What You See Isn't What You Get

Girls in the Media

In one week American teenagers spend 31 hours watching TV, 17 hours listening to music, 3 hours watching movies, 4 hours reading magazines, 10 hours online. That’s 10 hours and 45 minutes of media consumption a day. (Source: missrepresentation.org)

That's a whole lot of media consumption! This seems to be the direction the world is moving to - it's easier to message or poke a friend than to call them on the phone... but at what point are youth educated on understanding what they see? 

This clip from Miss Representation demonstrates how media values women - for sex, youth, and beauty. Women role models aren't easy to come by. Even in "inspiring" tv shows like Glee, the lead female, Rachel Berry is constantly bullied for being ugly/fat/un-sexy/weird... and she has very "girly" character flaws - she's incredibly vain and thinks she can control/change her boyfriend... Almost every episode she seems to have made some mistake that she has to apologize to Finn for! Reminds me of Serena from Gossip Girl who also seems to be apologizing every few episodes to either Blair or Dan for gossiping, lying, cheating, or sneaking around. Luckily she's beautiful and otherwise perfect (cough), so she's always forgiven. In both shows I can count on one hand the female characters who are strong role models.

So what are girls to do when these are the types of role models they look up to 31 hours a week? We have to turn to teachers, parents, guardians, and family to help girls weed through the difference between media and real life.

What do you think?

I could go on and on about this... but I would rather hear what you have to say! What do you think about the role models that girls have in media (tv, internet, magazines, music)?

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

Vancouver's Ability Theatre - Veronica Bryan

Talk about doing it right!

Veronica Bryan, a fellow York grad, submitted a paper 8 years ago about creating a theatre company for individuals with special needs. Now she's getting ready to start making it into a reality in Vancouver.

Allowing participants to explore their creative sides through dance, movement, song, theatre games, and acting, they will also perform in front of live audiences.

What seems the most important to me is that this will be an opportunity for individuals with special needs to have a new source to create friendships and get involved with their community. 

All around this seems like something amazing that Veronica's doing. Ability Theatre is collecting donations through Indiegogo (see below).

Watch the video to learn more about Ability Theatre and donate!

Visit Ability Theatre's Facebook Page & Like!

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

Cross-dressing at School

Congrats!

I know I said I would focus mainly on North American issues, but this is a great triumph for students who don't feel right in their own bodies:

A young boy, Jamie Love, has been in the news for the last few days for having gone to school dressed as a girl and then being kicked out. The school says that he was sent home for behaviour issues, and Jamie agrees that he has had issues in the past. You can read the article on the Scottish Daily Record. I don't think we'll ever know for sure what the actual reason behind the expulsion were.... but....

Happily, after much support from other parents and peers, Jamie is back in school. You can read the article about his return here. I want to send a HUGE shout-out to his peers who supported him! I've taken here some things that peers and parents wrote on the school's Facebook page (taken from the Scottish Daily Record):

One parent wrote: “The teachers should be teaching their pupils to love themselves for who they are.
“I think ur really brave as I know it must have been hard for u n nobody had the rite to knock u for it x.”
A pupil wrote: “I just wanna cry :(, the fact of you not being in school :’( don’t worry babe near enough the full schools behind you and your friends and family, my family is all behind you sweetie so we will all fight our hardest for you.”
A girl pal posted: “Hope your ok pal! At the end of the day be yourself and who u want to be! Dnt let anyone get u down! Its great what ur doing you’ll inspire other teenagers out there and most people at ur age wudnt have the guts to do it! be your self mr !”
Another classmate said: “Well done jamie.... so proud of you! Your an inspiration to everyone, never mind what anyone else says.
“Not allowed in school for being yourself? they are supposed to encourage people to be themselves not kick them oot! that’s terrible!!”
And another pupil wrote: “He has every right to be who he wants to be and dress the way he wants to dress. Just want Jamie to know he has mine and a lot of other peoples full support and we will fight for him till the end.”

Congrats to Jamie and family, and thanks to everyone who supported him!

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

Definitions: LGBTQ... and more

I just want to spend a bit of time defining some words that have to do with LGBTQ - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer.

Why is this important? If we're going to be having open discussions on this blog I don't want people misinterpreting or misunderstanding what someone else is saying because they don't understand what the word means. These are unbiased definitions, I'm just stating facts here!

Definitions

Sexual Orientation: The American Psychology Association defines sexual orientation in the following way: “Sexual orientation is an enduring emotional, romantic, sexual, or affectionate attraction toward others”.  There are three main orientations: Homosexuality, Heterosexuality, and Bisexuality.

Homosexuality: sexual and romantic desire between members of the same sex or gender (see below for "Lesbian" and "Gay").

Heterosexuality: sexual and romantic desire between members of the same sex or gender (often referred to as "Straight").

Bisexuality: sexual and romantic desire for both male and females (often referred to as "Bi").

Lesbian: sexual and romantic desire between females. Also used to refer to women who identify themselves as homosexuals.

Lesbos is an island in Greece, people from there are Lesbians just like I am a Canadian. Lesbian was also an ancient Greek language they spoke.

Gay: sexual and romantic desire between males. Also used to refer to men who identify themselves as homosexuals. This word is sometimes also used to replace "lesbian" when referring to the person.

Gay is also an adjective means "joyful"or "carefree."

As a pejorative (an abusive, derogatory term) "gay" is used in phrases like "that's so gay." Generally this use is meaning to say stupid or lame, but using the word gay has a negative connotation... making it seem like gay = lame.

Bi: a person who refers to themselves as "bi" identify themselves as having sexual and romantic desires for both male and females.

Questioning: the exploration of gender, sex, sexual orientation, or all three.

Queer: a term that refers to any sexual orientation other than heterosexual. Politically, it refers to lifestyles and ideologies for LGBT communities.

Sex: distinction between male and female based on genetics and reproductive organs. Identification by others as male, female, or intersex. As a verb, it means sexual intercourse.

Intersex: biological sex cannot be completely classified as male or female. 

Gender: distinction between male and female based on the traits assigned to them. Self-identification as a woman, man, neither, or both.

Transsexual: the state of one's gender not matching one's sex. Applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles.

Transgender: often used instead of transsexual, transgender is the political component: working to create a world where greater fluidity of gender expression is welcomed and valued. Both terms describe a section of the sexual minority population seeking only to feel comfortable in their own skin. (Sarah Wilcox, University of Kent)

I hope this has helped to clear some things up. Looking these up really helped me to have a better understanding in some subjects that were a little fuzzy to me before. This is just the tip of the iceberg of words used in LGBT communities to differentiate sexual orientation, gender, and sex.

  

What do you think?

Am I missing anything? Unclear? Is there anther topic that you would like to have defined in detail that affects children and youth?

 

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa 

One Teacher's Approach to Preventing Gender Bullying in the Classroom

This teacher is doing it right! 

 

Give this article a read about a teacher's approach to preventing gender bullying in a classroom 

Link to awesome article!!

Ok... so now that you've read the article, I wanna just say, isn't Allie awesome? She's 5 and already she's doing what she wants to do even though it's not "normal" (even though she's a perfectly normal kid... even better, she just knows what she's comfortable in!)

This teacher has put in a tremendous amount of effort to make her classroom accepting of everyone. She's reading books that deal with gender stereotypes, she worked with the kids and talked about what toys are "boys" and which are "girls," but by saying it's ok to play with the toys from the other gender starts kids off with a new thought...

I'm getting ready to teach high school, so what I wonder is how can this relate in a high school setting? When I was student-teaching at in October, one teacher did a presentation for the GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance) where the students wrote down all the words that bullies use - similar to Miss Melissa there was one page for girls and one for boys. For girls we found that a lot of the words used had to do with her looks, her smarts, and sexuality. For boys, the words were 'girly' put-downs, gay-centered, and about physical strength. We talked about how these words made us feel when they were used against us. It was a great discussion - all the students were really into talking about it.

Don't forget to email me if you know of someone who's doing something right for children and youth! redcardi.love@gmail.com

And comment! What do you think? Do you have any other ideas of what teachers can do to break down gender stereotypes??

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

Girl Scout Boycotts Cookie Sales Over Transgendered Scout

Before replying please remember that we are keeping emotions out of this! Them ain't fightin' words!

Note - she is not expressing the opinion of the Girl Scouts organization. These are her own thoughts.

The Facts

Ok. So we have here a young Girl Scout who is upset with the way the organization dealt with allowing transgendered youth into the organization. She is upset because she feels as though her privacy has been violated. Why? Isn't Girl Scouts all about having a safe, fun place to be with friends? She feels as though this has been taken away because the organization allows transgendered youth to be a part of Girl Scouts.

**What exactly does "transgendered" mean? Wikipedia says: Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles. Transgender is the state of one's "gender identity" (self-identification as woman, man, neither or both) not matching one's "assigned sex" (identification by others as male, female or intersex based on physical/genetic sex)**

So, in some Girl Scout groups there are children who are genetically male, but who live as female. In this particular case, the targeted transgender child is 7 years old. Seven! Grade 2!

"The Girl Scouts of Colorado has said that the transgender seven-year-old was admitted in October on the basis of gender identification. 'If a child is living as a girl, that’s good enough for us. We don’t require any proof of gender,' Rachelle Trujillo, vice-president for communications of the Girl Scouts of Colorado, is quoted as saying." (Taken from the Globe and Mail)

What I think

Before anyone rages on about how ignorant this 14-year-old girl is, let's stop and think for a sec. First off... she's 14. Where are these opinions coming from? I think that we are all born innocent and ready to accept and love... and I think she's scared because I have a feeling that she doesn't have any transgendered friends or has never met any children who don't understand why their brain and their body doesn't match.

Coming to her defense... technically, yes. There are "boys" in Girl Scouts, playing games, selling cookies, going camping... that doesn't seem right? I mean, 14-year-olds don't generally have sleepovers with the opposite sex. And goodness me, if I had a nickle for every time my mom warned me about what boys want... So I'm not surprised that she's scared by this prospect. But I think some of the scariness is from the unknown. What if other boys start using this as an excuse to come on sleep-away trips? What's important here is that the child is living as a girl. 

Now, I'm not transgendered so, like the girl in the video, I really can't relate to a transgendered child or youth. But, I'm pretty good at remembering what peer pressure was like in school. Pressure to be liked. To fit in. To not be made fun of, no matter what. I can't even imagine having to deal with my body and brain not being in synch on top of everything else. BUT, thank goodness. There's that one place you fit in. For me, it was on stage at a youth theatre. For this 7-year-old, it's Girl Scouts.

Finally - Shout out to Girl Scouts for doing what's right. That 7-year-old has a place where she feels safe and welcomed. Unless something changes soon, she's going to have to face a lot throughout her life. Having this support system is more important than I can put into words.

What do you think?

Alright! It's up to you! What do you think? Be kind - feel free to express your opinion but absolutely NO name calling towards anyone.

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome!

This blog is all about supporting inclusiveness and acceptance for all children and youth.  

Whether it be in school, after-school activities, at work, or anywhere else.

My goal is to update this blog often with two different types of posts:

1. Things that people are doing right. This can be mom & dad, teachers, coaches, managers, organizations, actors, singers, anyone who is sending a message about love and acceptance, about any race, sexuality or gender, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age or mental or physical disability.

2. Things that people aren't doing right. I'll post what needs change to benefit children and youth, no matter what race, sexuality or gender, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age or mental or physical disability.

I would love to see replies on anything I post! BUT I do not want to see emotions overriding in discussions. Please consider who you are replying to or who I've blogged about. I will always keep my emotions out of what I post. (A.K.A. absolutely NO name calling)

If you find something online that you want to share with me sent it to redcardi.love@gmail.com! I will be focusing mainly on Canadian/US issues - I am located in London, Ontario, Canada - but I am happy to share anything that relates to equity for children and youth.

Finally, the song that is the inspiration for the name of this blog:

The Beatles - All You Need Is Love, 1967
There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game,
It's easy. 

There's nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time,

It's easy.

All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

There's nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be,
It's easy.

All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa