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Thursday, September 27, 2007

What Would Jesus Do?






Dear Christian Family Values Voters,

What would Jesus do?
It’s a test many Christians, including myself, apply to problems to determine a course of action.

I’m writing today concerning healthcare in America, because I can’t understand your position. I’ve gone round and round in my head and I can’t see how the Republican position on healthcare is at all Christian.

Jesus went around healing the sick and helping the poor and righting injustice. The one commandment he left us with is to love one another and do unto others as we would have done to ourselves.

And I just can’t make the mass raping of the American people by private insurance companies jibe with Jesus’ message.

I can respect your position on other issues, but I just can’t even understand where you’re coming from on healthcare. It’s not even in your own best interest. Generally you should expect that people will vote for their own best interest, economic or otherwise. But, I know so many lower- or middle-class Christian Family Values voters who would vote against themselves on this issue. I simply can’t understand why.

Some of you are uninsured and even uninsurable. Why would people who have no way to pay for doctors visits and beg for money to pay emergency room visits be in favor of private insurance companies?


Like every American, I’m a capitalist. But, there’s one reason why the free market system isn’t working for healthcare – the consumer has no freedom of choice.

In a free market capitalist system the guiding principle for keeping things fair and affordable is the consumers’ choice to purchase the product or not. We make choices every day about what we buy. For example, if no one wants to pay $600 for the new iphone then it will simply not sell and Apple won’t make a profit. As a consumer I have a choice whether to buy that phone, another phone or no phone at all. As a consumer, in this example, I exercise my free will and the best or most cost effective product wins out. There is no consequence of me not buying that phone or choosing a different one.

The same can not be said for healthcare in America. As a patient, I am not in a position to choose to not receive care if I am diagnosed with cancer or am in an unfortunate car accident. If my child breaks his leg and I do not take him to the hospital to have it set I could be charged with criminal neglect. My family’s loss of life, safety, health and well-being is the consequence of not purchasing the product. Yet the consequence of purchasing the product may very likely bankrupt my family, keeping us as far away from the American Dream as say Communist China.

There are no choices involved in the current system. At least not for the patient. Take what doctor I go to for instance. I do not get to choose any doctor I want. The insurance company told me which doctors they will pay for and those are the ones I see. This system can not be confused with a free enterprise system because I do not have access to any doctor I like in practicality. My insurance company has also dictated which hospital I must visit in case of an emergency.

My insurance company also arbitrarily dictates which tests, services and medications my doctor is allowed to give me. If he prescribes something that isn’t covered I ask him to change the prescription to something that is covered. Only the excessively rich choose doctors not covered by their plan. The middle class can’t afford this privilege.

I just can’t understand where the “Christian family value” is in supporting the current system of private insurance in America. What exactly is the value? It’s not choice. It’s not dignity. It’s not justice or fairness or respect for human life. It’s not caring for others. It’s not kindness. I just can’t imagine what value Christian Family Values voters are supposedly supporting.

As a Christian myself, with values and a family, I’m asking you to carefully reconsider your position on this issue. Please, suck up all your personal loathing over the politics of its director and go see the film Sicko. The sickest thing about it, is that it’s not even hard to believe. You already know the stories of these Americans, for you are one of them.

Reexamine the issue of healthcare by applying the question: What Would Jesus Do? Can you really say Jesus would support private insurance companies who have abused the American people’s trust? Would Jesus defend the inhumanity involved in denying a fellow American citizen medical care based on whether or not it’s profitable for the insurance company?

I, as a Christian, don’t believe that’s what he came here for at all.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Gossip Girl & R-A-P-E


by Tracee Sioux

I tuned into Gossip Girl to see what it was about.

The new definition of glamorous includes editing of a rape scene and an act of consensual (yet inappropriate drunken sex) with the intent to blur the distinction. The viewer was asked to be not only confused, but aroused, by the violent attack of a girl, as the producer took slices of the rape scene and slices of the consensual sex and flashed them back and forth rapidly with a strobe effect. Flash of hand on bare leg, leaving the viewer to wonder is it a rapists hand or a lover's hand? It's presented in such a way as to make rape seem provocative. Does she really mean No or does she mean Yes, after all she's obviously not a virgin.

Unfortunately in real life the girl is not this confused when she is attacked. Here's the difference, in one situation she's saying NO and in the other situation she's saying YES.

The rapist in the scene is a high school boy who suffers no consequences and is not confused about his actions. He knows he will get away with it, considers it a fun and exciting game and proceeds to seek out and attempt to rape a freshman. Is that a freshman? I like freshmen, they're so "fresh," goes the dialogue. The portrayal of her rape is that she obviously deserves such treatment because she's foolish enough to go to a party with the cool kids and wear a pretty dress, shouldn't she know better? The only way she gets out of the situation is by emergency texting her brother who saves the day.

How do all the other high school girls react? Isn't this great gossip?

Is this the new standard of normal? I kept hoping I was confused, but really there was nothing mysterious about the message:

"Rape of high school girls is HOT! Even for other girls and the rape-victim herself."

The "new" CWTV has gone from innocent sweet Gilmore Girls into depraved child pornography genre in one season. If this is accepted as the new normal by the consumer there are wide-range consequences for the sexualization of girls. Dating violence is a real problem, in that 1 in 5 girls are victims of it, and I believe producers of this show are intentionally perpetuating the problem because it's getting them off.

Are we asked to believe that this is a reflection of reality? And if this is reality why are they asking us to be aroused by it instead of outraged and disgusted by it?

As a consumer, a user-of and advocate of free speech, the mother of a girl and a female myself, I encourage all advertisers to withdraw themselves from supporting the intentional blurring of rape/consent boundaries on Gossip Girl. Violence against women and rape of girls can not become mainstream entertainment. This is not in the best interest of girls. This is not in the best interest of boys who date girls. This is in the best interests of Nambla and pedophiles and sex offenders. This is in the best interest of pornographers who like to photograph the violation of girls and encourage the consumption of girls as pure entertainment. But, there is no way in which this kind of mysogynistic violence for entertainment purposes can be construed as in any girls' best interest.

Rape is rape and it's never fun for it's victim. It's never funny and no one should be confused by the glamorous presentation of it on Gossip Girl.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Ainsley, Perfect You


Please steal this idea for your daughter's Christmas or birthday. I felt with all the negative media images my daughter had to face I wanted to arm her with a really, really good one. I wrote her a book, about herself, for her 5th birthday titled Ainsley, Perfect You.

I used MyPublisher.com because they have a storybook option that let me add more than a caption. When she's feeling anxious about things like the first day of school I take it down and read it to her. It's a very affordable thing any parent can do, it does take some time and planning.

Dear Mrs. Franklin,


Dear Mrs. Franklin,


I would love to be the Room Mother for Ainsley's class as I know you could use all the support you can get.

Unfortunately, I've already committed to coaching the soccer team, volunteering at the youth outreatch, mentoring a teenager, participating in church activities and working from home.

I've simply run out of time. I do hope you'll find someone else to do it.

Sincerely,

Tracee Sioux, Ainsley's Mom


Okay, could someone please tell me where all the guilt about writing that note is coming from? Why do I feel guilty for not having time to do everything for everyone while I notice other people volunteer for nothing and feel zero guilt about it?

Why is saying no to good things so terribly painful for me?

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Dating Violence

by Tracee Sioux

In Texas, almost 188,000 incidents of domestic violence occurred during 2005, and more than 330,000 rapes occur every year, according to Gov. Rick Perry's office.

But it always starts with the girls and boys. Intimate violence is not a problem that develops when healthy adults get together.

In 2007 Texas finally decided to address it. This is the first year dating violence education is being required in the public school system.


Both the victim and the offender attribute responsibility for dating violence to the victim. The majority of both girls and boys site the girl's appearance, the girl's personality, the girl's provocation, the girl's communication style, the girl's need for affection or the girl's peer group influence as the cause of intimate partner violence.


Prevelence and Frequency

* Females age 16-24 are the most vulnerable to intimate partner violence, suffering at a rate of three times the national average.

* Both males and females report being victims of dating violence. However, boys injure girls more severely and frequently.

* 1 in 5 female high school students report being abused by an intimate partner.

* 22% of all homicides of females between 16-19 were committed by their intimate partner.

* Half of adult sex-offenders admit their first violent offense occurred before age 18.

* Half of reported date-rape occurs to teenagers.

* Teens who experience partner violence are at increased risk for unhealthy eating behaviors, sexually risky behaviors, pregnancy, suicide, and substance abuse.


Parent Awareness

* 81% of parents say dating violence is not an issue or they don't know if it is.

* 54% of parents have never discussed it with their kids.


Teen Awareness

* 33% of teens have witnessed a dating violence incident.

* 20% of male students say they have witnessed a friend hitting his girlfriend.

* 39% of females report that whether a person is trying to control his partner is a common topic of conversation.

* 57% say they know someone who has been verbally, physically or sexually abusive in a dating relationship.

* 45% of girls say they know someone who has been pressured into intercourse or oral sex.

* 1 in 3 teens say they know someone hos has been punched, hit, kicked, or slapped by their dating partner.


Reporting

* Among females 83% said they would confide in a friend. Only 7% said they would tell the police.

* 33% of teens who have been the victim of abuse never told anyone.


The Offender

* Out of 1,600 teen sex offenders

* Only 33% said sex was an expression of caring and love.

* 25% said it was about power and control.

* 9.4% said it was a way to dissipate anger.

* 8.4% said it was a way to punish.


Contributing Factors

* One study found a high correlation between teen-mothers being abuse by their partners within 3 months after the birth of the baby.

* 77% of female and 67% percent of male high school students endorse some form of sexual coercion such as unwanted touching, kissing, hugging, genital contact and sexual intercourse.

* Male peer support for violence against women is a constant predictor of violence against dating partners.

* 50% of victims of dating violence report being suicidal, compared with 12% of non-abused girls and 4.5% of non-abused boys.

To verify the statistics and research the sources click here.


For more Dating Violence Prevention and Awareness Tools and Resources click here.

Genderizing Infants


by Tracee Sioux

Which of these babies is a boy and which is a girl?

Before I had children I thought it would be easy enough to avoid genderizing my babies. Numerous studies provide evidence that baby boys and baby girls are treated in a vastly different way. (Growing A Girl, PAP Report on Sexualization of Girls, Dove Campaign for Real Beauty White Paper.)

I won the baby lottery in that I was blessed with one girl and one boy.

I felt it would be easy enough to combat the nature versus nurture gender influence on my babies. What I didn't count on was the immediacy of the nurture genderization that was beyond my control.

I also had the unique perspective of having same-age, opposite-gender cousins to compare treatment in the present sense. More simply: My daughter has a male cousin born 3 weeks after her and my son has a female cousin born 3 weeks after him. Without picking on my mother-in-law, whose influence on my children I consider positive and invaluable, her behavior toward my children is the most marked in its gender-stereotyping so I'll use her to illustrate.

Within days of the birth of my son and his female cousin she could not stop talking about how "all boy" my baby was, as compared to how "all girl" his cousin was. My son, in my opinion, was a pretty as any girl baby. I really believe if we took them to the mall with Zack in a dress and called him Samantha everyone would believe he was a girl and therefore treat him accordingly. She believes he is somehow inherently boy-like.

Babies, whether they are girls or boys, eat, sleep, poop, pee and cry. That's it. There really are no scientific gender characteristics aside from genitalia. Yet, the way they are treated from the very second they pop out of the womb is vastly different.

What I realized is that it's a mute argument because you can't insulate them from gender-stereotyping. Not even for the first five minutes.

Have you ever been in a store with a new mother and someone says, "What a cute little boy."

One mother I was with said, I have her dressed from head to toe in pink, the blanket is pink and the headband is pink and has a bow. How much more obvious can it be that she's a girl?

Mothers feel it's imperative that even strangers understand that their baby boys are boys and their girls are girls.

With my girl the clothes available were pink, ruffled, bearing photos of dolls, teddy bears, bows, and dance emblems. The clothing very often bore some comment on her attractiveness like cute, adorable, sweet.

I think my son wears something with a ball, bat, net or truck picture every single day.

My boy scored some blocks, trucks, puzzles, tools and a video game system for his first birthday. My daughter got some dolls, a stroller, cooking paraphernalia, fake heels and a tea set for hers.

Adjectives used to describe my infant daughter included pretty, sweet, adorable and precious.

Adjectives used to describe my son include tough, big, smart, strong and cute.

What I realized is that you can't stop people from treating your children in different ways due to their gender. Not in reality.

In the real world it's ungrateful and rude to tell people not to buy your daughter girl toys. You sound like an ass if you say please don't call her beautiful, call her smart. You really have little control over what friends and family say to your kids. You can't go around policing every toy, clothing item or word. There's also an argument that you don't really want to criminalize girl toys or positive feedback about girlness. The goal is not to make them boys after all.

My husband and I are as guilty of gender-stereotyping our babies as anyone. My first instinct with my daughter is always to tell her to be nice and get along.
It's not nice to hit.

Yet my son is encouraged by the whole family to flex his muscles and be physically aggressive and growl. My husband likes to show his aggressiveness off to his friends, Get him Zack!

I even gave him a very aggressive masculine hair cut with his spiked Mohawk, while my daughter isn't allowed to cut her hair short.

While I've given up the idea that it's remotely possible to insulate our kids from early gender-stereotyping, I think it's important to be conscientious about applying "masculine" adjectives to our daughters too. It's important that we make a habit of telling our daughters that they too are smart, competent, strong, fast, brave and tough. It's important to expose them to the "masculine toys" like video games, puzzles, math games and the computer.

For that matter, it's pretty funny to watch Zack run around in my red peep-toe pumps and play house with the baby dolls. Sweet and gentle are adjectives I like to use with him.

One of the babies in the picture is a boy. One is a girl. Which is which? What makes you think so? Look to the sidebar to participate in a baby-gender poll.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

See That One Girl?


This is the company photo for WordPress.com. See that one woman among all the men? This is 2007 and we talk a lot about all the opportunities available to women, but this is a current photo not a flashback to the 1970s.

What do we say to our daughters about that one girl? Do we encourage our daughters to emulate her, join her, be like her? Or do we criticize her fashion sense and hair?

Do we tell our daughters that math and science pay a lot more than traditionally female occupations like teaching and social work?

When we're encouraging a hobby it might be better to forgo the tap class and encourage chess club. Parents of girls should get extra-excited about math ability and foster a curiosity about computers.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Shrek the Third, Princess Confrontation

By Tracee Sioux

We took our kids and my mentee to see Shrek the Third (Widescreen Edition).

I was thrilled to expose the girls to the scene where the Disney Princesses, Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, deliberately nod off to sleep to "wait to be rescued" when the villains of children's literature lock them up.
Fiona and her mother look mystified by such a stupid response and take matters into their own hands - effectively saving themselves.

HELLO! It's about time someone had the nerve to confront those girls about the stupidity of waiting around for someone to save them. Thank you Fiona and Queen of Far Far Away!

I used to allow princesses at out house, I've since banned them. (We still have some videos and books that were sentimental gifts.) But the messages of the Disney Princess culture is that girls are valued for beauty rather than competence. That a prince must come save them for they are incapable of effective action. See Cinderella Should Have Saved Herself, Belle - Battered Codependent, and Ariel - The Little Mute for details about why I've restricted access to the princess message.

If parents are going to offer their daughters the Disney Princess culture, and it's really not possible to isolate them from it completely because it's so pervasively marketed, at least offer up an alternate view of a girl's role. Shrek the Third should join the others on the DVD shelf, at the very least. Use it to point out to your daughters the (dis)functionality of the Disney stories. Give them permission to envision saving themselves and be proactive about their lives.

Tell them the truth about men they will date someday - that prince grows up and turns into a fallible man that picks his nose and turns right back into a frog - just like the King of Far Far Away does in Shrek The Third.

Watch Shrek the Third (Widescreen Edition)and tell her that you think Fiona and her mother's actions are more admirable than the Princesses who passively nod off to sleep and wait for someone to save them.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Ugly Betty Beauty


by Tracee Sioux

The beautiful America Ferrera won the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series last night for her role as Betty Suarez in Ugly Betty.

Hurray!

While my husband believes the themes in Ugly Betty are too adult for our five-year-old daughter, and they are, I love Ugly Betty's message about beauty.

I think it's a provocative look at beauty and the value we place on women. The social climate at Mode Magazine begs the question are women valued for their brains and abilities or are they valued for how much they participate in the ideal of beauty?

With lots of glamour, fashion, paparazzi and soap opera gender themes it seems the only thing everyone on the show wants to be is the ideal of a beautiful woman.

Take Wilhelmina Slater, played by Vanessa Williams, she's beautiful but what she really wants is to be taken seriously by the publisher. She wants to run a magazine. She wants to be valued for her abilities, she's obviously the most capable of running a fashion magazine. But, as the "beautiful woman" she keeps getting the "assistant's" job.

The cattiness and image obsession of the receptionist Amanda is like a caricature of what mean girls grow up to be. Beauty is so important she'll do anything to get it.

Even the men are caught up in the obsession with fashion and beauty. The less-than-masculine boy, Justin, and the homosexual assistant place place an equally distorted importance on beauty and fashion. They become completely absorbed in the whole glamorous world, in which they can never be the ideal, as they are male. They accept worshipping it from the sidelines.

The two heirs, both male, chase the ideal of the beautiful woman with equal vigor - one, Alexis Meade, surgically becomes one, while the other, Daniel Meade focuses on sexually obtaining many. Much like their father, Bradford Meade, who has built a dynasty around photographing the beauty ideal and writing about the importance and significance of beauty to encourage that other women, his audience, to seek it.

It even brings in the cultural influences of beauty with Betty's sister, Hilda, obviously beautiful by the standards of her Queens neighborhood going to beauty school.

Betty, completely oblivious to the vicious competition for becoming "the prettiest", always seems the most truly beautiful person in the room. She broadens the scope and definition of beauty, being refreshingly a-typical of young Hollywood.

DVR Ugly Betty, Thursdays on ABC this fall. It will make you think of beauty, the ideal of the beautiful woman, and the importance of beauty in lots of new ways.

"A" Is For . . .


by Tracee Sioux

My daughter was reciting all the things about "A" she had learned her first week in Kindergarten.

A is for alligator, apple tree, astronaut, Ainsley.

Then she handed the phone back to me.

Well, when she was reciting all the things that start with A, I refrained from listing Asshole.

Well, thanks for showing some restraint Mom, I said. Sometimes I don't even know who you are. When I was a kid I would have sworn you would never, ever say the word Asshole. Let alone be tempted to say it to a five-year-old.

I would have sworn the same thing. Then I had you.

You mean parenting a child like myself in particular, or the experience of mothering in general?

It was parenting you. When you have a kid like you and you start defending them to people, you don't realize how many assholes there are in the world. The world is pretty full of assholes.

I've learned more things about things I never, ever wanted to know about or understand being your mother. Well, and Larry's wife. The two of you. I was so naive. I've really had to grow and learn being married to him and mothering you. You two are my trials to endure. You're the people in my life that force me to grow.

My poor mother. She'd have chosen a life of rule following, respecting authority and blending in.

Then she had me and I would have none of it - straight from the go. Challenging authority, questioning the status quo, getting into trouble, experimenting with addiction, using my voice loudly and publicly, forever going against the grain.

She did defend me too. I remember she took on the vice-principal of my junior high when I kicked out a window at school. I went right to him and confessed and offered to pay for it. I kicked it, but was surprised it had broken. My intention wasn't to vandalize. The principal expelled me for the rest of the year and she fought that. But, you know what she would have chosen for herself? That I was not the type of kid to kick anything. That I would have just nicely and politely gone to class.

I put my mother through hell. People always make vague comments about myself to me. My grandmother recently wrote, You always have marched to a different drummer.

I never do know what they really mean. I always choose to take it as a compliment. But, I'm vague about how people really perceive me. I never quite understand how exactly I'm so different. Occasionally I'll struggle against it, my nature, but it's futile. I worry that my daughter is too much like me, and girls like us are really such a challenge to mother.


Well behaved women rarely make history.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Thursday, September 13, 2007

APA Reports Sexualization of Girls Devastating


by Tracee Sioux

The American Psychologocial Association has published a Report of the APA Task force on the Sexualization of Girls.

This 74-page report should be required reading for every mother, mentor, and educator. It contains a multitude of studies and evidence that girls are being negatively effected by being inundated with images and innuendos in all facets of culture that sexuality them.

Sexualization defined as:

* Valued for sexuality rather than other characteristics.

* Being objectified, made into a thing to be used for someone else's sexual use versus rather than being seen as a person with the capacity for independent action and decision making.

* Sexuality is inappropriately imposed on a person.

Ample evidence suggests that sexualization has negative effects in a variety of domains, including cognitive functioning, physical and mental health, sexuality and attitudes and beliefs, the report states.

* Cognitive and physical functioning. Perhaps the most insidious consequence of self-objectification is that it fragments consciousness. Chronic attention to physical appearance leaves fewer cognitive resources available for other mental and physical activities. One study had girls unable to do well on a math test if wearing a swimsuit versus a sweater. The boys were unaffected by their attire.

* Sexualization and objectification undermine comfort with one's own body leading to feelings of shame, anxiety and even self-disgust. Vigilant monitoring of clothing or appearance leads to increased shame about one's body.

* Frequent exposure to cultural beauty ideals in the media has been shown to be associated with poor mental health including eating disorders, depression and low self-esteem.

* Studies show a link between sexualization and physical health. Girls who reported feeling negatively about their bodies were more likely to smoke and less likely to participate in sports or athletic activities.

* Frequent exposure to narrow ideals of attractiveness leads to narrow ideas about actual feminine bodily experiences like breastfeeding, menstruation, sweating and real sexual experiences.

* Frequent exposure to fictionalized images of sex made girls and women feel worse about real life sex.
Proposed solutions include:

* Formal education about healthy sexual and romantic relationships. Things like dating respect conferences.

* Comprehensive sex education in a human biology sense arms girls with the facts about their biological sexuality.

* Participation in athletics and extracuricular activities not of a sexual nature. Athletics that focus on stregth and competence increase self esteem.

* Religious and spiritual practices.

* Girl-centered groups and activities such as mentoring, Girl Scouts, and girl-related after school programs.

* Educating girls about how images in the media are produced and the profit motives behind advertising campaigns.


As a parent, mentor, woman, and journalist I find the findings of this paper to be consistent with what I'm seeing in girls and women.

Culture has meaning, the toys and clothes we allow our children to wear carry significance, the media they are exposed to has consequences. The statistical evidence suggests that perhaps we, as parents, are not taking it seriously enough.

It is my belief, and this is supported by the APA's report, that mothers are in the best and most appropriate position to impact a girl's self worth and to encourage a healthy sexuality. It's difficult to combat an entire culture with media images of sexuality, most of it inappropriate and disrespectful towards girls and women, invading nearly every facet of day-to-day-life.

It's difficult to draw the line and tune into warning signals our girls give us. My goal, and forgive me if I'm a fallible mother who finds the cultural and beauty myths difficult to interpret myself, is to give mothers a place where they can come and get a perspective that's a little different from the mainstream. Give mothers a place to sound off about cultural sexualization and how that's influencing their daughters. I intend to provide some tools to help mothers communicate with their daughters about sensitive issues.

It is our job, as parents, to interpret culture for our daughters.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Human Biology & Girls' Rights


by Tracee Sioux

The absurdity of abstinence-only "education" and I do use the term education loosely, confounds me. It's so blatantly anti-girl.

The logic is so extremely flawed. The practice is entirely ineffective in preventing big social problems like teen pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

From the girl's perspective, and I do believe girls should have inalienable rights just like any other citizen of this country, they have a right to know the biological facts of their body.

I understand the argument that parents want to tell their children to not have sex. I'm all for that right. It's a good thing to encourage girls not to participate in sexual activity. But, parents aren't the ones paying the consequences are they?

To leave girls uninformed about the consequences of sex is neglectful to the extreme.

If a girl is old enough to pay the consequences of pre-marital sex - and she's old enough for that as soon as her period, which occurs between 9 and 14-years-old then she is old enough to understand how her reproductive system works.

If we educate girls about their bodies they will be better able to decide not to have sex. Accurate information results in sexual and reproductive responsibility.

*Girls a right to know exactly how sexually transmitted diseases are spread.

*Girls have a right to know exactly how babies are and are not conceived.

*Girls have a right to a basic understanding of their own biological reproductive systems.

*Girls have a right to understand their fertility.

*Girls have a right to understand the function of their breasts.

*Girls have a right to understand their monthly periods.

To withhold biological information about the reproductive system is to encourage teen pregnancy and spread of communicable disease and misinformation supplied by teen boys and sexual predators. Withholding reproductive information also results in women not understanding the biology of fertility which leads to lots of heartbreak when they find out they've waited too long to conceive naturally.

Babies and STDs are not a consequence of sex in this millennium. Babies and STDs are a consequence of girls and women being uneducated and misinformed about their own bodies.

Take two minutes right now to be an activist for girls' health by sending a letter to your representatives supporting Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Christopher Shays (R-CT), along with Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), introduced the Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act (H.R. 1653/S. 972). It's a bill that promotes abstinence - and abstinence really is a great thing to promote - but also supplies medically accurate biological information about the reproductive system.

Thanks to the American Association of University Women for supplying this easy letter which encourages our leaders to pass girl-empowering legislation.

Love Your Skin

simpletons.jpg The most interesting thing about Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton, to me, is that they look the same. Same hair, same skin tone, same fashion. Just very much the same. One of them is half-African American, but which one? Obviously, you know which one because you hear about them constantly, but if you didn't it would be hard to tell.

It's interesting that women all want to be the same color, only not the color we are.

Dark skinned women buy bleaching products to lighten the color of their skin to be more beautiful. While white women poison their skin with sun damage and tanning beds to look darker to be more beautiful. (I'm really regretting the tanning, now that I'm fighting melasma with bleaching products so I have one skin tone.)

Does this mean that Hispanic women, who presumably have the ideal medium brown skin tone, feel most beautiful? Or do they have skin-tone issues too?

I like the Olay tag line, Love the skin you're in.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

9/11 Reflections

by Tracee Sioux

I saw the second plane hit the World Trade Center in person, I snapped a photo at that very moment. The anniversary of 9/11 is something everyone on television will be talking about today. They will all be running the most graphic and terrible footage they can find.

I won't say they shouldn't show the footage. But, I will say the images that haunt me from that day, and the images still do haunt me, are not the ones I saw in person. They are the ones I saw on television over and over and over. My brain kicked into self-protection mode in real life and I couldn't even believe my own eyes until the television confirmed it. And television confirmed it with graphic horror shown over and over and over until it now resides as wallpaper in my brain.

It's important for adults to understand what happened on that day. But, the watching of the footage over and over isn't good for the mental health. Not good for me, not good for you, and absolutely unfit for children.

Keep in mind that you can DVR shows you want to watch and view them after the kids are in bed. I want to see Oprah's show on the surviving children of 9/11, but I don't think I'll let my kids watch it.

To all the rescue workers out there, I remember what you did. I remember why you did it and I think it's a disgrace that we, as Americans, have not offered you a lifetime of free health care as you struggle with 9/11 related illnesses. I remember the smoke, the smoldering fire that lasted weeks and weeks. I remember how you risked your health to save any one, any one person you hoped would have survived.

To the leaders who've been questioned before Congress for allowing the search to go on too long or whose decisions during that time have been questioned. I remember those missing posters wallpapering the city. I remember how unwilling to give up hope for survivors the families were. I remember the pundits and anchormen using their patriotic banter to encourage the search to go on and on and on. I remember how devastatingly hard it was for the city to look at the thousands of faces on the posters lining the subway stations and fences and accept the fact that they weren't missing - they were dead.

Every leader who stepped up and made the hard calls and hard decisions should get a free pass on 9/11. There was no handbook, the graphic horror of that day was unprecedented. The shock city-wide and national was real. At least they didn't curl up in the fetal position and sob like I did.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Big K Week 1


by Tracee Sioux

The first week of Kindergarten didn't go as smoothly as I had planned. Perhaps that's the problem with having a plan, you get too attached to the outcome and then become disappointed.

Practical problems included the bus taking 2 whole hours to bring my kid home. Two hours is a heck of a lot of time to spend on a bus. We live within walking distance of the school. Literally about 5 blocks. Of course I called the school twice to find out if my daughter was still there, had been brought back, etc. When she finally got off she said all the kids had fallen asleep and had to be carried out by parents. Day 2 same problem. Day 3 I send a note saying I'd be picking her up until further notice. I had talked to several parents who don't allow their kids to ride the bus for fear of bullies. Apparently, the bullies needed their afternoon nap.

Adding two extra hours on to her school day resulted in emotional meltdowns. Big exasperated shouting and screaming and crying fits. Meltdowns.

I had to go coach soccer without her because she just couldn't handle an extra-curricular activity. Then we went ahead with a church meeting after school on Day 2 and maybe that was just too much for everyone. She also rejected school lunch and asked me to pack her one. Cheaper and healthier anyway.

Day 3 I picked her up and she was missing her preschool best-friend pretty badly. Not a single one of her friends ended up in her class. I guess they don't even have recess or lunch as a group. So, I invited her friend over to play. One conflict after another (between us, not between she and her friend) resulted in two pretty major meltdowns. She's grounded for a week.

She's was not allowed to play soccer on Saturday. The worst part is that I still had to coach it. Once it was out of my mouth I had to do it.

I sent her to Day 4, Friday, with a massive guilt trip and major shaming lecture. Really sometimes I wish I hadn't taken an anti-spanking discipline position. Sometimes I think what she needs is to be swiftly smacked in the mouth. That's probably not what she needs, but it's what my impulse is. My parents would have gotten out the belt and been done with it. Yes, her behavior was serious enough for a really big consequence. But, she's 5, what exactly is a really big consequence?

Does external stress excuse really terrible behavior? Does that fact that she's only doing what we, her parents, taught her to do give her a free pass? Both my husband and I have had really big meltdowns under stress. Does that mean we shouldn't punish her when she only acts out what we taught her to do?

Friday, September 7, 2007

We Vow Now


by Tracee Sioux

We, my husband and I, are participating in a federally-funded marriage education course designed to keep the family together. Vow, Healthy Marriage Education Initiative is being funded by the Administration for Children and Families and the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Marriage. Where to start. Obviously, marriage and the success or failure of marriage deeply effects the empowerment of girls, well all children really. I'm trying to raise an empowered girl, yet I find it increasingly arduous to model a positive marriage relationship.

My husband and I are one generation removed from Traditional Marriage Stereotypes. Dad equals bread-winner and decision-maker, wife equals care-giver and house-keeper.

As a culture, we're reinventing marriage and the roles wives and husbands play. In theory, my husband and I agree, but theory only gets you so far. It's the actual division of labor, outside-the-home and inside-the-home, we get hung up on a lot. Not only have neither of us seen the new husband/wife relationship modelled by parents, but our siblings and other familial and religious influences remain pretty traditional.

I would be ashamed to admit that we find marriage such a struggle if the statistical evidence that we're not alone were not so overwhelming.

Half of marriages end in divorce. 50%. FIFTY PERCENT. Half!

That's a huge social problem. Here's why:

Women who get divorced are more likely to live in poverty, retire homeless, commit suicide or become ill. Men who divorce are less likely to have good relatioships with their children. Their ex-wives and children are more likely to need financial assistance from the government.

Children who come from divorced homes are less likely to attend college, more likely to do drugs, more likely to become pregnant, more likely to get divorced, more likely to commit crimes, more likely to contract social diseases. Those consequences cost tax-payers a lot of money in prisons, jails, and social services.

Finally, the federal government has decided to get to the core of the problem and help families find a way to be happier together than apart. This is a virtual standing ovation - APPLAUSE!!

The program is in a research phase where 225 pocket areas with high rates of divorce have been given $118,644,219 in grant money to determine if this kind of marriage education program will be effective.

The 6-12 week program focuses on what each person in the relationship brings to the marriage by way of baggage, if you will. There is an examination of assumptions, beliefs and world-views of both marriage partners to identify some of the root problems.

Once the core issues have been identified there's a rapid move toward conflict resolution. Couples are given practical skills and tools to determine how to compromise and enjoy their marriages.

Key points that make me hopeful about Vow's success are:

* The research and foundation for the Vow program is designed around research of HAPPY couples with long marriages. No one wants to be married for 50 years if it's 45 years of pain and struggle. Better a divorce than that. But, wouldn't it be nice if everyone had the secret recipe for how to be happily married for 50 years?
* The program is a mix of secular and faith-based education, meaning it is designed to help couples navigate their faith issues and come to suitable compromises if they come from different religious backgrounds. It does not promote any one religious belief system, but takes the couple's religious training and desires into account. Churches in Vow communities are encouraged to back up the program and provide support.
* It analyzes pre-conceived gender-roles each partner brings to the marriage, and addresses how that's effecting the division of labor in the family. Working women are still doing 75% of the child-care and house-work. Not to mention the addition of part-time or work-at-home or home-school mothering situations that often don't even get "counted" when we're talking about "working moms". That itself could explain the high divorce rate. Women feel tired and undervalued. Men feel misplaced and unneeded.
* Financial advisers, with no commission motive, are provided for every participating couple. Around 70% of divorces, they say, are over money. Husbands and wives care about money. Enough to get divorced over.
* Every stage of marriage is accounted for. Dating, engaged, married, separated, living together, common-law marriage and every transitional period from new babies to retirement. Even happily married couples who lost the spark or got a bored are encouraged to participate in Vow.
* Lots of focus is put on the role and importance of responsible fatherhood. Perhaps feminism and women's role in the workplace cost father's something and perhaps they're feeling undervalued. Vow addresses the issue of deadbeat and disappearing dads as well.

As I sat listening to the counselor describe how Vow was even going to pay for a couple's retreat, I felt this great sense of relief. A lump in my throat gathered and I blinked back tears - We don't want a divorce. We just don't know how to have a great marriage.

The overwhelming response to the Vow billboards in my town echo my thoughts. Families want to stay together, we just don't know how. Change is hard, it's difficult to adjust to new roles and definitions in relationships. It's not easy to reinvent the meaning of wife or husband or mother or father or family. These are not roles and identifiers we want to lose, but they're shifting into undefined territory.

No success in life can compensate for failure in the home. That's the foundation for the Mormon belief system that I grew up with. I'm profoundly grateful that America is putting some money behind the words "Family Values" and helping American couples redefine marriage.
Find out if a Vow program is near you here.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Beauty & Reality




I'm a big fan of Dove's advertising campaigns. When I saw the real women in their white bra and panties on Oprah, the models for Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty, I got tears in my eyes. Finally, advertising that says real women are beautiful, I thought. I even wrote them a letter thanking them for being the first company, I felt, that didn't try to sell women beauty products by making them feel ugly or less than. Even yesterday I saw the Oprah rerun on Dove's Pro-Age campaign (women over 50 posing tastefully nude) and the staggering beauty of real women brought tears to my eyes.


The infamous Evolution video (featured above) is a great tool which allows us to show our daughters the truth about advertising and beauty. No one looks like they look in a magazine. The thing about all these amazing advancements in technology, like Photoshop, is that reality gets blurred. As parents, mentors, and educators it's important to help girls understand that how they look in reality is beautiful. And how girls and women look in magazines, on television, in movies, and in advertising is fiction, created by technology and professional artists.


Above is a fascinating collection of Dove videos, including their newest Truth Behind Hollywood Hair Call your daughter over and watch them together. They are a great tool for teaching girls, and reminding ourselves, about the reality of beauty.


Visit Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty for more resources on how to make girls feel beautiful.
More posts on Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty
Beauty & Reality
Self-Loathing Sin Bank
More posts on hair:
Pink Hair Fiasco
Pink Hair Fiasco Take 2
Curl Maintenance
The Meaning of Hair

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

How Come Zack Gets A Barbie?


by Tracee Sioux

How come Zack gets a Barbie and I don't? Ainsley challenged.

Why don't you let her have Barbie's? My protegee, Ambrea, asked.
Zack just sat sucking satisfied on the top of GI Joe's camoed head from his car seat.

Freaking Barbie. All day long I'd been being challenged here, on So Sioux Me, about why I don't allow Barbie. Could the lack of a Barbie doll might actually harm the development of my five-year-old daughter? Am I being too extreme? Some think so.

Is a bad feeling in my gut a good enough reason to restrict a mainstream toy? Have you seen Sunset Tan? It's like a strange planet that Barbie took over. Watch the show and then tune into Dr. 90210 and see the perfectly beautiful, normal girls carve up their bodies attempting to look just like Barbie. Have you ever been to LA and seen how homogoneous Barbie beauty is? That's my objection. The Olly Girls are the epitome of girl-mothering failure, in my opinion. That's the bad feeling I have in my stomach that says, just say no to Barbie. I don't see how anyone can watch those shows and not see Barbie's influence. But then I find myself in the car listening to:

How come Zack gets a Barbie and I don't? Ainsley challenged.
Why don't you let her have Barbie's? My protege, Ambrea asked incredulous.

uuuggghhh. I have nothing. Well, I've got a feeling in the pit of my stomach that screams Barbie sucks. But, I don't have a concrete reason to back up or ban the acceptance of GI Joe. He's a war doll with exagerated masculinity in his plastic chest. He seems very much the same as a boy Barbie doll, to my five-year-old daughter.

Like most of my children's toys I didn't buy GI Joe. We were at a thrift store, and I had found Ainsley playing with the Barbies. Zack was being fussy and I grabbed the nearest toy, a GI Joe, to buy myself some browsing time.

A generous and kind employee gave Zack the GI Joe.

I didn't think the issue through before it was thrust into my life. Zack is a toddler. I haven't formulated a policy about the acceptability of war toys or male Barbie-like dolls. We have a talking Bill Clinton Barbi-like doll already, does he too have to go?

So, now I have to decide, if Barbie is banned, then does GI Joe have to go too, out of fairness? Or should I just give up and let Barbie in the house to irritate and annoy me everytime I have to pick her up and put her away?

You Don't Have To Obey


by Tracee Sioux

I took my kids out for Chinese food last week as a special end-of-summer treat. I had given my 18-month-old Zack a chop-stick to play with. He was picking up kernels of rice with it and eating them. I was very proud.

The waitress came up and took the chop stick away from him. He will poke himself, don't let him have this, she chastised me.

People frequently correct my parenting, probably yours too. Some think it's obscenely bad manners when I let him eat with his hands. Some scold me for allowing him to use a fork because he might scratch the inside of his mouth. Many have lots to say about me letting him feed himself and make such a mess. I'm sure if I fed him with a baby spoon there would be those who felt I was not fostering independence.

I simply nodded and went on with my meal.

You know, you don't have to obey her, my daughter informed me. Give him back the chop stick.

Ah, my sweet, sweet daughter, a woman after my own heart. She is so right. Right now I'm trying to negotiate the fine line between making a big deal out of everything or just shutting up and doing what I'm told sometimes. The older I get the more I realize no matter what my action, someone is going to have a criticism. I'm just working on the appropriate response.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

What Would Jesus Do?






Dear Christian Family Values Voters,

What would Jesus do?
It’s a test many Christians, including myself, apply to problems to determine a course of action.

I’m writing today concerning healthcare in America, because I can’t understand your position. I’ve gone round and round in my head and I can’t see how the Republican position on healthcare is at all Christian.

Jesus went around healing the sick and helping the poor and righting injustice. The one commandment he left us with is to love one another and do unto others as we would have done to ourselves.

And I just can’t make the mass raping of the American people by private insurance companies jibe with Jesus’ message.

I can respect your position on other issues, but I just can’t even understand where you’re coming from on healthcare. It’s not even in your own best interest. Generally you should expect that people will vote for their own best interest, economic or otherwise. But, I know so many lower- or middle-class Christian Family Values voters who would vote against themselves on this issue. I simply can’t understand why.

Some of you are uninsured and even uninsurable. Why would people who have no way to pay for doctors visits and beg for money to pay emergency room visits be in favor of private insurance companies?


Like every American, I’m a capitalist. But, there’s one reason why the free market system isn’t working for healthcare – the consumer has no freedom of choice.

In a free market capitalist system the guiding principle for keeping things fair and affordable is the consumers’ choice to purchase the product or not. We make choices every day about what we buy. For example, if no one wants to pay $600 for the new iphone then it will simply not sell and Apple won’t make a profit. As a consumer I have a choice whether to buy that phone, another phone or no phone at all. As a consumer, in this example, I exercise my free will and the best or most cost effective product wins out. There is no consequence of me not buying that phone or choosing a different one.

The same can not be said for healthcare in America. As a patient, I am not in a position to choose to not receive care if I am diagnosed with cancer or am in an unfortunate car accident. If my child breaks his leg and I do not take him to the hospital to have it set I could be charged with criminal neglect. My family’s loss of life, safety, health and well-being is the consequence of not purchasing the product. Yet the consequence of purchasing the product may very likely bankrupt my family, keeping us as far away from the American Dream as say Communist China.

There are no choices involved in the current system. At least not for the patient. Take what doctor I go to for instance. I do not get to choose any doctor I want. The insurance company told me which doctors they will pay for and those are the ones I see. This system can not be confused with a free enterprise system because I do not have access to any doctor I like in practicality. My insurance company has also dictated which hospital I must visit in case of an emergency.

My insurance company also arbitrarily dictates which tests, services and medications my doctor is allowed to give me. If he prescribes something that isn’t covered I ask him to change the prescription to something that is covered. Only the excessively rich choose doctors not covered by their plan. The middle class can’t afford this privilege.

I just can’t understand where the “Christian family value” is in supporting the current system of private insurance in America. What exactly is the value? It’s not choice. It’s not dignity. It’s not justice or fairness or respect for human life. It’s not caring for others. It’s not kindness. I just can’t imagine what value Christian Family Values voters are supposedly supporting.

As a Christian myself, with values and a family, I’m asking you to carefully reconsider your position on this issue. Please, suck up all your personal loathing over the politics of its director and go see the film Sicko. The sickest thing about it, is that it’s not even hard to believe. You already know the stories of these Americans, for you are one of them.

Reexamine the issue of healthcare by applying the question: What Would Jesus Do? Can you really say Jesus would support private insurance companies who have abused the American people’s trust? Would Jesus defend the inhumanity involved in denying a fellow American citizen medical care based on whether or not it’s profitable for the insurance company?

I, as a Christian, don’t believe that’s what he came here for at all.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Gossip Girl & R-A-P-E


by Tracee Sioux

I tuned into Gossip Girl to see what it was about.

The new definition of glamorous includes editing of a rape scene and an act of consensual (yet inappropriate drunken sex) with the intent to blur the distinction. The viewer was asked to be not only confused, but aroused, by the violent attack of a girl, as the producer took slices of the rape scene and slices of the consensual sex and flashed them back and forth rapidly with a strobe effect. Flash of hand on bare leg, leaving the viewer to wonder is it a rapists hand or a lover's hand? It's presented in such a way as to make rape seem provocative. Does she really mean No or does she mean Yes, after all she's obviously not a virgin.

Unfortunately in real life the girl is not this confused when she is attacked. Here's the difference, in one situation she's saying NO and in the other situation she's saying YES.

The rapist in the scene is a high school boy who suffers no consequences and is not confused about his actions. He knows he will get away with it, considers it a fun and exciting game and proceeds to seek out and attempt to rape a freshman. Is that a freshman? I like freshmen, they're so "fresh," goes the dialogue. The portrayal of her rape is that she obviously deserves such treatment because she's foolish enough to go to a party with the cool kids and wear a pretty dress, shouldn't she know better? The only way she gets out of the situation is by emergency texting her brother who saves the day.

How do all the other high school girls react? Isn't this great gossip?

Is this the new standard of normal? I kept hoping I was confused, but really there was nothing mysterious about the message:

"Rape of high school girls is HOT! Even for other girls and the rape-victim herself."

The "new" CWTV has gone from innocent sweet Gilmore Girls into depraved child pornography genre in one season. If this is accepted as the new normal by the consumer there are wide-range consequences for the sexualization of girls. Dating violence is a real problem, in that 1 in 5 girls are victims of it, and I believe producers of this show are intentionally perpetuating the problem because it's getting them off.

Are we asked to believe that this is a reflection of reality? And if this is reality why are they asking us to be aroused by it instead of outraged and disgusted by it?

As a consumer, a user-of and advocate of free speech, the mother of a girl and a female myself, I encourage all advertisers to withdraw themselves from supporting the intentional blurring of rape/consent boundaries on Gossip Girl. Violence against women and rape of girls can not become mainstream entertainment. This is not in the best interest of girls. This is not in the best interest of boys who date girls. This is in the best interests of Nambla and pedophiles and sex offenders. This is in the best interest of pornographers who like to photograph the violation of girls and encourage the consumption of girls as pure entertainment. But, there is no way in which this kind of mysogynistic violence for entertainment purposes can be construed as in any girls' best interest.

Rape is rape and it's never fun for it's victim. It's never funny and no one should be confused by the glamorous presentation of it on Gossip Girl.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Ainsley, Perfect You


Please steal this idea for your daughter's Christmas or birthday. I felt with all the negative media images my daughter had to face I wanted to arm her with a really, really good one. I wrote her a book, about herself, for her 5th birthday titled Ainsley, Perfect You.

I used MyPublisher.com because they have a storybook option that let me add more than a caption. When she's feeling anxious about things like the first day of school I take it down and read it to her. It's a very affordable thing any parent can do, it does take some time and planning.

Dear Mrs. Franklin,


Dear Mrs. Franklin,


I would love to be the Room Mother for Ainsley's class as I know you could use all the support you can get.

Unfortunately, I've already committed to coaching the soccer team, volunteering at the youth outreatch, mentoring a teenager, participating in church activities and working from home.

I've simply run out of time. I do hope you'll find someone else to do it.

Sincerely,

Tracee Sioux, Ainsley's Mom


Okay, could someone please tell me where all the guilt about writing that note is coming from? Why do I feel guilty for not having time to do everything for everyone while I notice other people volunteer for nothing and feel zero guilt about it?

Why is saying no to good things so terribly painful for me?

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Dating Violence

by Tracee Sioux

In Texas, almost 188,000 incidents of domestic violence occurred during 2005, and more than 330,000 rapes occur every year, according to Gov. Rick Perry's office.

But it always starts with the girls and boys. Intimate violence is not a problem that develops when healthy adults get together.

In 2007 Texas finally decided to address it. This is the first year dating violence education is being required in the public school system.


Both the victim and the offender attribute responsibility for dating violence to the victim. The majority of both girls and boys site the girl's appearance, the girl's personality, the girl's provocation, the girl's communication style, the girl's need for affection or the girl's peer group influence as the cause of intimate partner violence.


Prevelence and Frequency

* Females age 16-24 are the most vulnerable to intimate partner violence, suffering at a rate of three times the national average.

* Both males and females report being victims of dating violence. However, boys injure girls more severely and frequently.

* 1 in 5 female high school students report being abused by an intimate partner.

* 22% of all homicides of females between 16-19 were committed by their intimate partner.

* Half of adult sex-offenders admit their first violent offense occurred before age 18.

* Half of reported date-rape occurs to teenagers.

* Teens who experience partner violence are at increased risk for unhealthy eating behaviors, sexually risky behaviors, pregnancy, suicide, and substance abuse.


Parent Awareness

* 81% of parents say dating violence is not an issue or they don't know if it is.

* 54% of parents have never discussed it with their kids.


Teen Awareness

* 33% of teens have witnessed a dating violence incident.

* 20% of male students say they have witnessed a friend hitting his girlfriend.

* 39% of females report that whether a person is trying to control his partner is a common topic of conversation.

* 57% say they know someone who has been verbally, physically or sexually abusive in a dating relationship.

* 45% of girls say they know someone who has been pressured into intercourse or oral sex.

* 1 in 3 teens say they know someone hos has been punched, hit, kicked, or slapped by their dating partner.


Reporting

* Among females 83% said they would confide in a friend. Only 7% said they would tell the police.

* 33% of teens who have been the victim of abuse never told anyone.


The Offender

* Out of 1,600 teen sex offenders

* Only 33% said sex was an expression of caring and love.

* 25% said it was about power and control.

* 9.4% said it was a way to dissipate anger.

* 8.4% said it was a way to punish.


Contributing Factors

* One study found a high correlation between teen-mothers being abuse by their partners within 3 months after the birth of the baby.

* 77% of female and 67% percent of male high school students endorse some form of sexual coercion such as unwanted touching, kissing, hugging, genital contact and sexual intercourse.

* Male peer support for violence against women is a constant predictor of violence against dating partners.

* 50% of victims of dating violence report being suicidal, compared with 12% of non-abused girls and 4.5% of non-abused boys.

To verify the statistics and research the sources click here.


For more Dating Violence Prevention and Awareness Tools and Resources click here.

Genderizing Infants


by Tracee Sioux

Which of these babies is a boy and which is a girl?

Before I had children I thought it would be easy enough to avoid genderizing my babies. Numerous studies provide evidence that baby boys and baby girls are treated in a vastly different way. (Growing A Girl, PAP Report on Sexualization of Girls, Dove Campaign for Real Beauty White Paper.)

I won the baby lottery in that I was blessed with one girl and one boy.

I felt it would be easy enough to combat the nature versus nurture gender influence on my babies. What I didn't count on was the immediacy of the nurture genderization that was beyond my control.

I also had the unique perspective of having same-age, opposite-gender cousins to compare treatment in the present sense. More simply: My daughter has a male cousin born 3 weeks after her and my son has a female cousin born 3 weeks after him. Without picking on my mother-in-law, whose influence on my children I consider positive and invaluable, her behavior toward my children is the most marked in its gender-stereotyping so I'll use her to illustrate.

Within days of the birth of my son and his female cousin she could not stop talking about how "all boy" my baby was, as compared to how "all girl" his cousin was. My son, in my opinion, was a pretty as any girl baby. I really believe if we took them to the mall with Zack in a dress and called him Samantha everyone would believe he was a girl and therefore treat him accordingly. She believes he is somehow inherently boy-like.

Babies, whether they are girls or boys, eat, sleep, poop, pee and cry. That's it. There really are no scientific gender characteristics aside from genitalia. Yet, the way they are treated from the very second they pop out of the womb is vastly different.

What I realized is that it's a mute argument because you can't insulate them from gender-stereotyping. Not even for the first five minutes.

Have you ever been in a store with a new mother and someone says, "What a cute little boy."

One mother I was with said, I have her dressed from head to toe in pink, the blanket is pink and the headband is pink and has a bow. How much more obvious can it be that she's a girl?

Mothers feel it's imperative that even strangers understand that their baby boys are boys and their girls are girls.

With my girl the clothes available were pink, ruffled, bearing photos of dolls, teddy bears, bows, and dance emblems. The clothing very often bore some comment on her attractiveness like cute, adorable, sweet.

I think my son wears something with a ball, bat, net or truck picture every single day.

My boy scored some blocks, trucks, puzzles, tools and a video game system for his first birthday. My daughter got some dolls, a stroller, cooking paraphernalia, fake heels and a tea set for hers.

Adjectives used to describe my infant daughter included pretty, sweet, adorable and precious.

Adjectives used to describe my son include tough, big, smart, strong and cute.

What I realized is that you can't stop people from treating your children in different ways due to their gender. Not in reality.

In the real world it's ungrateful and rude to tell people not to buy your daughter girl toys. You sound like an ass if you say please don't call her beautiful, call her smart. You really have little control over what friends and family say to your kids. You can't go around policing every toy, clothing item or word. There's also an argument that you don't really want to criminalize girl toys or positive feedback about girlness. The goal is not to make them boys after all.

My husband and I are as guilty of gender-stereotyping our babies as anyone. My first instinct with my daughter is always to tell her to be nice and get along.
It's not nice to hit.

Yet my son is encouraged by the whole family to flex his muscles and be physically aggressive and growl. My husband likes to show his aggressiveness off to his friends, Get him Zack!

I even gave him a very aggressive masculine hair cut with his spiked Mohawk, while my daughter isn't allowed to cut her hair short.

While I've given up the idea that it's remotely possible to insulate our kids from early gender-stereotyping, I think it's important to be conscientious about applying "masculine" adjectives to our daughters too. It's important that we make a habit of telling our daughters that they too are smart, competent, strong, fast, brave and tough. It's important to expose them to the "masculine toys" like video games, puzzles, math games and the computer.

For that matter, it's pretty funny to watch Zack run around in my red peep-toe pumps and play house with the baby dolls. Sweet and gentle are adjectives I like to use with him.

One of the babies in the picture is a boy. One is a girl. Which is which? What makes you think so? Look to the sidebar to participate in a baby-gender poll.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

See That One Girl?


This is the company photo for WordPress.com. See that one woman among all the men? This is 2007 and we talk a lot about all the opportunities available to women, but this is a current photo not a flashback to the 1970s.

What do we say to our daughters about that one girl? Do we encourage our daughters to emulate her, join her, be like her? Or do we criticize her fashion sense and hair?

Do we tell our daughters that math and science pay a lot more than traditionally female occupations like teaching and social work?

When we're encouraging a hobby it might be better to forgo the tap class and encourage chess club. Parents of girls should get extra-excited about math ability and foster a curiosity about computers.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Shrek the Third, Princess Confrontation

By Tracee Sioux

We took our kids and my mentee to see Shrek the Third (Widescreen Edition).

I was thrilled to expose the girls to the scene where the Disney Princesses, Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, deliberately nod off to sleep to "wait to be rescued" when the villains of children's literature lock them up.
Fiona and her mother look mystified by such a stupid response and take matters into their own hands - effectively saving themselves.

HELLO! It's about time someone had the nerve to confront those girls about the stupidity of waiting around for someone to save them. Thank you Fiona and Queen of Far Far Away!

I used to allow princesses at out house, I've since banned them. (We still have some videos and books that were sentimental gifts.) But the messages of the Disney Princess culture is that girls are valued for beauty rather than competence. That a prince must come save them for they are incapable of effective action. See Cinderella Should Have Saved Herself, Belle - Battered Codependent, and Ariel - The Little Mute for details about why I've restricted access to the princess message.

If parents are going to offer their daughters the Disney Princess culture, and it's really not possible to isolate them from it completely because it's so pervasively marketed, at least offer up an alternate view of a girl's role. Shrek the Third should join the others on the DVD shelf, at the very least. Use it to point out to your daughters the (dis)functionality of the Disney stories. Give them permission to envision saving themselves and be proactive about their lives.

Tell them the truth about men they will date someday - that prince grows up and turns into a fallible man that picks his nose and turns right back into a frog - just like the King of Far Far Away does in Shrek The Third.

Watch Shrek the Third (Widescreen Edition)and tell her that you think Fiona and her mother's actions are more admirable than the Princesses who passively nod off to sleep and wait for someone to save them.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Ugly Betty Beauty


by Tracee Sioux

The beautiful America Ferrera won the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series last night for her role as Betty Suarez in Ugly Betty.

Hurray!

While my husband believes the themes in Ugly Betty are too adult for our five-year-old daughter, and they are, I love Ugly Betty's message about beauty.

I think it's a provocative look at beauty and the value we place on women. The social climate at Mode Magazine begs the question are women valued for their brains and abilities or are they valued for how much they participate in the ideal of beauty?

With lots of glamour, fashion, paparazzi and soap opera gender themes it seems the only thing everyone on the show wants to be is the ideal of a beautiful woman.

Take Wilhelmina Slater, played by Vanessa Williams, she's beautiful but what she really wants is to be taken seriously by the publisher. She wants to run a magazine. She wants to be valued for her abilities, she's obviously the most capable of running a fashion magazine. But, as the "beautiful woman" she keeps getting the "assistant's" job.

The cattiness and image obsession of the receptionist Amanda is like a caricature of what mean girls grow up to be. Beauty is so important she'll do anything to get it.

Even the men are caught up in the obsession with fashion and beauty. The less-than-masculine boy, Justin, and the homosexual assistant place place an equally distorted importance on beauty and fashion. They become completely absorbed in the whole glamorous world, in which they can never be the ideal, as they are male. They accept worshipping it from the sidelines.

The two heirs, both male, chase the ideal of the beautiful woman with equal vigor - one, Alexis Meade, surgically becomes one, while the other, Daniel Meade focuses on sexually obtaining many. Much like their father, Bradford Meade, who has built a dynasty around photographing the beauty ideal and writing about the importance and significance of beauty to encourage that other women, his audience, to seek it.

It even brings in the cultural influences of beauty with Betty's sister, Hilda, obviously beautiful by the standards of her Queens neighborhood going to beauty school.

Betty, completely oblivious to the vicious competition for becoming "the prettiest", always seems the most truly beautiful person in the room. She broadens the scope and definition of beauty, being refreshingly a-typical of young Hollywood.

DVR Ugly Betty, Thursdays on ABC this fall. It will make you think of beauty, the ideal of the beautiful woman, and the importance of beauty in lots of new ways.

"A" Is For . . .


by Tracee Sioux

My daughter was reciting all the things about "A" she had learned her first week in Kindergarten.

A is for alligator, apple tree, astronaut, Ainsley.

Then she handed the phone back to me.

Well, when she was reciting all the things that start with A, I refrained from listing Asshole.

Well, thanks for showing some restraint Mom, I said. Sometimes I don't even know who you are. When I was a kid I would have sworn you would never, ever say the word Asshole. Let alone be tempted to say it to a five-year-old.

I would have sworn the same thing. Then I had you.

You mean parenting a child like myself in particular, or the experience of mothering in general?

It was parenting you. When you have a kid like you and you start defending them to people, you don't realize how many assholes there are in the world. The world is pretty full of assholes.

I've learned more things about things I never, ever wanted to know about or understand being your mother. Well, and Larry's wife. The two of you. I was so naive. I've really had to grow and learn being married to him and mothering you. You two are my trials to endure. You're the people in my life that force me to grow.

My poor mother. She'd have chosen a life of rule following, respecting authority and blending in.

Then she had me and I would have none of it - straight from the go. Challenging authority, questioning the status quo, getting into trouble, experimenting with addiction, using my voice loudly and publicly, forever going against the grain.

She did defend me too. I remember she took on the vice-principal of my junior high when I kicked out a window at school. I went right to him and confessed and offered to pay for it. I kicked it, but was surprised it had broken. My intention wasn't to vandalize. The principal expelled me for the rest of the year and she fought that. But, you know what she would have chosen for herself? That I was not the type of kid to kick anything. That I would have just nicely and politely gone to class.

I put my mother through hell. People always make vague comments about myself to me. My grandmother recently wrote, You always have marched to a different drummer.

I never do know what they really mean. I always choose to take it as a compliment. But, I'm vague about how people really perceive me. I never quite understand how exactly I'm so different. Occasionally I'll struggle against it, my nature, but it's futile. I worry that my daughter is too much like me, and girls like us are really such a challenge to mother.


Well behaved women rarely make history.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Thursday, September 13, 2007

APA Reports Sexualization of Girls Devastating


by Tracee Sioux

The American Psychologocial Association has published a Report of the APA Task force on the Sexualization of Girls.

This 74-page report should be required reading for every mother, mentor, and educator. It contains a multitude of studies and evidence that girls are being negatively effected by being inundated with images and innuendos in all facets of culture that sexuality them.

Sexualization defined as:

* Valued for sexuality rather than other characteristics.

* Being objectified, made into a thing to be used for someone else's sexual use versus rather than being seen as a person with the capacity for independent action and decision making.

* Sexuality is inappropriately imposed on a person.

Ample evidence suggests that sexualization has negative effects in a variety of domains, including cognitive functioning, physical and mental health, sexuality and attitudes and beliefs, the report states.

* Cognitive and physical functioning. Perhaps the most insidious consequence of self-objectification is that it fragments consciousness. Chronic attention to physical appearance leaves fewer cognitive resources available for other mental and physical activities. One study had girls unable to do well on a math test if wearing a swimsuit versus a sweater. The boys were unaffected by their attire.

* Sexualization and objectification undermine comfort with one's own body leading to feelings of shame, anxiety and even self-disgust. Vigilant monitoring of clothing or appearance leads to increased shame about one's body.

* Frequent exposure to cultural beauty ideals in the media has been shown to be associated with poor mental health including eating disorders, depression and low self-esteem.

* Studies show a link between sexualization and physical health. Girls who reported feeling negatively about their bodies were more likely to smoke and less likely to participate in sports or athletic activities.

* Frequent exposure to narrow ideals of attractiveness leads to narrow ideas about actual feminine bodily experiences like breastfeeding, menstruation, sweating and real sexual experiences.

* Frequent exposure to fictionalized images of sex made girls and women feel worse about real life sex.
Proposed solutions include:

* Formal education about healthy sexual and romantic relationships. Things like dating respect conferences.

* Comprehensive sex education in a human biology sense arms girls with the facts about their biological sexuality.

* Participation in athletics and extracuricular activities not of a sexual nature. Athletics that focus on stregth and competence increase self esteem.

* Religious and spiritual practices.

* Girl-centered groups and activities such as mentoring, Girl Scouts, and girl-related after school programs.

* Educating girls about how images in the media are produced and the profit motives behind advertising campaigns.


As a parent, mentor, woman, and journalist I find the findings of this paper to be consistent with what I'm seeing in girls and women.

Culture has meaning, the toys and clothes we allow our children to wear carry significance, the media they are exposed to has consequences. The statistical evidence suggests that perhaps we, as parents, are not taking it seriously enough.

It is my belief, and this is supported by the APA's report, that mothers are in the best and most appropriate position to impact a girl's self worth and to encourage a healthy sexuality. It's difficult to combat an entire culture with media images of sexuality, most of it inappropriate and disrespectful towards girls and women, invading nearly every facet of day-to-day-life.

It's difficult to draw the line and tune into warning signals our girls give us. My goal, and forgive me if I'm a fallible mother who finds the cultural and beauty myths difficult to interpret myself, is to give mothers a place where they can come and get a perspective that's a little different from the mainstream. Give mothers a place to sound off about cultural sexualization and how that's influencing their daughters. I intend to provide some tools to help mothers communicate with their daughters about sensitive issues.

It is our job, as parents, to interpret culture for our daughters.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Human Biology & Girls' Rights


by Tracee Sioux

The absurdity of abstinence-only "education" and I do use the term education loosely, confounds me. It's so blatantly anti-girl.

The logic is so extremely flawed. The practice is entirely ineffective in preventing big social problems like teen pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

From the girl's perspective, and I do believe girls should have inalienable rights just like any other citizen of this country, they have a right to know the biological facts of their body.

I understand the argument that parents want to tell their children to not have sex. I'm all for that right. It's a good thing to encourage girls not to participate in sexual activity. But, parents aren't the ones paying the consequences are they?

To leave girls uninformed about the consequences of sex is neglectful to the extreme.

If a girl is old enough to pay the consequences of pre-marital sex - and she's old enough for that as soon as her period, which occurs between 9 and 14-years-old then she is old enough to understand how her reproductive system works.

If we educate girls about their bodies they will be better able to decide not to have sex. Accurate information results in sexual and reproductive responsibility.

*Girls a right to know exactly how sexually transmitted diseases are spread.

*Girls have a right to know exactly how babies are and are not conceived.

*Girls have a right to a basic understanding of their own biological reproductive systems.

*Girls have a right to understand their fertility.

*Girls have a right to understand the function of their breasts.

*Girls have a right to understand their monthly periods.

To withhold biological information about the reproductive system is to encourage teen pregnancy and spread of communicable disease and misinformation supplied by teen boys and sexual predators. Withholding reproductive information also results in women not understanding the biology of fertility which leads to lots of heartbreak when they find out they've waited too long to conceive naturally.

Babies and STDs are not a consequence of sex in this millennium. Babies and STDs are a consequence of girls and women being uneducated and misinformed about their own bodies.

Take two minutes right now to be an activist for girls' health by sending a letter to your representatives supporting Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Christopher Shays (R-CT), along with Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), introduced the Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act (H.R. 1653/S. 972). It's a bill that promotes abstinence - and abstinence really is a great thing to promote - but also supplies medically accurate biological information about the reproductive system.

Thanks to the American Association of University Women for supplying this easy letter which encourages our leaders to pass girl-empowering legislation.

Love Your Skin

simpletons.jpg The most interesting thing about Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton, to me, is that they look the same. Same hair, same skin tone, same fashion. Just very much the same. One of them is half-African American, but which one? Obviously, you know which one because you hear about them constantly, but if you didn't it would be hard to tell.

It's interesting that women all want to be the same color, only not the color we are.

Dark skinned women buy bleaching products to lighten the color of their skin to be more beautiful. While white women poison their skin with sun damage and tanning beds to look darker to be more beautiful. (I'm really regretting the tanning, now that I'm fighting melasma with bleaching products so I have one skin tone.)

Does this mean that Hispanic women, who presumably have the ideal medium brown skin tone, feel most beautiful? Or do they have skin-tone issues too?

I like the Olay tag line, Love the skin you're in.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

9/11 Reflections

by Tracee Sioux

I saw the second plane hit the World Trade Center in person, I snapped a photo at that very moment. The anniversary of 9/11 is something everyone on television will be talking about today. They will all be running the most graphic and terrible footage they can find.

I won't say they shouldn't show the footage. But, I will say the images that haunt me from that day, and the images still do haunt me, are not the ones I saw in person. They are the ones I saw on television over and over and over. My brain kicked into self-protection mode in real life and I couldn't even believe my own eyes until the television confirmed it. And television confirmed it with graphic horror shown over and over and over until it now resides as wallpaper in my brain.

It's important for adults to understand what happened on that day. But, the watching of the footage over and over isn't good for the mental health. Not good for me, not good for you, and absolutely unfit for children.

Keep in mind that you can DVR shows you want to watch and view them after the kids are in bed. I want to see Oprah's show on the surviving children of 9/11, but I don't think I'll let my kids watch it.

To all the rescue workers out there, I remember what you did. I remember why you did it and I think it's a disgrace that we, as Americans, have not offered you a lifetime of free health care as you struggle with 9/11 related illnesses. I remember the smoke, the smoldering fire that lasted weeks and weeks. I remember how you risked your health to save any one, any one person you hoped would have survived.

To the leaders who've been questioned before Congress for allowing the search to go on too long or whose decisions during that time have been questioned. I remember those missing posters wallpapering the city. I remember how unwilling to give up hope for survivors the families were. I remember the pundits and anchormen using their patriotic banter to encourage the search to go on and on and on. I remember how devastatingly hard it was for the city to look at the thousands of faces on the posters lining the subway stations and fences and accept the fact that they weren't missing - they were dead.

Every leader who stepped up and made the hard calls and hard decisions should get a free pass on 9/11. There was no handbook, the graphic horror of that day was unprecedented. The shock city-wide and national was real. At least they didn't curl up in the fetal position and sob like I did.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Big K Week 1


by Tracee Sioux

The first week of Kindergarten didn't go as smoothly as I had planned. Perhaps that's the problem with having a plan, you get too attached to the outcome and then become disappointed.

Practical problems included the bus taking 2 whole hours to bring my kid home. Two hours is a heck of a lot of time to spend on a bus. We live within walking distance of the school. Literally about 5 blocks. Of course I called the school twice to find out if my daughter was still there, had been brought back, etc. When she finally got off she said all the kids had fallen asleep and had to be carried out by parents. Day 2 same problem. Day 3 I send a note saying I'd be picking her up until further notice. I had talked to several parents who don't allow their kids to ride the bus for fear of bullies. Apparently, the bullies needed their afternoon nap.

Adding two extra hours on to her school day resulted in emotional meltdowns. Big exasperated shouting and screaming and crying fits. Meltdowns.

I had to go coach soccer without her because she just couldn't handle an extra-curricular activity. Then we went ahead with a church meeting after school on Day 2 and maybe that was just too much for everyone. She also rejected school lunch and asked me to pack her one. Cheaper and healthier anyway.

Day 3 I picked her up and she was missing her preschool best-friend pretty badly. Not a single one of her friends ended up in her class. I guess they don't even have recess or lunch as a group. So, I invited her friend over to play. One conflict after another (between us, not between she and her friend) resulted in two pretty major meltdowns. She's grounded for a week.

She's was not allowed to play soccer on Saturday. The worst part is that I still had to coach it. Once it was out of my mouth I had to do it.

I sent her to Day 4, Friday, with a massive guilt trip and major shaming lecture. Really sometimes I wish I hadn't taken an anti-spanking discipline position. Sometimes I think what she needs is to be swiftly smacked in the mouth. That's probably not what she needs, but it's what my impulse is. My parents would have gotten out the belt and been done with it. Yes, her behavior was serious enough for a really big consequence. But, she's 5, what exactly is a really big consequence?

Does external stress excuse really terrible behavior? Does that fact that she's only doing what we, her parents, taught her to do give her a free pass? Both my husband and I have had really big meltdowns under stress. Does that mean we shouldn't punish her when she only acts out what we taught her to do?

Friday, September 7, 2007

We Vow Now


by Tracee Sioux

We, my husband and I, are participating in a federally-funded marriage education course designed to keep the family together. Vow, Healthy Marriage Education Initiative is being funded by the Administration for Children and Families and the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Marriage. Where to start. Obviously, marriage and the success or failure of marriage deeply effects the empowerment of girls, well all children really. I'm trying to raise an empowered girl, yet I find it increasingly arduous to model a positive marriage relationship.

My husband and I are one generation removed from Traditional Marriage Stereotypes. Dad equals bread-winner and decision-maker, wife equals care-giver and house-keeper.

As a culture, we're reinventing marriage and the roles wives and husbands play. In theory, my husband and I agree, but theory only gets you so far. It's the actual division of labor, outside-the-home and inside-the-home, we get hung up on a lot. Not only have neither of us seen the new husband/wife relationship modelled by parents, but our siblings and other familial and religious influences remain pretty traditional.

I would be ashamed to admit that we find marriage such a struggle if the statistical evidence that we're not alone were not so overwhelming.

Half of marriages end in divorce. 50%. FIFTY PERCENT. Half!

That's a huge social problem. Here's why:

Women who get divorced are more likely to live in poverty, retire homeless, commit suicide or become ill. Men who divorce are less likely to have good relatioships with their children. Their ex-wives and children are more likely to need financial assistance from the government.

Children who come from divorced homes are less likely to attend college, more likely to do drugs, more likely to become pregnant, more likely to get divorced, more likely to commit crimes, more likely to contract social diseases. Those consequences cost tax-payers a lot of money in prisons, jails, and social services.

Finally, the federal government has decided to get to the core of the problem and help families find a way to be happier together than apart. This is a virtual standing ovation - APPLAUSE!!

The program is in a research phase where 225 pocket areas with high rates of divorce have been given $118,644,219 in grant money to determine if this kind of marriage education program will be effective.

The 6-12 week program focuses on what each person in the relationship brings to the marriage by way of baggage, if you will. There is an examination of assumptions, beliefs and world-views of both marriage partners to identify some of the root problems.

Once the core issues have been identified there's a rapid move toward conflict resolution. Couples are given practical skills and tools to determine how to compromise and enjoy their marriages.

Key points that make me hopeful about Vow's success are:

* The research and foundation for the Vow program is designed around research of HAPPY couples with long marriages. No one wants to be married for 50 years if it's 45 years of pain and struggle. Better a divorce than that. But, wouldn't it be nice if everyone had the secret recipe for how to be happily married for 50 years?
* The program is a mix of secular and faith-based education, meaning it is designed to help couples navigate their faith issues and come to suitable compromises if they come from different religious backgrounds. It does not promote any one religious belief system, but takes the couple's religious training and desires into account. Churches in Vow communities are encouraged to back up the program and provide support.
* It analyzes pre-conceived gender-roles each partner brings to the marriage, and addresses how that's effecting the division of labor in the family. Working women are still doing 75% of the child-care and house-work. Not to mention the addition of part-time or work-at-home or home-school mothering situations that often don't even get "counted" when we're talking about "working moms". That itself could explain the high divorce rate. Women feel tired and undervalued. Men feel misplaced and unneeded.
* Financial advisers, with no commission motive, are provided for every participating couple. Around 70% of divorces, they say, are over money. Husbands and wives care about money. Enough to get divorced over.
* Every stage of marriage is accounted for. Dating, engaged, married, separated, living together, common-law marriage and every transitional period from new babies to retirement. Even happily married couples who lost the spark or got a bored are encouraged to participate in Vow.
* Lots of focus is put on the role and importance of responsible fatherhood. Perhaps feminism and women's role in the workplace cost father's something and perhaps they're feeling undervalued. Vow addresses the issue of deadbeat and disappearing dads as well.

As I sat listening to the counselor describe how Vow was even going to pay for a couple's retreat, I felt this great sense of relief. A lump in my throat gathered and I blinked back tears - We don't want a divorce. We just don't know how to have a great marriage.

The overwhelming response to the Vow billboards in my town echo my thoughts. Families want to stay together, we just don't know how. Change is hard, it's difficult to adjust to new roles and definitions in relationships. It's not easy to reinvent the meaning of wife or husband or mother or father or family. These are not roles and identifiers we want to lose, but they're shifting into undefined territory.

No success in life can compensate for failure in the home. That's the foundation for the Mormon belief system that I grew up with. I'm profoundly grateful that America is putting some money behind the words "Family Values" and helping American couples redefine marriage.
Find out if a Vow program is near you here.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Beauty & Reality




I'm a big fan of Dove's advertising campaigns. When I saw the real women in their white bra and panties on Oprah, the models for Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty, I got tears in my eyes. Finally, advertising that says real women are beautiful, I thought. I even wrote them a letter thanking them for being the first company, I felt, that didn't try to sell women beauty products by making them feel ugly or less than. Even yesterday I saw the Oprah rerun on Dove's Pro-Age campaign (women over 50 posing tastefully nude) and the staggering beauty of real women brought tears to my eyes.


The infamous Evolution video (featured above) is a great tool which allows us to show our daughters the truth about advertising and beauty. No one looks like they look in a magazine. The thing about all these amazing advancements in technology, like Photoshop, is that reality gets blurred. As parents, mentors, and educators it's important to help girls understand that how they look in reality is beautiful. And how girls and women look in magazines, on television, in movies, and in advertising is fiction, created by technology and professional artists.


Above is a fascinating collection of Dove videos, including their newest Truth Behind Hollywood Hair Call your daughter over and watch them together. They are a great tool for teaching girls, and reminding ourselves, about the reality of beauty.


Visit Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty for more resources on how to make girls feel beautiful.
More posts on Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty
Beauty & Reality
Self-Loathing Sin Bank
More posts on hair:
Pink Hair Fiasco
Pink Hair Fiasco Take 2
Curl Maintenance
The Meaning of Hair

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

How Come Zack Gets A Barbie?


by Tracee Sioux

How come Zack gets a Barbie and I don't? Ainsley challenged.

Why don't you let her have Barbie's? My protegee, Ambrea, asked.
Zack just sat sucking satisfied on the top of GI Joe's camoed head from his car seat.

Freaking Barbie. All day long I'd been being challenged here, on So Sioux Me, about why I don't allow Barbie. Could the lack of a Barbie doll might actually harm the development of my five-year-old daughter? Am I being too extreme? Some think so.

Is a bad feeling in my gut a good enough reason to restrict a mainstream toy? Have you seen Sunset Tan? It's like a strange planet that Barbie took over. Watch the show and then tune into Dr. 90210 and see the perfectly beautiful, normal girls carve up their bodies attempting to look just like Barbie. Have you ever been to LA and seen how homogoneous Barbie beauty is? That's my objection. The Olly Girls are the epitome of girl-mothering failure, in my opinion. That's the bad feeling I have in my stomach that says, just say no to Barbie. I don't see how anyone can watch those shows and not see Barbie's influence. But then I find myself in the car listening to:

How come Zack gets a Barbie and I don't? Ainsley challenged.
Why don't you let her have Barbie's? My protege, Ambrea asked incredulous.

uuuggghhh. I have nothing. Well, I've got a feeling in the pit of my stomach that screams Barbie sucks. But, I don't have a concrete reason to back up or ban the acceptance of GI Joe. He's a war doll with exagerated masculinity in his plastic chest. He seems very much the same as a boy Barbie doll, to my five-year-old daughter.

Like most of my children's toys I didn't buy GI Joe. We were at a thrift store, and I had found Ainsley playing with the Barbies. Zack was being fussy and I grabbed the nearest toy, a GI Joe, to buy myself some browsing time.

A generous and kind employee gave Zack the GI Joe.

I didn't think the issue through before it was thrust into my life. Zack is a toddler. I haven't formulated a policy about the acceptability of war toys or male Barbie-like dolls. We have a talking Bill Clinton Barbi-like doll already, does he too have to go?

So, now I have to decide, if Barbie is banned, then does GI Joe have to go too, out of fairness? Or should I just give up and let Barbie in the house to irritate and annoy me everytime I have to pick her up and put her away?

You Don't Have To Obey


by Tracee Sioux

I took my kids out for Chinese food last week as a special end-of-summer treat. I had given my 18-month-old Zack a chop-stick to play with. He was picking up kernels of rice with it and eating them. I was very proud.

The waitress came up and took the chop stick away from him. He will poke himself, don't let him have this, she chastised me.

People frequently correct my parenting, probably yours too. Some think it's obscenely bad manners when I let him eat with his hands. Some scold me for allowing him to use a fork because he might scratch the inside of his mouth. Many have lots to say about me letting him feed himself and make such a mess. I'm sure if I fed him with a baby spoon there would be those who felt I was not fostering independence.

I simply nodded and went on with my meal.

You know, you don't have to obey her, my daughter informed me. Give him back the chop stick.

Ah, my sweet, sweet daughter, a woman after my own heart. She is so right. Right now I'm trying to negotiate the fine line between making a big deal out of everything or just shutting up and doing what I'm told sometimes. The older I get the more I realize no matter what my action, someone is going to have a criticism. I'm just working on the appropriate response.