Tried With Fire

Girls will be girls and boys will be boys no matter how hard you try to ignore it. Not only is this as plain as the nose on your face, there has been serious research on this subject. In Cinderella Ate My Daughter , the author mentioned a study in which a group of vervet monkeys (44 male and 44 female) were given 6 toys. Two were gender neutral - picture book and stuffed animal. Two were stereotypically masculine - police car and ball, and two were stereotypically feminine - doll and cooking pot. Guess what? The male monkeys gravitated to the boys' toys, and the females gravitated to the girls' toys.  This same experiment was replicated 6 years later with rhesus monkeys with the same results. Maybe, I have a warped sense of humor, but I find the concept of this study hilarious. You want to study children, so rather than examine your own species, let's ask the monkeys! Granted they are part of God's wonderful creation. But they aren't even remotely next of kin,...

I was wandering around the public library, and this book caught my eye,   Cinderella Ate My Daughter by journalist Peggy Orenstein, HarperCollins, 2011. As a new mother and firm feminist, the author vowed to raise her daughter to be free from the passive, fairy tale princess stereotype only to discover her 3 year old reenacting the tale of Snow White. Where on earth did she learn this? This led Orenstein on a search to examine the influence of the girlie-girl culture which include: ~ The power of marketing, i.e. the Disney Princess merchandising jackpot - 26,000 Princess items which raked in $4 billion by 2009. ~ The princess meme, a harmless phase or narcissists in training? ~ Gender differences, real or imposed? Real. ~ Beauty pageants and teen idols with feet of clay. ~ Looks versus achievements, which one is more important and which one wins out? Unfortunately, it's still looks. ~ Social media  - virtual friends and intimacy, cyber-bullying, and ...