try for your girl?"

Writer Amy Wilson has written a compelling piece for Parenting Magazine about why that question comes so often for mothers of little boys . . . and why it's just so darn inappropriate.

"It bothers me that people assume I feel incomplete without a daughter, let alone that it's my motivation for being pregnant with a third child in the first place," she says.

I actually have a daughter, my one and only, and I get the opposite question: "when are you going to give her a little brother?" Or, maybe worse "when are you going to make your husband a little boy?"

Just as Wilson is disturbed by the notion that her life would be considered incomplete without a little girl, I wonder why a little boy is so necessary to round out a family. And why should I be putting the burden of being one or the other on this little fetus who really has no control.

Gender preferences are somewhat natural, don't get me wrong. There's the idea, as Wilson had, that you better understand the gender you have (with her, the boys) or the gender you are (why many women say they want a girl, many men say they're shooting for a boy). But those preferences will go away when a child comes along. They did for my friend. They did for Wilson, whose third baby, it turned out, was a little girl.

So why does the rest of the world seem to think we can't turn it off? Or assume it's there to begin with? I can honestly say I didn't know which (or I should say who) I wanted. I was equally excited and terrified by each gender. I'd changed boy diapers before, but never girls. But then again, I am a girl, I know how that works . . . and so forth. I worried about the still tenuous mother-daughter relationship I have with my mother. I worried about the father-son relationship my husband has with his dad. I thought about reading Anne of Green Gables with a little girl, about my friend's cuddly little ball of love of a boy.

And, in the end, I got a girl. A beautiful, sweet, sometimes drives me a little bonkers, girl. I wouldn't trade her in for a boy. I wouldn't replace her with a boy. And if I had it to do over, I might even find myself saying "yes, if we could guarantee another girl."

For those of us with one gender of children (be it one, two, three, etc.), it's really not the end of the world. Really. If anything, it's just the beginning.

Iowa Mulling Same Sex Birth Certificates?

Also on Babble:

One is the Awesomest Number

Pick a Sex, Any Sex

High School Coach Fired for Appearing in Playboy

JeanneSager — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:03:00 GMT

Angry parents managed to make their school fire a cheerleading coach who had posed naked for Playboy. But for all the outrage from parents over this woman who was supposed to be acting as a "role model" to their kids, is anyone surprised the real reason Carlie Christine got canned was because she refused to overlook a few school rules?

According to a California TV station, Christine was fine until a few girls didn't make her squad because of unexcused absences from school. That's when the girls' cranky parents made copies of her centerfold (which is quite nekkid - our big brother publication Nerve has the pictures if you want to see - but you'll have to search for them yourself on Google, they're definitely NSFW) and dropped them on the principal's desk.

Apparently, they wouldn't have cared who was coaching their daughters until they found out no one was coaching them.

Now that word is out, of course, that Christine was Playboy's "cyber girl of the week" and posed totally topless in the centerspread of the magazine. And parents are mad that she was ever allowed around their kids.

I'm on the fence about this one - perhaps more so because of the duplicity of the parents. It's a pity they couldn't be righteously indignant BEFORE they wanted Christine to bend school rules for their kids.

While I would hope that a cheerleading coach, who is supposed to be someone teen girls look up to, would have a little more respect for herself than to do this, I will say she was doing something completely legal (she wasn't on a street corner, folks), and she did it on her own time. She wasn't holding a modeling shoot in the middle of practice. And last I checked, cheerleading coaches don't exactly make a lot of money.

What do you think parents? Should Christine get the ouster or should these parents learn to grow up?

Image: Nerve

(Also of note: Brett points out, over at his site Daddytips.com, that Ms. Christine's online modeling profile says "no nudes." Riiiight.)

Ben Affleck Suffers Same Fate As Dads of Daughters Everywhere

JeanneSager — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:07:00 GMT

Jennifer Garner says she can always tell when husband Ben Affleck was left to his own devices with daughter Violet's hair. It comes out looking like a rat's nest.

Hey dads, sound familiar?

“You can always tell when he has been at it, just two random barrettes hanging in there. It’s so sweet," Garner told InStyle.

She could have been talking about my husband. He was over the moon when I gave birth to a little girl (which - despite us not finding out prior to delivery - he just "knew" was going to happen), but when she started sprouting enough hair to require clippies and ponytail holders, he was lost.

"It doesn't ever do what I want it to do," he tells me. "I just don't have the patience for it." This coming from a guy who once had hair past his shoulders. But his was super fine, super straight hair, hair that never needed to be brushed out with no more tangles spray after a night of rolling around on a crib mattress, hair that never needed to be secured in two little braids hanging down his back.

Some guys get hair and are perfectly adept at handling their daughter's locks. More are like my husband - facing a major learning curve after years of just not caring what their head looks like (because after years of long hair, his is now shaved in a Marine-like buzz - he does nothing more than shampoo daily). In our house it's particularly funny because it's the bald mother who has been showing Dad the ropes, teaching him about where on the head to place a ponytail (Not too high, this isn't the eighties. Not too low - she isn't an aging hippie) and how to brush out tangles without yanking on the scalp.

I'll give credit where credit is due. He tries. If he's the parent getting her ready for the day, her hair is at least brushed, albeit with a clip stuck at a random angle - kind of like Violet Affleck's.

Dads, did you jump over the curve after your daughters were born or do you turn out girls who sport the ragamuffin look in the morning?

Image: TheInsider

The Funkiest Dancing Kid Ever – Part 2

Brett Singer — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:00:00 GMT

So the funkiest kid ever has a name, or at least a nickname: Mad Skillz Henry, according to Buzzfeed. And he has a second video. Here you go:

It's still good, but what made the first one so special was that he barely seemed to notice that the camera was on him. This time he's clearly mugging. Not to take anything away from Mad Skillz. He still has... well, mad skills. (That's what all the kids are saying these days, right?) But I prefer his early work. You know. Before he sold out.

Source: Buzzfeed

The Funkiest Dancing Kid Ever – Part 1

Little Girl Dancing to "Single Ladies": Disturbing or Adorable?

Peeper Madness - Peeps On The Pole

Baby Born With Two Penises Healthy, Recovering

Dad Accused of Selling Daughter For Beer and Meat

Finish Line - April Fools And More

Family Awarded Millions For Circumcision Mistake

Madonna Adoption Denied, Appeal Filed

Don't Call Her a Tomboy

JeanneSager — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:36:00 GMT

Ask anyone of our generation what a tomboy is, and as forward-thinking as we might be, you'll get a gender-bending answer. Ask our kids, and you might just get a funny look.

It seems the word tomboy is disappearing, or at least the negative connotation that came with it when we were kids.

Years ago a girl who preferred her t-shirts to tutus and her knees skinned and dirty would bring out all the old biddies in the neighborhood to cluck and shake their fingers. The "l-word" was whispered by parents late at night, and I don't mean love.

It wasn't PC or, for that matter, very fair. Neither is the dictionary definition: "an energetic, sometimes boisterous girl whose behavior and pursuits, esp. in games and sports, are considered more typical of boys than of girls."

But according to an in-depth look at the tomboy label in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, girls who don't want to act all "girly," are getting a little more respect these days. Basically, girls are just that - girls. And if they're girls who like to skateboard, girls who climb trees (as long as their parents don't catch them) and girls who prefer getting muddy, it's OK - they don't need an extra title. They're still, well, girls.

Marketers might not have it figured out yet - I'm still waiting for mud and bugs Barbie - but the girls have. Maybe that's because so have we. I never would have thought to call my daughter a tomboy; even though I most definitely was (and I'm not ashamed of that). Part of it is because she loves her pink clothes, her tutus and her sparkle clippies, and nothing I've done has changed her tastes. Sigh. But when she tears across the backyard to tackle her friend Chase, I just see two kids playing. It took my godmother, who is in her late fifties, early sixties, to even alert me to the fact that my daughter isn't as "girly" as some. "She's a tomboy," she told me the other day, watching my daughter and Chase outside on the swingset. "She's unique."

The former didn't bother me, but the latter I appreciated more. Yes, that's right, she's unique. She's different. She doesn't have to do everything one way because she's a girl. She just does . . . whatever.

Explains Kristen Tillotson in the Star-Tribune:

The consensus: Girls feel more pressure to look good than boys -- but not necessarily all pink and lacy. They still have more responsibilities around the house, such as helping with cooking and cleaning, than their brothers do. They also have a lot of chutzpah and ambition.

I doubt the pressure to look good will ever go away. Whether you want to look good for a guy, a girl or even just to feel more comfortable in your own skin, a portion of that is intrinsic in feminity - in part because our bodies change so drastically during adolescence. The difference between responsibilities in the household between the genders is still up to parents; although I'd wager that even that is changing. But if it's the sister who prefers cutting the lawn to helping to cook dinner, at least she might never hear she's doing the man's job when there's woman's work to be done.

Image: SagerScenes

The Funkiest Dancing Kid Ever – Part 1

Brett Singer — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:00:00 GMT

They say little boys can't dance. Well, anyone who says that has never seen this kid.

Come on! How good is he? His sister (I'm assuming that's his sister although I don't know) is relegated to backup duty, which in this case is right. Somebody sign this kid to an exclusive contract, quick.

Source: Buzzfeed

Read more:

Little Girl Dancing to "Single Ladies": Disturbing or Adorable?

Peeper Madness - Peeps On The Pole

Baby Born With Two Penises Healthy, Recovering

Dad Accused of Selling Daughter For Beer and Meat

Finish Line - April Fools And More

Family Awarded Millions For Circumcision Mistake

Madonna Adoption Denied, Appeal Filed

Boys Outnumber Girls in China by 32 Million

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:00:00 GMT

A recent study published by the British Medical Journal has uncovered a frightening gender imbalance in China’s youngest generations. With 120 boys born for every 100 girls—a gender difference that far surpasses any other country in the world—China now has 32 million more boys than girls under the age of 20. And since the largest discrepancy is found in children between the ages of one to four, that number only promises to increase.

According to researchers, the disturbing trend is due almost entirely to sex-selective abortions, which have became increasingly common since ultrasounds became widely available in the mid-80s.

The problem, of course, is not reproductive choice. It’s China’s strict one-child policy, combined with a severe, deeply rooted devaluing of females. Female infanticide, once relatively widespread in China, is now blessedly infrequent.

So while outlawing abortion will do nothing to quell anti-girl sentiment in China, a ban on sex-selective abortion must be enacted immediately. Such a pronounced gender imbalance creates a dire situation for women, since the kidnapping and slave-trading of women appears to rise directly with a lower proportion of eligible wives.

Photo: caswell.blogspot.com

Sisters Better than Brothers? We Have Proof

JeanneSager — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 15:22:00 GMT

Finally, a study proves what sisters everywhere have always known - our brothers are so lucky to have us!

It turns out people who grew up with sisters are more likely to be happy and emotionally settled than anyone else. Those of us stuck with, er, who grew up with, brothers, received a "less positive affect."

Psychologists at the University of Ulster and De Monfort University studied five hundred seventy-one people, ages seventeen to twenty-five to develop their theory. The subjects included people who had only brothers or only sister, people who had both and only children.

The people who had a sister - whether it was just one or many, and regardless of whether they had brothers too - were happier and more ambitious than their counterparts. Overall, those who received the lowest scores on the British psychologists' tests were men who grew up with only brothers!

So why should parents of little girls be thanking their lucky stars?

Researcher Tony Cassidy, of the University of Ulster, told the Daily Mail, "Our explanation for it is that the presence of girls opens up channels of communication and it becomes a much more expressive situation and that's positive. Emotional expression is fundamental to good psychological health and having sisters promotes this in families."

As a big sister who always begged for a little sister, and ended up with a brother instead, I can tell you brothers aren't all that bad. But then again, I don't know what it's like to have a sister, and my daughter is a one and only - so I won't see it happening in my household.

But if you're planning on having more kids, maybe you should be shooting for a girl? Better yet - have two girls, so both get the benefits! And if you throw a boy in there, well, the more the merrier.

Via Jezebel

Image: Amazon

Not Another Tween Beauty Crisis

JeanneSager — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:26:00 GMT

Want to know if another generation of kids is headed for holy hellfire? According to Salon's Broadsheet, just check out Newsweek.

Broadsheet's Amy Benfer has pulled Newsweek articles from now, the late nineties, early nineties and the eighties that all say the same thing: today's tween girls are growing up too fast, they're skankier than the previous generation of tween girls, they know too much about naughty things, aaaack. Avert your eyes!

What prompted the rant? A Newsweek article on Generation Diva, a comment on the trainwreck that is TLC's Toddlers and Tiaras that attempts to define the new normal as "a generation that primps and dyes and pulls and shapes, younger and with more vigor."

Author Jessica Bennett says, "Girls today are salon vets before they enter elementary school. Forget having mom trim your bangs, fourth graders are in the market for lush $50 haircuts; by the time they hit high school, $150 highlights are standard. Five-year-olds have spa days and pedicure parties. And instead of shaving their legs the old-fashioned way—with a 99-cent drugstore razor—teens get laser hair removal, the most common cosmetic procedure of that age group."

First thing Broadsheet's Benfer points out is exactly what I thought when reading the article - how many parents have the money for $50 haircuts for themselves, not to mention their kids? Granted, I'm now bald, but even before that, my haircuts have always been under $20. Throw in an occasional eyebrow wax (which, yes, is a luxury that I have clung to more as a mom who needs SOMETHING of my own), and we're still under $30 - with tip. My daughter, meanwhile, has had two haircuts in her three, almost four, years of life: one when she was under a year to cut the dark colored newborn tips off the ingrowing blonde baby hair, the second to clean up her own "fix it" job to her hair.

Frankly - I don't see a problem with having taken her to a salon.Technically, neither cut cost us a dime because the hairdresser was a close friend, but I would have paid (tried to pay) to have my daughter's hair cut by a professional - in part so I could do the mom thing and take pictures of her first cut and in part so I didn't have to hold her still, concentrate on cutting in straight lines, make something out of the mess she'd made. It was WORTH IT to me to take her to a salon instead of doing it myself. Does that mean I've set her up to put beauty above brains or made her vain? Nonsense!

She gets her toenails painted too - usually by my mother, who delights in their at home girls night bonding sessions. I guess that's technically a pedicure party, but is that really that bad either? I loved having my toenails painted when I was her age too - by my babysitter, who ironically now owns her own nail salon - and if you'll remember, I'm the mom who shaved her head . . . I'm hardly your beauty-obsessed airhead.

Which is the real issue here - how a mother looks at beauty. If she's struggling in this economy and pulling out $150 for highlights, she's the monster creating a monster. If she's putting her kid on Toddlers and Tiaras, she's just a plain old monster.

But if she's letting her three-year-old wear nail polish because it's sparkly, and she just wants to sparkle . . . she's letting kids be kids.

Image: Amazon (read it - it's hilarious)

Save Your Baby Girl From Humiliating Baldness!

Kate Tuttle — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Do you have a bald baby girl? Do you cringe when anyone asks your baby's sex, or assumes she's a boy? No? Well, honestly, neither did I, when my daughter was small and (briefly) bald. But apparently some parents really worry about this stuff, or at least the makers of Baby Bangs! are hoping they do.

Baby Bangs! (the exclamation mark appears to be a necessary part of the name) are little wigs attached to stretchy headbands, so that parents of infant girls can pretend they have more hair than they do. According to the product's web site:

Our patent pending HAIR+band accessory combination allows baby girl's (with little or no hair at all) the opportunity to have a beautifully realistic HAIR style in a SNAP!! It's quick, easy and baby barely knows it's there. Each Baby Bangs! HAIR+band has been made using only the finest ribbons and fabrics, PLUS our Baby Bangs! come to you pre-customized & size appropriate, cut, styled and ready for immediate wear. The wispy hair strands have been arranged in the cutest most adorable elfish coiffure!

Created by a "hair replacement artist" and her daughter -- and using her infant granddaughter as guinea pi -- I mean, model -- Baby Bangs! are made of synthetic fibers attached to elastic headbands. Instructions on the site detail the procedure for properly pulling them onto your baby's head and arranging the little hairs for "the cutest most adorable elfish coiffure!" One hardly knows where to begin.

My kids had a hard time coping with being forced to wear hats -- you know, to protect them from the cold and the damaging UV rays, not to make them look more gender-stereotypical -- so it's hard for me to believe it would be all that easy to get your baby to go along with your need to control their hair quantity. Beyond that, is it really such a huge problem if someone mistakes your girl baby for a boy? Or is the real problem that our society is so strange about gender that anyone would think it's an insult? And who really thinks "long hair = girl, short hair = boy" anymore, anyway? That kind of thinking is not much in evidence where I live. It's hard to escape the feeling that Baby Bangs! come just at a time when their very raison d'etre is starting to feel a bit laughable. That said, as Saturday Night Live has shown, laughing at wacky baby products is always in style.

Photo courtesy of Baby Bangs (and yes, the little girl is adorable -- but she's even cuter without her wig!)

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California Daycare Closed; Worker Was Mocking Kids' Genitals

"Angels in Waiting" Apparently Still Waiting

They Say: Girls Made of Sugar and Grit

JeanneSager — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:34:00 GMT

In case you needed another bit of ammunition to send the "girls are more delicate than boys" notion blasting into outer space, I'm happy to oblige.

It turns out girls are significantly more resilient then their male counterparts when growing up in a troubled family.

The small study (just one hundred twenty-five kids) published in this month's Journal of Adolescent Health acknowledges the odds are stacked against kids who grow up in dysfunctional homes. The girls, however, seem to have slightly better odds of triumphing - about four times that of the boys.

The conclusion of the study is one of those "duh" findings that come from a lot of social studies: "early intervention with families with opiate-dependent parents to prevent and reduce internalizing and externalizing problems in their children holds the most promise of supporting resilient adaptation in early adulthood."

In other words, help the kids when they're younger, and you'll make more of a difference. Obvious, I'd say, but then a lot of these social studies seem to be geared toward convincing those of us with a lack of common sense of the right path.

I was disappointed not to find more information that would explain why the girls fared better. As a woman, and the mother of a girl, I'd love to say that is a "no duh," conclusion too - but I'm not writing off the boys out there! So I can only posit a few conclusions from my own experience:

1. Sisters are often called on to be the "responsible" sibling in a family. Not every sister, of course, and there are often brothers who end up shouldering a much heftier burden. But in almost every case I know of adult siblings splitting familial responsibilities, the brunt of the work falls to the sister. Sisters are often expected to take up the bulk of caregiving for older parents, even if that means moving across the country while a brother lives in the same town as the parents. Perhaps this relates to the traditional role of mother (female) as caregiver?

2. Sisters tend to "mother" their brothers. Again this isn't true for every family, but in an overwhelming number of families when the going gets rough, the females tend to turn outward rather than inward. That focus on the well-being of the other family members can be a huge source of stress, and not particularly healthy for her emotionally. But it's a form of strength that powers them through - and isn't that just another way of saying they're resilient?

Of course, none of this means boys aren't "as good" or "as responsible." But then again, they're not necessarily all that strong!

Via: Los Angeles Times

Image:NC Medical Insurance

Innie or Outie, a Sign of Fertility?

JeanneSager — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 21:34:00 GMT

The bump or button left behind on your daughter's belly after the umbilical stump falls off could tell you whether you're destined to be a granny.

A University of Finland researcher says the belly button is more than just the cute thing your tot is showing off when she lifts up her shirt every five minutes. It's a sign of "mating potential" in fertile women.

And we just though it was there to pop out in the ninth month to tell us when the baby was done cooking!

Aki Sinkkonen at the University of Helsinki published an article this month in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) Journal theororizing that the shape of the belly button is linked to a woman's fertility: "I suggest that the symmetry, shape, and position of umbilicus can be used to estimate the reproductive potential of fertile females, including risks of certain genetically and maternally inherited fetal anomalies."

The belly button is essentially a scar, signifying how the body reacted to the loss of the umbilical cord stump. It seems to serve no other purpose, Sinkkonen says, one of the reasons she's begun floating her theory (note, a theory, NOT a fact) about innie as fertility signal.

So here's my big question - if it's all about a woman's fertility, why do boys have belly buttons?

Image: GeoParent

Girls More Confident Since Presidential Election

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 20:35:00 GMT

50 percent of girls ages 12 to 17 have more confidence since the presidential election, according to a study by the Girl Scout Research Foundation. The study of 3,284 adolescent girls also found that half of young women now believe they will be able to achieve their goals, and 55 percent feel more comfortable speaking their minds.

The Girl Scout Research Foundation speculates (unsurprisingly) that the inclusion of two female candidates—Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin—drastically affected young girls for the better.

I would guess that the election of the nation’s first black president has also increased girls’ confidence in their chances for success. Seeing an African-American family in the White House is a wonderfully concrete demonstration that glass ceilings can be shattered to smithereens.

Photo: Jezebel

"I Ate Little Black Girls for Two Years"

Cole Gamble — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Listeners tuned into a British radio talk show got a pretty damn shocking surprise when a caller informed the host she had eaten “little black girls” for two years. Apparently, she didn’t know she was doing it at the time, but she did declare them "delicious."

Keep reading to hear the actual phone conversation.

(WARNING: Content is not only horrifying but maybe racist.)

Click Here to listen:

Gotta love how flip the host reacted. “Well, you win the weirdest thing eaten contest.” Does that mean he’s gonna send her a pair of tickets to Supertramp? Maybe he didn’t buy her story. Or maybe that kind of thing happens all the time in England.

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4 Ways Birth and Breastfeeding Will Ruin Sex

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Banana Dildos and the 10 Worst Toys and Gifts This Christmas (part 1)

OK to Marry Off 10-Year-Olds -- Hurry, Get the Rice!

Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:02:00 GMT

So good news for 10-year-olds who were just wishin' and hopin' and prayin' to be married off to a grizzled 50-year-old cousin -- a senior Saudi cleric declared it's just A-OK!

Who said there was no happily ever after?

According to the newspaper story, the cleric said anyone who stands in the 10-year-olds' way is doing the girls an "injustice." The ruling comes after a divorce petition by the mom of an 8-year-old was overturned. The girl was forced to marry a 50-year-old.

Says the cleric, "A female who is 10 or 12 is marriageable and those who think she's too young are wrong and are being unfair to her."

I agree. Isn't that what every 10-year-old dreams about? To be married off to a cousin for a hefty dowry or to prevent her from actually finding the love of her life?

This seems so much easier.

I can't wait till we have a country here full of electric cars and no longer have to look with a mostly blind eye to this type of shit because whoa there, hold on a second, we don't want to do anything that might stop the flow of precious oil. Anything like, you know, calling crap like this a human rights disgrace. (Or who knows, maybe that will just make it worse for the girls, if the world, no longer needing anything, turned away completely from countries with crazy customs.)

Is there a fix for this type of custom, or is that even anyone else's place?

Dad Sells Daughter for Beer; Calls Cops for Non-Payment

JeanneSager — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:44:00 GMT

I applaud stupid criminals - especially when their stupidity lands their own sorry butts in jail. Like Marcelino de Jesus Martinez.

The California father has been charged for allegedly selling his fourteen-year-old daughter into a forced marriage with an eighteen-year-old. So how did police catch him?

Martinez allegedly called them when the groom-to-be, Margarito de Jesus Galindo, didn't turn over the agreed upon some for the poor little girl's hand. According to news reports, the neighbors had worked out a deal that would have included handing over one hundred cases of beer, $16,000, several cases of meat, wine, Gatorade and soda. When Galindo reneged, cops said Martinez called for help in getting his daughter back. Ah, so now she's worth something to him? Something more than the makings of a good backyard barbecue?

Martinez has been booked for "receiving money for causing person to cohabitate" and Galindo for statutory rape.

The most disturbing part of all of this? The girl went willingly - because it's an accepted practice where she's from.

The incident happened in Los Angeles, but her family hails from Mexico - and police in the LA area say they are finding more and more Mexican immigrants (generally from remote areas of the country) are engaging in similar practices. So while many people in America still think of "human trafficking" here only in relation to a coyote bringing people over the border and forcing them into slavery, it's happening within the confines of a family life too.

Sadly, that only compounds the problem for Martinez. He is obviously lacking as a father, but if he's from a community that condones this behavior, chances are, he doesn't even think he did anything wrong.

Image: NBC Los Angeles

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Smackdown: Aw, Just Let Her Have a Barbie

JeanneSager — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:27:00 GMT

I used to be on the other side of this Smackdown. Bimbo Barbie wasn't prancing into my house, no way, no how.

Then came Christmas. And Santa at the firehouse. And kindly volunteers in the ladies auxiliary who put a lot of time and effort into being good neighbors and buying goodies for all the little kiddies in my neighborhood.

Damn them.

Because the moment my daughter opened mermaid Barbie (who my gay best friend promptly told her must be named Ariel), she was a kid transformed. "Barbie, Mommy, look, I got a Barbie from Santa!"

I didn't even know she knew who Barbie was. She spent hours that night, ripping Barbie's clothes off. Making me put them back on. Ripping Barbie's clothes off. Making Daddy put them back on. Brushing Barbie's hair. Tangling Barbie's brush in knots in Barbie's hair. It didn't matter what I thought. Barbie had found a home.

She's now up to three Barbies - all gifts - and I've given up on a lot of my feministic outrage. It's a doll. She has impossibly big boobs and an impossibly small waist. But she's hardly the only doll to be lacking in realism.

My daughter's favorite educational doll, the Learn to Play Emma from International Playthings, has a ginormous head, big bulbous feet and a squarish body. No one's picking on her lack of realism, however, because she's A) educational and B) not overtly sexual (not sexual at all, really). But is the Barbie really all that sexual? She's got a plastic non-crotch (trust me, my little brother, as all little brothers do, cleared that one up a long time ago). She's got boobs with no nipples, and her body is made of the most uncomfortable-to-cuddle-with material known to kids.

She has skanky make-up, and skanky clothes; I'll grant you that. But by the time my daughter - or most little girls - gets done with undressing Emma (or her equivalent) and toting her naked around the grocery store, she's looking quite the skank herself. Not to mention what happens when our kids get ahold of some paint and try to put "make-up" on their dolls. They don't have to see it on their mothers; they can see it on the grocery store clerk and think it's "so pretty, Mommy!" Chances are, at some point, they'll try to recreate it on their dolls, whether her name is Barbie or not.

Also making the Barbie concern take up less and less of my time is the amount of her time spent with Barbie. By not making it a big deal, we've managed to make Barbie no more special than her collection of Hess trucks or her art easel. The three Barbies are in the toybox - usually naked - when she wants them. If she wants them. Often, she does, pulling them out as the favored toy for about an hour of fun before she sets her aside and begins begging for Play-Doh (now there, I have true toy hatred). She seems no more attuned to her own body after playing with a Barbie, no more obsessed with hair, clothes, make-up or or weight. And let's not forget the play-acting she does, the elaborate stories she makes up about Barbie going out and having fun (no dating or having sex, clean, wholesome, three-year-old stories of going to play with Mr. Cow or driving a plastic firetruck).

Can we really blame one toy for the destruction of little girls' psyches? My mother didn't buy me Barbies, and I still developed an eating disorder. My neighbor, on the other hand, who has one of the most well-adjusted tweens I've ever met (future babysitter of my daughter, right there), spent hours playing Barbies on the floor with her. That was their mom/daughter bonding time. Now a high schooler with a wide smile, she has the kind of self-assurance I envy even at my age. The Barbies don't seem to have hurt her. Maybe because what's more important are the strong female role models, the moms who are present, available and involved in their daughters' lives (as my neighbors was then and still is).

I'm not calling Barbie the pinnacle of perfect toydom, but as long as Barbie is just one toy in the box, I'm willing to just let her be.

The Other Side:

Smackdown: Barbie and the End of the World

Image: Amazon

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Smackdown: Barbie and the End of the World

Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:06:00 GMT

We planned this Smackdown awhile ago, not long after my daughter opened a Scuba Barbie for Christmas. Her grandparents, who had refused to purchase a Barbie for their own daughter, were beyond thrilled to buy one for mine.

"Every girl should have a Barbie," they gushed. My wife stared at them in slack-jawed, open-mouth wonder.

"What the hell?" she said, "I wanted a Barbie for years!"

If someone had taken Tiny Tim's crutch and beaten him about his frail, twisted legs while eating all the Christmas goose, it still would have been a merrier scene than the one at our house at that moment.

My wife stewed, my in-laws beamed and I sat on the couch, staring at this plastic creature I had successfully avoided for nearly three years.

I never wanted a Barbie in the house.

Her clothes don't bother me so much. The early Barbie wore some swinging outfits and I've seen some newer Barbies that sport the kind of clothes your cool, older sister might have worn while packing her belongings for college. Unlike Bratz, you have to purposefully find Slut Barbie.

Her hair, her makeup. These things are easily changed, cut, washed off, shaded -- any girl can style the doll to her own liking.

Except, of course, for the body.

Barbie has an impossible body.

Now, before the great Christmas Barbie Episode of 2008, I was originally worried not that my daughter might grow to look and dress and act like Barbie. Rather, I was worried what she might do to try.

A friend's daughter, then 7, told her mother one day that she needed to go on a diet so she could look "more like Sally" -- the name she had given to her Barbie. I'm not saying Barbie is the gateway to eating disorders. But I also don't think dieting fits into the realm of playtime. How fun is that to look at a toy and think you're suddenly not good enough? Yay! And our friend's daughter is not the first to bring this up. And I doubt the same emotion overcomes a girl playing with a chubby Cabbage Patch Doll.

Some young girls see Barbie, want her body and then destroy their own. After all, isn't Barbie a model for the perfect female?

Then Barbie did in fact come into our house.

When she did, my daughter, Emmeline, picked up her new toy, examined it for a bit, played with her clothes and then eventually abandoned the thing for the two dolphin friends that came in the same pack and lent testimony to the fact that this was, indeed, the real Scuba Barbie. (Why the dolphins are wearing mascara, I don't know -- even animals have to be sexualized now, I suppose.) But at this moment, Barbie lays forgotten upstairs, buried underneath a pile of clothes.

I'm not going to throw it away or keep it from her, although now is my chance. No, it dawned on me that I, her father, probably have a lot more sway over how she will one day view herself and her body than some stupid doll. Do I really want to be the person whispering in her ear about body issues? Do I want to make such a big deal out of it that an issue heretofore unknown to her suddenly becomes a cause for serious familial discussion? (And of course a story about Iran banning Barbie didn't help, when it left me thinking, "Great, now I'm the fucking Ayatollah of the toy box.")

But what really sent me over the edge in the past week was when a friend of a boy said, "You've got Barbie to deal with, sure -- but what am I going to do when my son wants a gun?"

A toy gun. I had 35 of them. Cap guns. Laser guns. Electronic talking hippy pacifist guns that fired words instead of bullets, man! And I never went on some drunken rampage and shot up the post office (although I suppose there's still time). I was never the bully. I've been in all of one real fight.

It's just a toy, I caught myself thinking.

But then what of Barbie?

This was supposed to be the side of the Smackdown in which I let loose on the dangers of letting young girls play with shapely molded plastic -- how it's only setting them on a course of crash diets and the latest fasting fads, tweenish liposuction and adolescent insecurities. But now I've seen the actual impact of Barbie up close and I'm not too worried. I still maintain that I'm not going to buy one (there are actually a hundred cooler dolls out there, including the freaky-eyed Victorian-era porcelain cherubs my daughter has come to love) but if another Barbie enters the house, I think I'm the last person who should be making a big deal of it.

The Other Side:

Smackdown: Aw, Just Let Her Have a Barbie

Also, Barbie's Sordid, Swinging History

Study Finds Girls "Prefer Chatting" to Being Physically Active

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:00:00 GMT

New research has found that women of all ages are less active than men. Observing schoolchildren at play, researchers have concluded that girls would rather socialize than play sports.

While I don't doubt the study’s findings that men are more physically active than women, I have some reservations about the explanation that girls simply like to sit around chatting, while boys like to run around and get dirty.

Until I graduated high school, I considered myself the least athletic person I knew. It was a big joke among my friends that any activity requiring physical exertion was off bounds for me. But once I realized that being active did not have to mean doing Indian sprints at Varsity field hockey practice, I became very athletic. I now bike everywhere, do yoga, dance, hike, surf, and run.

I certainly didn’t shun sports because I “prefer to chat.” But a casual observer could easily have drawn this conclusion from watching me on the sidelines during gym class, laughing with a girlfriend instead of trying to get in on the athletic action. The truth is, I was too intimidated to participate in traditional team sports, since I seem to have inherited a gene which makes me physically incapable of throwing and catching a ball. Even the sports that I did enjoy—gymnastics and track—were unappealing to me because I had no interest in competing. I just wanted to move around and have fun.

Perhaps it’s not girls’ natural inclinations that make them less active than their male counterparts, but rather the way sports are taught in school.

Photo: The Telegraph

Obama Wants Kids To Have a Normal Life – Good Luck With That

Brett Singer — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:30:00 GMT

On a recent trip to Hawaii, the Obama family "caused a commotion" at a mall.

No! Really? What next? Floor down? Ceiling up?

Reuters describes the event as "a surreal scene -- the president-elect, daughters Malia, 7, and Sasha, 10 and family friends eating at a table at the mall watched by a crowd of onlookers and surrounded by anxious-looking Secret Service agents."

What exactly is surreal about that? Maybe it's surreal for the Obamas, but you might think at this point that they were accustomed to the attention.

The President Elect "wants to maintain some degree of normal life for his daughters. He has also said he fears becoming isolated and losing touch with the world outside the White House 'bubble,'" according to Reuters.

I think this is an admirable idea. It is also, at best, completely unrealistic. How exactly can you call a life spent with multiple bodyguards "normal"? From now on, the Obama family is American royalty. Part of that is just because of the job Dad just got, but part of it is because the entire family has captured the American imagination. I praised Bill and Hillary Clinton for keeping the press away from Chelsea. But this is different. First of all, Chelsea was older, which made it easier to ask for her privacy. Second, it was a different time. As much as the Clinton campaign and administration was heavily televised, it was nothing like it is today. Think about it – there was no YouTube. Cable news was around, but not as prevalent as it is now. And most Americans didn't have Internet access, much less broadband with 24/7 streaming video. And four billion blogs. (Ahem.)

All that is not to say that Barack and Michelle Obama shouldn't do what they can to keep their kids as grounded as they can under the circumstances. But a normal life? Eating at a mall in peace? Come on. Not gonna happen.

Source/Image: Reuters

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Bratz Back on the Corner ... er, I Mean Shelves

Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:24:00 GMT

Bad news for parents who don't like the slutification of toys: A judge who earlier this month ordered Bratz dolls off the shelves because of a patent infringement, could rule the vixens in cellophane should remain through the end of 2009.

Oh yay.

The fight has something to do with a party where Barbie was all, "Like what up?" and the Bratz were all, "Biatch!" and then they went to court where Bratz lost for totally mimicking Barbie's every move, or something. (Here's a better recap of the tussle.) It doesn't really matter.

I still think Barbie's a bad enough play model but Bratz are even worse, with their focus on risque clothes and the early sexualization of kids. Four year olds don't need mini-skirts or role models who sit around and look "pretty" while their male counterparts actually do shit. (The American Psychological Association singled out the dolls as moronic.) So I was pleased to see Bratz going to toy ho heaven, but now it appears there's one more year to go.

Am I just a prude, some puritanical preacher shaking his fists at the sky during a round of musical chairs and screaming, "Children! Stop that wicked dancing!" or does anyone else get bent out of shape over Bratz dolls? (And am I just as bad as the marketers of Bratz by my demonization of something ultra-feminine with words like slut or ho? Hmm, food for introspection -- and stay tuned next week at the 'Derby when we debate the merits of Barbie.) But still, it makes me wonder: Why can't we give young girls toys of real role models to play with? I can't stand watching Dora for its repitition, but man, that girl works hard!

Jamie Foxx: Just a Normal Dad?

JeanneSager — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 19:33:00 GMT

Aww, poor Jamie Foxx. His daughter's a hottie, and they've run out of chastity belts in Hollywood.

Somebody tell me, why is it news that a father has told his teenage daughter she can't "date until she's married?" So the father's Jamie Foxx, and anything an actor or actress does makes news, but I actually heard some women talking the other day about how far over-the-top Foxx is acting with all of this.

Excuse me, ladies, but do you have a daughter?

I considered sending them to chat up my husband. He's laid down the law. No dating until her eggs have shriveled up and we don't have to worry about out-of-wedlock babies.

OK, maybe he's overreacting. Maybe just until she's 37 or so, right?

I have yet to meet the guy who comes out of the nursery with his daughter wrapped in his arms and starts talking about the day she'll take her spot on the pole at the local strip club. He's an actor people, but he's still a father. And fathers don't take kindly to their little girls (of any age) being sexed up. And if they do, we'd suggest someone rescue those girls, stat.

Image: Sify