Book Recommendation

I just finished reading this amazing book by Meg Hickling - "The New Speaking of Sex: What Your Children Need to Know and When They Need to Know It" (2005).

I cannot recommend this book enough, even if you don't have children. I consider it my "Bible" for the work I want to do in schools with youth, and I know I will be using it for reference with my future work.

Added a new link - the blog ReelGirl, which rates movies based on how appropriate they are for kids.

The blogger in her own words:

About Reel Girl:

Reel Girl was founded in December 2009 and is crossposted on SFGate. Reel Girl posts have also been featured, written about, or linked to major sites around the web including The Week (best opinion), Jezebel, Blogher (Spotlight Blogger),Forbes.com, Wall Street Journal, Adweek, Ms., Common Sense Media, and many more.

Reel Girl’s mission is to imagine gender equality in the fantasy world.

More about Reel Girl:

ReelGirl’s mission started out to be a resource for parents to rate and exchange information about media, toys, and products on how empowering they are for girls. But as I blogged, issues came up:

(1) When kids learn through cartoons, books, and toys, that boys are more important than girls, and radically different from them, BOTH genders are negatively affected.

(2) I write more than I rate

So I changed ReelGirl’s tagline. Here’s my blog post about Reel Girl’s newly described mission:

I started Reel Girl because I wanted to create a resource for parents on the internet where they could go to find great stories, movies, and toys that support girl empowerment. I’m the mom of three young daughters, and I wasn’t able to find the kind of information I was looking for in one place.

I also wanted to recognize how messed up our movie rating system is– and the values associated with that rating system. So many G movies perpetuate the absolute worst kinds of gender stereotypes, yet they are supposedly “for kids.” In my opinion, this kind of repetitive imagery is way more dangerous for children than hearing the word “shit.”

So ReelGirl’s rating system is S for stereotype and G for girlpower, 1- 3 possible.

Here’s the problem: I’m a ranter, not a rater. I’m not organized enough to pull this off. I need logos, to go through all the movies, books, and toys out there, and I don’t have the time. Any free moment I get, I usually have something new I want to write about. So while I will continue to rate media and products, I’m going to recognize that mostly, I haven’t been.

I’m changing ReelGirl’s tagline from “Rating kids media and products for girl empowerment” to “Imagining gender equality in the fantasy world.” That’s mostly what ReelGirl is about. My hope is that ReelGirl supports and encourages real imagination (ha ha) instead of the same old recycled stories.

Since having these three kids, I really get how fantasy creates reality and reality creates fantasy in an endless loop. That’s pretty much what this blog is about, fantasizing gender equality in the real world.