I've been hesitant . . .

to blog about Rihanna and Chris Brown. Virtually all of the coverage of this "incident" has been distasteful, stereotypical, and all-around disheartening. Rihanna is caught in the double bind of having to either forgive Brown or demonstrate her strength and independence by rejecting him. Brown is often constructed as having been exposed to negative, violent, hypermasculine influences that tacitly pushed him to commit abuse.

I do think this issue is salient, especially as it exists at a nexus of cultural complexities, including abusive intimate partnerships, gender representations in mass media, and expectations of public figures who exist in a popular cult(ure) of celebrity, but I have no interest in perpetuating the "bad" discussions surrounding it. I was intrigued, then, when I saw this article in the New York Times, entitled "Teenage Girls Stand By Their Man."* This article is full of assumptions about 'how girls think,' as individuals and members of a collective girl culture, but it raises a lot of great points for further, more productive discussion about intimate partner violence and the reality of this particular example as spectacle. It's a piece that might be fruitful for discussion in the college classroom, especially.

*See if you can spot the nod to "girls' bedroom culture" (I concede the high nerd-factor in this asterisk point).

Dora Update

I previously posted about the changes to Dora's "little girl" image. The new Dora has been revealed, and particularly like this sarcastic discussion of the changes (the image can be found there, as well). She may not be all that sexed up, but the makeover is rather drastic, I think. One blogger noted that she was pleased Nickelodeon and Mattel did not lighten Dora's skin color. I'll say cheers to that, but I'm most displeased that Dora's lost her tomboy qualities. I read this image as a little heavy on the message, "I'm attracted to boys, and boys are attracted to me."

Gender Segregation in the Classroom

I'm not talking about girls or boys only schools here. This NYT article discusses the move to separate girls and boys in coeducational institutions. One of the motivators seems to be improving test scores, but I must press for more. Certainly, there were/are arguments to be made about the ways in which children and young adults are treated differently in the classroom due to gender/gendered performances, but this move to segregated learning environs seems much less critical in terms of addressing issues with teacher training and gender socialization. I'm not sold on the reification of heteronormativity or the ever-present gendered norms, either.

Save Dora!

I'm not really one for children's shows, but I do love me some Dora the Explorer. I was disheartened (as apparently a lot of folks were) when I learned that my girl with the backpack is likely going to be subject to an extreme makeover of sorts, due to her corporate owners' needs to sell more Dora. Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown explain the "terms and conditions," so to speak, of Dora's makeover fate on their blog Packaging Girlhood (sound familiar? it's also the title of their co-authored book), and also provide a nice critique of the move to make Dora in the image of the 'tween' set. Also linked on the blog is a petition that you can sign to protest the transformation.

This should be an interesting case study (although extremely limited) in Internet activism and girl culture. I do encourage petition-signing!

Girls & Video Games: A MetaBlog(?)

This post is more about another blog post I bumped into on feministing.com than what knowledge or experience I have with gaming. I do think the questions in the video of Brenda Laurel's TED talk speak directly to those underlying the study of girlhoods - namely, "Why not girls?," "Where are the girls?," and "What do girls have to say?" Further, let's be clear that envisioning games for girls does not mean defaulting to pink packaging and slumber party premises.

In related news, the only video game that has my heart (and puzzle pieces of my girlhood) to this day: Tetris.

Title IX and the Crisis of Boyhood

When I was teaching public speaking last summer, one of my students was interested in focusing on Title IX in her policy speech. In the policy speech assignment, students are expected to propose a policy plan that addresses an issue that they argue is in urgent need of addressing. I get plenty of repetitive topic proposals - the 'obesity epidemic,' banning smoking in public, alternative energy sources, etc. - but gender-related issues are not often on the radar (unless, of course, we count the ol' abortion speech). Title IX especially is one of those topics that doesn't even register with students born around 1990. I was quite surprised, then, when a female student wanted to speak to this relic of gendered legal battles, and what's more, she was sincerely invested in its repeal.

It turned out that this student's interest in Title IX sprung from a funding issue with her brother's high school sports team (I believe it was track), and she argued that her brother's championship team deserved the monies that allegedly went instead to a women's sports team in their high school. The boys, she insisted, were victims of reverse discrimination.

A female student opposes Title IX. I certainly do not want to implicate this student (or others - I once had an African American student who fervently opposed affirmative action policies) as ignorant or apathetic, nor would I want to squash the possibilities for radical activism. However, I must wonder aloud when the multiple crises of boyhood and masculinity will begin to tone down a bit? I just cannot buy into these concerns, as someone who finds the death grip on traditional gender roles materially comprehensible, but realistically in need of lightening up.

I'll end with this: what did my student actually find in her research on Title IX? It's difficult to say, as most of the argument revolved around this case study of her brother's experience. What should we know about this law that has serious implications for the way girls get to participate in all educational programs (that's right - it's not just about sports!)? This info page from the Women's Sports Foundation is a good place to start.

Photo from the blog friedbrains.com (not an endorsement of the blogger's politics, but the perspective on this issue is worth checking out)

Barbie Lives...On the Runway

Those Bratz really must be giving Barbie a run for her money. Although the global economic climate led numerous designers and fashion houses to scale down their New York Fashion Week events, Mattel saw fit to engineer "a lavish runway show that attracted more than 1,400 to the largest fashion tent in Bryant Park on Saturday" ("Barbie Wouldn't Wear That!" So, maybe Barbie's iconic status affords the doll and its maker a bit more salience in contemporary "girls'" toy markets than the recent Bratz boom might lead us to think? Whether it's the novelty of a real-life Barbie fashion show or its glamorous association with the Bryant Park runway that made the event successful, what's clear is the exploitation of the relationships between fashion, spectacle, girl culture, and capital.

Perhaps the images I'm including here communicate more than yet another critical analysis of 'Barbie as model for gendered expectations' ever could. I will, however, say this: what I think is visually most telling is that only the white model is clearly 'fashioned' in the classic, iconic Barbie image.

Reference: Kensler, Chris. "Barbie Wouldn't Wear That!" FOXNews.com (February 16. 2009). http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,493664,00.html (accessed February 18, 2009).

Images from FOXNews