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Category Archives: Politics/Current Events

Ten Years Ago Today: Las Fallas and a City in Flames

19 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Life, Politics/Current Events, Travel

≈ 23 Comments

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My first and only time at Las Fallas was March 2003, during my semester abroad in Barcelona. We spent the day admiring the elaborate monuments that each neighborhood had built. Fresh off a Greek homecoming that fall, I knew how hard it was to build something like that. And our tissue-paper-puff floats were nothing compared to these: thirty feet tall, beautifully painted. All but professional. They looked too beautiful to destroy.

Una Falla

Una Falla

But at midnight that night, that’s exactly what they did. Every single one of those beautiful monuments burned down. We wandered the neighborhoods, drinking with locals, watching the fires. Giant bonfires in the middle of the city, one on every block. Fantastic masterpieces up in flames. People rejoicing.

We were college kids. All we wanted was to have a little fun. We pretended that we knew what it meant for these people, we pretended that we understood the history and meaning of this for the people in Valencia. We pretended we knew everything.

fallas

Then we went back to the hotel. The middle of the night, drunk, my memory trips me up: the flames, the cities on fire, linked more closely in my mind than they were in reality. The images more powerful than the facts.

We sat in front of a tv in our small, cheap, college-kids-on-a-budget hotel room and we watched the city on fire.

But this time, instead of Las Fallas, fires burned by residents in celebration, we watched Shock and Awe: fires started by bombs, dropped by our country, in “pre-emptive self-defense.” The flames seared into my mind, layered over the flames of Las Fallas. Linked forever in my memories. Continue reading »

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Is Being a Mom Really a “Job”?

05 Saturday Jan 2013

Posted by in Children, Family, Parenting, Politics/Current Events

≈ 9 Comments

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Remember during election season* when there was that whole flap about stay-at-home-moms and how hard being a mom is and how being a mom is the most important job in the world and blah, blah, blah? And neither side really came out a winner and everyone was kind of left with a bad taste in their mouth? People talked about daycare and working moms and maternity leave and the importance of raising kids well. People even talked about how politicians are out of touch.

And yet. At the time, I felt like there was something else about it that bothered me – something that no one was really talking about. But I couldn’t put my finger on it.

I just realized:

Who gives a shit? Continue reading »

Why Mass Shooters Are All Men, and What We Can Do To Stop Them

15 Saturday Dec 2012

Posted by in Articles, Causes, Children, Family, Gentle Parenting, Parenting, Politics/Current Events

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“There have been at least 62 mass shootings in the US in the last 30 years, and 61 of them were committed by men.” (Mother Jones)

Today, we begin to take stock. Why did this happen? And what can we do to prevent it from happening again?

Why?

Like everything in life that matters, it’s more complicated than we can possibly imagine. And, at the end of the day, this one instance is probably unexplainable. But we can begin to look at patterns. If almost all mass shooters are men, let’s look at the lives of men in our country.

It begins at birth. Studies show that parents of newborn boys are less likely to go to them immediately when they start crying or to give them affection. This is ironic, because newborn boys are more vulnerable and actually need more care than newborn girls. As baby boys grow, parents are more likely to tell them to “suck it up” or “be a big boy” or “be tough” when they cry, get hurt, or are just frustrated about their relative helplessness. Boys learn that needing help is unacceptable, that showing their emotions makes them less of a man, and that the appropriate way to deal with problems is to hide it all inside. When they inevitably face emotional problems later (because emotional problems are simply part of life) they will have no learned ways of dealing with those problems. (Pink Brain, Blue Brain)

As soon as they start watching videos, children are exposed to violence, even if only in small amounts. Why does this effect boys differently from girls? Because most of the violent characters are boys and boys begin to identity with that. Even in Cars, a relatively harmless movie for young children, there’s a scene where the main character – a boy – is shooting up a field of victims. It starts early, and it only gets worse from there.

As young as eight (or maybe even younger for all I know) boys start playing first-person shooter games. These are not the games of our youth, where we shot ducks or tiny, pixelated monsters. These young boys are shooting people, incredibly realistic-looking people. And they’re often talking to others while they do it, shit-talking to the other guys as they hunt them down and kill them. All the while, inuring themselves to violence and fooling their mind into believing they’re capable of killing people. (Most people, even most soldiers, aren’t actually able to shoot another person when push comes to shove. But practice makes perfect, and realistic simulations (like video games) are even used by the army to help soldiers learn how to kill the enemy. (Live Science)) Continue reading »

Book Review: Bullied

10 Monday Sep 2012

Posted by in Book Review, Causes, Children, Family, Parenting, Politics/Current Events

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Today I’m reviewing Bullied, by Carrie Goldman. I received this book as part of a promotional tour, and I could not be happier that I did.

Everyone – parents, teachers, all adults, all teenagers, even younger kids – needs to read this book. Now.

Carrie Goldman came to the bullying issue when her first-grade daughter was bullied because she brought a Star Wars water bottle to school. Star Wars is for boys, apparently, not girls. Carrie wrote a blog post about the issue and the response was overwhelming. People wrote about their own experiences with bullying, women wrote about loving Star Wars, men wrote about being bullied because they were too girly. The massive influx of support inspired Carrie to look at the issue more deeply, and the result was this wonderful book.

Bullying is an incredibly complicated issue that involves not just relations between two children on the playground, but our entire society. Continue reading »

Getting Over ‘He’

23 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by in Baby, Children, Gentle Parenting, Parenting, Politics/Current Events, Toddlers

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Adeline and I sit on the floor in her room, looking through her favorite books. We come to a page with a picture of a little bunny and a short poem about hopping around and eating grass. The bunny is grey and totally adorable.

“Look Addie, isn’t he so cute?”

Despite the fact that the bunny is completely gender neutral and there are no gender clues in the poem, I’ve automatically and without thinking made the bunny a boy. I do it all the time, even though I don’t want to, and I hate it. Continue reading »

How the Media Makes Us Hate Ourselves, And Other Adventures in Feminism

16 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by in Causes, Children, Gentle Parenting, Parenting, Politics/Current Events, Toddlers

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  • American teenagers spend 31 hours a week watching TV, 17 hours a week listening to music, 3 hours a week watching movies, 4 hours a week reading magazines, 10 hours a week online. That’s 10 hours and 45 minutes of media consumption a day.
  • Women hold only 3% of clout positions in the mainstream media.
  • 53% of 13 year old girls are unhappy with their bodies. That number increases to 78% by age 17.
  • The number of cosmetic surgical procedures performed on youth 18 or younger more than tripled from 1997 to 2007.
  • 65% of American women and girls report disordered eating behaviors.
  • 25% of women are abused by a partner during their lifetime in the U.S.
  • 15% of rape survivors are under the age of 12.
  • Rates of depression among women and young girls have doubled in the past ten years.
  • The United States is 90th in the world in terms of women in national legislatures.
  • Women are merely 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs.

As stats like these (and many more) flashed across the screen, I sometimes had to fight back tears.  Looking around the room, I saw the same dismayed expressions on the faces of my friends that I’m sure they saw on mine. I had gathered together a group of ten women to watch Miss Representation, a documentary about how the media misrepresents women and how that damages everyone. It was a wonderful night, full of friendship, wine, great conversations and many laughs. But it was, also, a very depressing night. Continue reading »

Why I Joined the Anti-SOPA Blackout

19 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by in Blogging, Politics/Current Events, SOPA, Writing

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If you visited this site yesterday (thanks!) you would have found that it was blacked out and instead you would have read a message about protesting SOPA, the anti-piracy bill currently being debated in Congress.  This is not generally a political blog, but I felt that joining this movement was important.  Here are my thoughts on why.

My constitutional law professor in law school called me a First Amendment fetishist.  I took it as a compliment.  Freedom of speech is, without a doubt, the most important right that we have.  Even more important than things like freedom of religion, due process, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, etc.  Because we can only safeguard those rights if we have the ability to speak out when they’re threatened. Continue reading »

Sexist Toys: On Becoming a Feminist

14 Wednesday Dec 2011

Posted by in Articles, Baby, Family, Opinion, Parenting, Politics/Current Events

≈ 27 Comments

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A little over a year ago I had a daughter and I became a feminist.  OK, in truth I’ve been a feminist all my life.  But I’ve been lax at times, indifferent at others, and sometimes I let the politics of the word (“feminist”) cloud the issue. But as soon as I knew there was a girl growing inside of me, I started becoming fierce.

This newfound feminism takes many forms, some of which I’ve already mentioned. (Toddlers & Tiaras?  Kill me.  NFL Cheerleaders?  Stay away from my daughter.  The Girl Effect and microfinance to women?  Yes indeed.)  But right now I’m focused on the issue of sexist toys.  Last night I came across this article about stores that separate their toys by gender: doctors uniforms for boys and nurse uniforms for girls.  Because god forbid a little girl wants to be a doctor – learn your place!  (Or the corollary: your boy wants to be a nurse?  Not on my watch!)

Even though the article was the catalyst for this post, it isn’t really news to me.  I hate when I walk into the toy department at Target and one entire aisle is all pink.  It’s not that I have a problem with pink, per se – hell, I dress Adeline in pink a lot and her room is done in pink.  I think it’s cute.  What I have a problem with is the idea that pink is the only thing that girls like.  And the dolls in that aisle are utterly disgusting.  Call me a crazy feminist if you will (seriously, call me that!), but I’m going to avoid buying Adeline barbies as long as I can.  Hello, body image issues.

I was at a holiday party over the weekend at a friend’s house.  She has two little girls and in the kitchen she has a little play kitchen for them.  It’s really cute and the kids were all having so much fun playing with it.  My initial reaction was, “Oh man, I’m going to have to get one of these for Addie.”  And then my inner feminist reared her head: “Seriously, you’re going to give her a kitchen?  Is that all she’s good for?? Why not get her that play tool set or a train set instead?”  The thing is, I know Adeline would love the kitchen.  Mostly because she’d be able to imitate mommy. (And yes, I see the irony here: as a stay-at-home mom all I can model right now are stereotypical gender roles.  More on that dilemma in a future post.)  But even if she would have fun with it, I just don’t think I can do it.

And think about this: how many parents would buy a kitchen for their son?  The gender stereotyping goes both ways.  It’s totally fine to buy “boy” stuff for your daughter – I dress Addie in boy clothes a lot and no one thinks twice if she plays with dinosaur figurines or trucks.  It’s ok for girls to be like boys because people (secretly and without admitting it even to themselves) think boys are better.  But parents don’t buy the kitchens, the pink clothes, the barbies, or the nurse uniforms for their sons.  Is it because girls are inferior and they don’t want their boys to be girly?  Or are they just afraid too much girl stuff might turn a boy gay?  (Because that would, apparently, be the worst possible outcome.)

Whatever the reason, this much is clear: our retailers, at least, think that certain toys are appropriate for girls and other toys are only for boys.  And if you want your daughter to have the doctor’s outfit, that’s ok, but she’ll know it’s from the boy’s department.  And no matter how you try to shield her, she’ll get the message: “boys are better.”

Adeline in "boy" PJs playing with her truck

Click This (12/2/11)

02 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by in Articles, Baby, Family, Parenting, Politics/Current Events, Uncategorized

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** A collection of articles and other fun stuff from around the web. Mostly dealing with babies, parenting, moms, etc. But not always. **

The Five Best Toys of All Time (I love this! Hint, toy #1 on the list is Stick. Fantastic.)

Ten is the New Two (from Free Range Kids – on why treating kids like babies isn’t good for kids)

British Study: Half Of All Pregnant Women Could Give Birth At Home Safely (nice to see a study on this instead of just fear-mongering)

The Real Reasons Kids Shouldn’t Drink Apple Juice (We’re a juice-free household, and now I feel even better about that decision)

Don’t Call Me a Mom: Why It’s Time for Women to Drop That Identity (I’ve certainly tried to maintain my independent interests and not let being a mother define everything about who I am. This is an interesting article about that balance – although she might be a little too quick to disclaim being a mother.)

Go ahead, save the world. You know you want to.

04 Tuesday Oct 2011

Posted by in Articles, Politics/Current Events

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Consider the following statistics about girls in the developing world:

“One-quarter to one-half of girls in developing countries become mothers before age 18.”

“An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10 to 20 percent.  An extra year of secondary school: 15 to 25 percent.”

“When women and girls earn income they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man.”

And watch this video:

Today is the 2011 Girl Effect Blogging Campaign.  What is The Girl Effect?  From the website: “the unique potential of 600 million adolescent girls to end poverty for themselves and the world.”  This is an issue I’ve been thinking about and reading about a lot lately.  The statistics and the stories are so depressing, but there’s hope, too.  Girls who manage to get an education can really make a difference for themselves.  And once they can gain economic power, they can ensure that their own children are healthy and well-educated.  They can break the cycle of poverty.

So this is The Girl Effect.  But what does it mean to me?  I look at Adeline and I see a girl who will have every advantage.  We’ll make sure she has the best primary and secondary education possible and her college fund is already growing.  We’ll talk about current events and other issues with her and take her places where she can truly learn about the world.  We will never push her to marry or have kids.  We’ll let her make her own choices and we’ll support her, even when she, inevitably, makes mistakes.  And of course, most importantly, we will love her.  She is a lucky girl.

We have days when our life seems hard, when everything feels like a struggle.  But, my god, how good we have it!  I watch these videos and think about these girls and I literally cry.  They’re born with nothing and they have to fight for every advantage they get.  Thinking about it can be overwhelming – you start to feel powerless.  The problem is just too big, what can you do?  It’s true, of course, you’ll never solve the problem yourself.  But that’s what’s great about The Girl Effect: we’re not trying to solve the problem, per se, we’re just trying to enable these girls to help themselves.  I don’t want to sound like a commercial, but seriously: just help one girl.  Donate to The Girl Effect.  I also like Kiva because you can pick the specific woman (or man) that you give a loan to.  And when the loan is paid back you can re-lend it to someone else.  It’s microfinance and it’s awesome!  Either way, do something.  It doesn’t have to be big: give $25 if that’s all you can afford.  It will make a difference.

So, ok.  The title of this post is a little misleading.  I’m not asking you to save the world, just to save one girl.  The thing is, you might just save the world anyways.  And that’s pretty cool, right?

***

This post was hard for me to write.  I feel really strongly about this issue, but I have too much to say.  It was all trying to get out and it got jumbled and backed up and nothing came out at all.  My previous post on the general issue of women and poverty is much better: check it out.  And read what other bloggers have written for the campaign here.  And if you’re a blogger, write your own post!  Info here.