Why are girl things so despised? Consider the derisive response to music girls like, movies and television shows girls watch, social networking sites girls inhabit, activities in which girls engage, and the clothes girls wear. The criticism is always snide and condescending: girl things—which appeal to, attract, star, and represent girls—are considered, at best, vacuous and, at worst, distasteful. In a 1999 article, gender and cultural studies scholar Catharine Driscoll argues anything perceived as a “girl thing” is instantly dismissed without consideration of the importance it might have in the lives of real girls. While the Spice Girls and their fans offer an infamous example of this girl-targeted derision, there are no comparable examples of bashing boy-things; no ubiquitous hatred for boys and their things. Continue reading “The Importance of Girl Things”
Into the Woods
As a practicing middle school English Language Arts teacher and researcher in the Northeastern US, I am interested in the stories adolescents tell about their lives. To this end, my research in classrooms is ethnographic and privileges the stories girls tell about their experiences of being marginalized, silenced, and punished, often by other girls. One story in particular has resonated with me, and I have come to refer to this story as “The Story of the Sluts” – thus named, however crudely, because that is how the story was presented to me by the girls who told it. It all came about when Lily (a pseudonym), an eighth grade student, was meeting with me during a writing conference about revisions for a short story she was writing in my class. During this writing conference, it came out that a party had taken place the previous weekend. Lily explained that two of my other students, Melanie and Kelly, had gone ‘into the woods’ with two boys who also attended our school. Continue reading “Into the Woods”
‘Hello my little Barbies’: Nicki Minaj and Masquerade
A few months back a youth work colleague voiced concern about the young women she works with listening to a rising new female rapper, Nicki Minaj. She felt that the lyrics and the image were over-sexualised and liable to provide a potentially poor role model for the young people in the youth project with whom she worked. This also followed a YouTube sensation of two very small British girls, Sophie-Grace and Rosie belting out Minaj’s tune ‘SuperBass’ which was proudly recorded by their mothers. The YouTube hit enabled the young girls to have their precocious 15 minutes of fame as they sat next to US chat show host, Ellen DeGeneres and performed with their idol, Nicki on the Ellen talk show. Continue reading “‘Hello my little Barbies’: Nicki Minaj and Masquerade”
Bad Animals Sitting Sweetly: Some Thoughts on Naughtiness, Gender and What We Learn in School
Let it be known that my six-year-old daughter is a child rife with frolicsome mischief.
The experience of parenting said child fostered my interest in naughty youngsters, the connections between misbehavior and personhood and how all children—especially girls– are socialized in schools. Thus socialized through behavior management practices, many are taught to equate obedience with learning and conformity with personhood. Recently I came across two different pieces in the mainstream media that piqued my interest along these lines: The first was Bill Lichtenstein’s September 9th New York Times reflection on the all-too-common strategies for ‘managing students in US schools and the second was a BBC interview with Michael Kenny, the first male graduate of Norland College. Continue reading “Bad Animals Sitting Sweetly: Some Thoughts on Naughtiness, Gender and What We Learn in School”
Fame, Folk devils and Generation X-Factor
In recent months a number of articles have appeared in the UK national press, reporting renewed concerns about the impact of celebrity and consumer culture on young people’s aspirations. Celebrity culture features in these as a contemporary folk devil, conjured up as the source of various societal ills, and diverting attention from the structural causes of inequality. Continue reading “Fame, Folk devils and Generation X-Factor”
Selling Science as ‘a Girl Thing’
When the EU launched a short viral video to publicise their It’s a Girl Thing! campaign to get more women into science, it all kicked off in the blogosphere and twitterverse. The 45 second promo, which looks like a cross between a cosmetics ad and a girl group music video, begins with a young good-looking lab-coated male scientist looking up from his microscope to the shocking (and arousing?) sight of three attractive young women dressed in very high heels and even shorter skirts. These women giggle and provocatively gesture their way through the ad, intercut with overflowing test-tubes, models of molecules, lipstick and other girlie and scientific ephemera. Oh, and one of them gets to elegantly scribble symbols on a transparent board. At the end their fashionable shades transform into equally fashionable safety goggles. The music, with its single lyric, reminds us: ‘Science – It’s a Girl Thing!’ So is this how to ‘sell’ science to girls? Continue reading “Selling Science as ‘a Girl Thing’”
Rejecting home for homeland: Carrie Madison and gender roles in TV’s Homeland
Homeland is a US television series based on an Israeli show, Prisoners of War. It centres on CIA agent Carrie Maddison, played by Claire Danes, who in dramatic opening scenes is told by a source that a US marine has been ‘turned’. When a few days later US marine Nicholas Brody, played by Damien Lewis, is rescued after eight years in captivity, Carrie is convinced he’s the marine in question. Alongside Brody’s heroic homecoming we follow Carrie’s increasingly obsessive attempts to prove him a traitor. Carrie’s an unusual female character so in this post we begin a conversation about her which we plan to continue as events unfold each Sunday night. We hope you’ll join in. The show is full of twists and turns so don’t read this unless you’re up to date with the latest episode shown on the UK’s Channel 4 (or you don’t mind knowing what happens in advance). If you’ve seen ahead of this and you add comments please alert us to any spoilers. Continue reading “Rejecting home for homeland: Carrie Madison and gender roles in TV’s Homeland”
Ever faced the Walk of Shame? Designing Disgust
Harvey Nichols, exclusive designer company, self-positioned as the ‘world’s leading international luxury fashion destination, a one-stop-shop for the most exclusive brands in fashion, beauty and food’ asks us directly via YouTube if we have ‘ever faced the walk of shame’? Continue reading “Ever faced the Walk of Shame? Designing Disgust”
Boffins and geeks: geek or chic?
The labels swot, ear ’ole, boffin, keeno, geek and nerd resonate meaningfully across generations of school-goers and echo through the terrains of popular culture. Our Gender and Education viewpoint started life as a conversation about our own research into how such identities are imagined and lived. We wondered: Has ‘the rise of the nerd’ meant that being a ‘boffin’ at school has lost its stigma? Continue reading “Boffins and geeks: geek or chic?”