Teen Sexual Harrassment at Work

I just finished watching a story on PBS' Now about young women being sexually harassed and even assaulted at their part time jobs. The story starts out a little sensational, but the topic is important so I kept watching.

Anyway I'm glad to hear that this issue is getting investigated more and that some young women are sharing their experiences. I can definitely understand feeling embarrassed, afraid and not having experience with what is and isn't acceptable in a work environment.

In one of my first jobs in college, I had an experience with a guy saying some inappropriate things to me and making me feel uncomfortable. Late one night he cornered me when no one was nearby and started saying some inappropriate things. It was fairly mild, but he had a more superior position than me and it felt intimidating because we were alone in this dark parking lot.

Thankfully I was working with a bunch of really awesome, strong women and I immediately rushed to them and told them how creepy he'd made me feel. Turns out he'd been creeping out a bunch of other women too.

Everyone encouraged me to come forward and talk to the bosses. I worked very closely with the people who hired him and felt confident that they'd believe my story and take it seriously.

It wasn't comfortable, but I came forward and reported his behavior. The bosses were pretty receptive, thanked me for coming forward, and as far as I know he wasn't hired again for any further projects. They did try to assure me that he "didn't mean any harm--he just doesn't have a good sense about what's appropriate behavior." Ummm and why would you hire someone with those qualities!?

I'm really glad I reported the incident, and so thankful that I was working with supportive, encouraging women who I could turn to. Hopefully with these new stories and studies about sexual harassment in the workplace other young women will feel comfortable coming forward.

Worst Toy of the Year

Will it be the Cadillac Escalade that three-year-olds can learn to gas guzzle with? Or the Barbie Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader doll that's oozing gender stereotypes?

Check out the other contestants and vote for Campaign for a Commerical-Free Childhood's award for worst toy of the year.

 

Encouraging Girls Without Dissing Boys

The topic of feminist messages for boys has been on my mind for some time, but it's been coming up a lot so far this year.

I got a comment in an order from Melissa in El Paso, TX saying:

"I love how the site and products encourage girls to be strong without engaging in boy-bashing (I have a son too!)."

This might seem hard to believe, but I'd never quite thought about it that way. I mean I've always hated that slogan, "Girls rule, boys drool." It just doesn't make sense to me to be encouraging one person while putting down another. I want all the Sticker Sisters goodies to have a celebratory, fun tone that doesn't come at the expense of anyone else.

I was thinking about this when Janet in San Francisco e-mailed me for advice:

"In a couple of months I have a chance to go to a family reunion and deliver stickers, shoelaces, bandaids...into the hands of at least eight grand-nieces whose parents may or may not get the reasoning. (Ages: 18 months to 15 years, with a cluster in the 5-10 range).

Meanwhile, the girls have three brothers/cousins in the impressionable age range of 5-7. They will get gifts too. To inoculate the boys against "girls-rule" teasing (which can lead to a backlash by parents and other folk, thus negating the valuable consciousness-raising), I'm looking for some good messages to incorporate on the boys' gifts. You've undoubtedly thought this question through: I notice that your messages are pro-girl but not anti-boy. What messages do you like for giving confidence to boys, without putting girls down?"

So that brings me to my biggest challenge. While Sticker Sisters will always be focused on girl-positive messages, I've had a lot of requests for items for boys as well. Of course boys can wear "Girls Rock," "Action Not Glamour," or "My Kind of Princess..." t-shirts. And I've had some very cool ones do just that! But let's be real--most boys aren't going to wear those shirts.

Anyone have ideas on messages that would be appealing to girls and boys?

 

Understanding and Raising Girls -- Live Chat

I just found out PBS Engage is hosting a live chat with Rachel Simmons--author of the New York Times bestseller Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls.

Check out the chat:

Tuesday, December 9, 2008 4:00pm EST

They'll post a transcript for those who can't make it.

There are some great questions already posted:

"How do I teach my daughters (4 1/2 & 2) not to emulate the images they see on magazine covers and TV?"

"What are the Top 3 Tactics we can employ as parents to raise stronger, more self-sufficient and HAPPY girls."

Got any advice for these parents or questions of your own?

Equal Play

My mentor and friend Farra just shared some awesome videos from the V is for Victory campaign. They're raising awareness about how girls sports still aren't treated fairly at lots of schools.



I could relate to this undercover video showing the drastic differences between the boys and girls facilities at one school. In my high school the gym only had a boys locker room. The coach's changing room (which was the size of a large walk-in closet) had been converted into a makeshift girls locker room. So every class period 40-50 girls had to squeeze into that tiny room to change. Some people changed in shifts and some people resorted to just pulling their sweats on over their street clothes in the hallway.

One day at the end of class we went back to the locker room to change back into our regular clothes and the door had been removed! When we complained to the male gym teachers they brushed us off by saying we better hurry or we'd be late for class. It was pretty unbelievable.

Do you have horror stories about inferior equipment, not having uniforms or unacceptable facilities?

Target Women: Disney Princesses

Have you seen the "Target Women" videos? They're hysterical! This latest one fits right in with our new My Kind of Princess shirt.

New Word for Tomboy

Over at Shameless Magazine they're talking about an article in the Toronto Star called "Why 'tomboy' remains a loaded word."

The article quotes a description in the NY Times of actress Ellen Page as "a tomboy – her on-screen persona is sharp, clear-eyed, determined and self-consciously original."

Apparently a Sarah Lawrence professor wrote a response saying:

“It is unfortunate that we have no other word available to describe this strong, independent young woman than to refer to her as a tomboy. This continues to convey to girls that growing up clear-eyed and courageous is being like a boy.”

Well said!

I was the only girl on my baseball team when I was younger and have often been mistaken for a boy when I have short hair. But I can't think of an instance where I was directly called a tomboy. I definitely identified with boys when I was little and even wished to become one, but I never liked the word tomboy.

Were you ever called a tomboy? How do you feel about the term? What are other words we can use to describe strong girls? Does even having any word assume that it's unusual or unnatural for girls to be strong?

I heart Youth Radio

Just thinking today about how awesome Youth Radio is. Thanks to them, this morning on my drive to the day job, I heard some young people's reactions to the CDC study that everyone has been so shocked about the last few days.

The study claims that 1 in 4 teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease and that the rate is close to 50% among African American young women.

My first thought: Maybe people will finally wake up and realize abstinence only programs aren't working! Maybe this will encourage more honest sex education. Maybe our country will invest in tons of prevention services and will make sure everyone has access. Maybe young people will be showered with knowledge, condoms, and everything else they need for safer sex.

My second (more realistic?) thought: Uh oh we're about to get bombarded with headlines shaming girls and calling them sluts.

My third thought: I assume all these girls aren't sleeping with each other so aren't they getting the STDs from guys? So what about them? We definitely don't need any more "CDC Shocker" scare tactic headlines about guys either, but why is all the attention and burden on the girls?

Marathon winner can't run away from sexism

I was watching the LA marathon on TV last weekend with my girlfriend because she's training for the San Francisco marathon in August. My first time watching a marathon and I got to see a woman win! Very cool.

But it was not cool what William Burke, co-founder and president of the City of Los Angeles Marathon, said about it. We're sitting enjoying the excitement of watching Tatiana Aryasova cross the finish line first and the station goes to Burke for a comment. "You can't keep those women down," he says. "You can't get them back in the kitchen." What?!?

There was so much shrieking coming from my house I didn't even hear the rest of the interview. For a few days I wasn't sure if I had dreamt that moment or if it really happened. Unfortunately, later in the week, Feministing (by way of the LA Times) verified that my ears hadn't deceived me. People commenting on Feministing have asked if maybe he was joking. It's possible, but I definitely didn't get that impression. He didn't smile, or wink, or laugh, or give any other clue that he was attempting to make a joke.

All I can say is keep running and let's leave this sexism in the dust!

Hillary Clinton's Visit

So I promised to give a full report on Hillary Clinton's visit to my work last Friday. But the weekend passed and I've been putting it off because, well, it just wasn't that eventful. There was a whole lot of "hurry-up and wait, hurry-up and wait." I think the highlight for me was meeting the secret service. Mostly I had to sit and wait in a dark room and then run around like crazy, so it wasn't like I could really take it all in. A bunch of my coworkers ran smack into Hillary Clinton and saw her off in her motorcade when they went to get lunch, but I was inside working on getting her video online.

Her interview was interesting, but I didn't think it was anything earth shattering. She talked about being annoyed at the media for their obsession with her being a woman and showing her feelings. She tells this story about being at a meeting with other women leaders in Finland:

Here we were in a country where women have enormously achieved equal rights that we hardly can even imagine. What did we talk about?

How frustrated they were that every time they made a serious about monetary policy or defense policy, it was reported what they were wearing or what their husbands thought or what their children thought. So we're moving into a future that nobody's ever lived before, so I don't fault the press because they're doing the best they can to make sense out of all of this. But how many stories do they need to write about the same thing?

It feels weird to be outing the worker bee part of my life here, but now you know what I do at my day job. Sort of. Maybe. A little.

"Pregnant" Boys

What do you think about these new ads about teen pregnancy put out by One Milwaukee? Seeing an image of a teenage boy who appears to be pregnant is definitely attention getting, but I don't know if it does much more than that. And I personally wouldn't use the word "disturbing" to describe teen pregnancy.

Stacey over at Shameless has a good point: "I don’t like perpetuating this idea that if boys got pregnant, then socially we’d suddenly care about the issue."

What do you think about these ads?

More Girls Fighting?

So I'm driving to work this morning listening to Day to Day on NPR and I hear the host proclaiming,"'Fight like a girl' used to be an expression that meant you didn't fight all that hard or all that violently. Well things have changed."

My ears perk up. Did I miss something? Is this cause for celebration? Are people not using "like a girl" as an insult anymore? Welllll...not quite. The story is about videos posted on YouTube showing girls fighting each other. They say in it that girls are getting in physical fights with each other more often than in the past. Not sure what the past is to them, but I definitely remember fights among girls when I was in middle and high school. But maybe it is getting more common. What do you think?

There was one part of the story that was especially annoying. Dr. Louis Kraus at Rush University says, "We see more girls interacting in competitive sports. We've seen girls get into more fights." Are we supposed to draw some connection between girls being more involved in sports and getting in more fights? What happened to sports being so good for girls?

And then they talk to a thirteen-year-old who says, "Guys aren't better than girls. Girls can fight too." Ah equality at last. But seriously let's strive for no fighting.

Oh but the Dr. Kraus guy brings up a good point at the end about how schools are less likely to take fights among girls as seriously as fights among guys. Teachers and administrators often see girls' fights as "skirmishes" and are less likely to intervene. Hopefully awareness will do a little something to help people not diminish girls' activities and expressions (however unacceptable).

More Spooky Stereotypes

So it's old news that Halloween costumes for women and girls keep getting "sexier" and more stereotypical. Not to mention all the racist "ethnic" costumes. And then there's the "sexy," "ethnic" costumes. Those really take the cake.

But apparently there's a new fad for men and boys. Move over scary costumes, this year "muscle" costumes are all the rage. From "Mini Muscle Man Infant" to "Macho Biker Man Adult" costumes, there's no scarcity of stereotypes for guys either.


Tolerance.org has a list of questions to help identify stereotypes in costumes:

WEARING A FUNNY COSTUME?
Ask yourself: Is the humor based on "making fun" of real people, real human traits or cultures?

Though intended to be funny, last season’s "Mental Patient" costume by Disguise was considered demeaning, dehumanizing, and humiliating to individuals struggling with a mental illness and their families. Complete with a "Hannibal" type mask and a straightjacket, the costume reinforced stereotypes and fears about persons with mental illness.


WEARING A SCARY COSTUME?
Ask yourself: Is the "fear factor" based on real forms of violence or grotesque depictions of human traits?

"This scary stud can empty out a full house just by walking through the door," touts the tag line for Fright Catalog’s "Vato Loco" mask. The bandana clad, tattooed, brown-skinned vinyl creation makes light of gang violence, which takes a serious toll on families and neighborhoods across the country. The costume also sends the message that Latinos are violent.


WEARING A HISTORICAL COSTUME?
Ask yourself: If the costume is meant to be historical, does it further misinformation or historical and cultural inaccuracies?

The "Indian" get-up prevails each year as culture-turned-costume. But did you know few Native Americans wore buckskin and headbands and even fewer wore them together? Did you know "war paint" and feathers carry religious meaning and were never worn by Native American children?


WEARING A "BEAUTIFUL" COSTUME?
Ask yourself: If the costume is meant to be beautiful, are these characteristics drawn from commercial references, such as movie characters?

Too often, beautiful at Halloween means white, blonde, princess masks. What statement does your Halloween costume make about what constitutes beauty -- and about who is beautiful and who isn't?


WEARING A "CULTURAL" COSTUME?
Ask yourself: Does the costume reduce cultural differences to jokes?

People like Leigha Baugham, a former communications student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, believe when it comes to picking Halloween costumes, we should "keep our hands out of the melting pot."

There are a zillion great things to dress up as that don't promote stereotypes. My favorite costumes have been a tube of toothpaste, a jellyfish, a gecko, a teabag, and a picnic. What great costumes have you worn or seen?

Glue On Gender for Pipsqueaks

So I just discovered another absurd way parents are trying to prevent that oh so scary question, “Is that a boy or a girl?” And it really takes the cake. They’re “stick on bows” for infants who don’t have enough hair to hold a regular bow. They come with a little bottle of glue that you use to adhere the bow to the baby’s scalp. And of course they’re available in pink, pink, and more pink.