Tagged as: pop culture

How Highly Gendered Toys Present an Exclusively Heterosexual Worldview to Children

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When girls and boys walk into a toy store in 2015, they see a significantly more gendered, heteronormative arrangement and selection of toys than I did as a girl forty years ago! Toys, grouped by gender, are prescriptive of gender roles. It is not only a problem of limiting the ways to be a girl or a boy, as I have written about extensively. It is also a problem of promoting an exclusively heterosexual worldview. Read more…

Four-Part Podcast Series on Raising and Educating Children in Today’s Culture

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Many thanks to Wendy Grinberg of URJ (Union for Reform Judaism) for contacting me after reading my article “10 Ways to Raise Resilient Kids in Turbulent Times” in The Huffington Post and inviting me to be interviewed for a series of podcasts on modern day parenting. We discussed all sorts of issues pertaining to boys and girls of all ages. It was a very interesting thing to do and a lot of fun. Hope you enjoy it! Listen…

Raising Wholesome Children in Today’s Culture: 10 Tips for Parents

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Following the publication of my recent Huffington Post article, “It’s Time for the Global Village to Stand Up for Our Children,” I feel much less alone with my anomie.

For the past 15 years, I have grown increasingly alarmed by, and vocal about, the ways in which our culture sexualizes young girls. I have parallel concerns about boys, who are messaged to view girls as objects—often by girls themselves, who have learned to tie their self-esteem to their sexual desirability, as so many marketers in this country have expertly orchestrated. Read more…