Feministing Founder Jessica Valenti on Politics & Parenting

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Author Jessica Valenti talks to Exploded View about feminism and parenting politics, internet trolls, and her new book "Why Have Kids?"

The Tweening of America: The Disappearance of Age-Appropriate Television

The Tweening of America: The Disappearance of Age-Appropriate Television

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

What started as an ordinary conversation about marriage between my partner and our 7 ½ year old daughter (Rea) concretized our ongoing frustrations and precarious relationship with popular culture.  Following a role-playing game that ended in a pretend marriage between Rea and Sam (our son, who will be four next month), my partner asked Sam if he knew what marriage meant.  Unsure, Rea intervened with a very elaborate description that went something like this: it is when two people meet and then start to date.  If they like each other, they continue to date for a while until they are ready to get married.  At the wedding, the promise to follow the rules for married people.  While her description actually encompassed a few more details, it was clear that she not only understands dating, relationships, and courting rituals, but the institution of marriage and the associated vows.  At the age of 7 ½ , she is well versed in both the fairy-tale and happily-ever-after narratives of marriage.

Over the last year, my partner and I have struggled to help Rea find age-appropriate, and most importantly, empowering television shows.  In her mind, she is too mature and grown-up for those preschool/kindergarten shows.  You know that ones that emphasize language skills, inter-personal skill development, symbolic reason, and cultural literacy: Sesame Street, Arthur, Sid the Science Kid, Word Girl, and Martha Speaks.  In her estimation, these shows are neither cool nor sophisticated enough for her; her brother yes, but definitely not for a 2^nd grader.  Simply put, those shows are boring and, worse, beneath her.  Instead, she would much rather watch shows like ICarly, Victorious, Hannah Montana, Wizards of Waverly Place, Good Luck Charlie, or countless other tween shows. 

According to Gary Marsh, a top executive at Disney Channels Worldwide: “It's always been presumed that animation is the gravy train. Nobody quite understood you could create lifestyle franchises out of live-action tween shows." Similarly, Peter Larsen, in “TV’s Tween Scene,” describes this cultural shift as not only economically significant but culturally important as well: “What they discovered was that kids in that age range didn't want to watch shows for little kids, and didn't want to watch their parents' shows. Instead, they wanted to see themselves and their stories on TV.”

While trying to attract the 9-14 age consumers (25 million in the United States, representing a 50 billion dollar industry), tween shows universally tell stories of TEENAGERS.  ICarly chronicles the trials and tribulations of Carly Shay and friends, now in high school, who have their own webcast.  One Nickelodeon executive identified the show as one about “relationships and humor” a fact that illustrated by a list of Carly’s “boyfriends, dates and crushes” on one website.  Victorious similarly follows high school kids at a performing art school in Hollywood, CA.  It, like just about every other show, explores the issues of relationships, getting-in-trouble, boyfriends and girlfriends.   While focusing on the experiences and stories of 13-16 year olds, the dearth of shows dealing with the experiences of 6-10 year old kids, along with marketing efforts directed at these younger consumers, results in gravitation to shows that are more teen than tween. 

Our discomfort with her watching shows that focus on dating, boys and materialism, looking beautiful and being cool isn’t simply about age appropriateness and our desire for her to define her identity and otherwise imagine her own childhood outside of teenager themes and issues.  The focus on dating sends a message that coolness and acceptance comes for girls who have a boyfriend, who guys think are attractive, and who has been kissed.   Likewise, too much of these shows chronicle the struggles of girls to be accepted, to feel good about themselves, and part of this comes from the struggles to get a boyfriend. 

According to a 2009 study from True Child, school-age television shows lag significantly behind preschool shows in terms of offering representation of confident and self-aware girls.  Compared to 94% of preschool shows, only 42% of shows geared toward school-age kids like my daughter exhibit characteristics like confidence, assertiveness, and high-self esteem.  Similarly, the report found that “49% of shows feature at “82% of shows feature girls primarily with long hair”; “60% of the shows feature girls who are underweight with skinner than average waists.”

The questionable messages about consumerism, gendered-identity, and appearance-determined coolness run against the presented image of the Disney and Nickelodeon shows about girl power.  As example, True Child celebrated several tween girl shows for “breaking through gender stereotypes.”  Similarly, David Bushman argues the importance these shows in giving girls something to watch that indeed is about confident girls:

I think Nickelodeon has empowered kids in a lot of ways … but I think they’ve specifically empowered young girls, and that’s a really important thing that Nickelodeon deserves a lot of credit for. This whole idea that you could not make girl-centric shows because boys wouldn’t watch them, they disproved that theory (in Banet-Weiser).

Yet, visibility and even challenging stereotypes isn’t the only issue to consider when examining these shows. Visibility doesn’t generate empowerment; visibility isn’t by definition empowering. 

“Third Wave feminism (or sometimes “Girlie feminism”) embraces commercial media visibility and enthusiastically celebrates the power that comes with it,” writes Sarah Banet-Weiser.  “In this way, Third Wave feminism situates issues of gender within commercial and popular culture, and insistently positions Third Wave feminist politics as not only fundamentally different from Second Wave feminist politics, but because of the embrace of media visibility and the commercial world, as also more representative for a new generation of women.”   The celebration of these shows, against a backdrop of hyper consumerism, hyper materialism, and an over-emphasis on an appearance, relationships, and coolness, illustrates the problematic nature of “girlie feminism” in the context of popular commodity culture.

 

The source of empowerment and collective identity that results from these shows isn’t driven from political, cultural or social power, but the power of visibility and the market.  This doesn’t result in individual or collective power.   Susan Douglas, in Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media notes, “Once this sense of generational collectivity as a market evaporates, so does the sense of political collectivity.”  In generating individual identities tied to consumerism, material consumption, personal choice, and being attached, these shows are promoting a different sort of power for future generations. 

To be clear, our struggles with tween shows isn’t just about whether or not a 7 ½-year should watch shows that often deal with dating, relationships, and other high-school themes.  Her expertise in dating and marriage illustrates the power in these shows, and the messages she is receiving, all of which is leading her to think more and more about relationships and the importance of her appearance.  For appearance and having a boyfriend are constructed as the core elements of cool within these shows.

While that is certainly an issue at the moment, hoping that she will see her identity outside of being attached and having the right clothes, these concerns and criticism about the consumer message transcend the moment.  When she is 10, 12, 14, and so on, we will remain vigilant in challenging these messages and pushing her to think critically about the media world she lives within.

On a regular basis, I ask my daughter questions, challenging her to think about the pedagogical messages transmitted on television and in the broader popular culture.  I ask her why so many female characters, otherwise talented as students, artists, and athletes, spend so much time within these show trying to attract the attention of boys.  I ask her why these “free-spirited” individuals seem so focused on fitting, on being cool, and otherwise acting like everyone else.  I ask her why she thinks these shows go to great lengths to encourage her to want things either because of the products they have or because of the endless show-related stuff for sale.  Just this week, in regards to this article, we were talking about the lessons learned from these shows.  In response to my comments about consumerism, she offered the following: “But I like to shop. I like to look at things.”

Me: You don’t like to shop, you like to buy

Rea: Yes, I like to buy

Me: Why?

Rea: Because I like to get things

Me: Why?

Rea: because I like to have things?

Me: Why?

Rea: How many whys are you going to ask me?

Pushing her to think about learned consumerism, and how popular culture defines her primary role as a citizen to be both a consumer and a girlfriend/wife is difficult given the ways in which tween shows link both to acceptability and coolness.  Challenging her to think about why being attractive, having to have a boyfriend, the right clothes/shoes/ jewelry is so often tied to her identity as girl is not easy. 

Yet, the importance of pushing back, challenging the heteronormative patriarchy lessons emanating from these shows, all while questioning the idea that power comes from visibility, is clear. “Young girls – our daughters, our nieces, our friends kids – need to learn how to talk back to the media at ever younger ages,” writes Susan Douglas in The Rise of Enlightened Sexism: How Pop Culture took us from Girl Power to Girls Gone Wild. “Talking back to the media may seem inconsequential or fruitless – and indeed, it only has a limited effect in bringing about change – but look at some of the great stuff we get to see now that we never saw in, say, 1985.  But that’s not the points – it’s not necessarily about them, it’s about us, and changing what we can imagine.”  We are working hard so that Rea is able to imagine a world beyond the tween world commonplace on television.  We are working hard to help her see herself beyond the constructed reality of America’s tween television fantasies.   

***

David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis. He is the author of Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema and the forthcoming After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop (SUNY Press). Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan and blogs @ No Tsuris.

How Did You Learn To Be A Father?

Are We Lowering the Bar for Black Fathers?

Are We Lowering the Bar for Black Fathers?

by Mark Anthony Neal | @NewBlackMan

I am a better father, than I am a husband; or at least that is what has been affirmed to me, if I am to gauge such things by the number of compliments that I receive from friends and passer-bys. Indeed it’s been so easy to believe the hype, as strangers react in amazement when I show any hint of nurturing, affection or playfulness with my two daughters. I used to strut around thinking I was doing something exceptional; twelve years of parenting and decades of critical attention to the discourses that frame contemporary Black masculinity have taught me that such affirmation is borne out of a belief that Black men play little role in the lives of their children. In a society that expects so little from them, Black fathers often get celebrated for doing exactly what they are supposed to do as parents.

I thought about all of this, when the Today Show recently did a story about the positive impact of horseplay between fathers and children. It’s not new research; I cited the decade-old research of Ross Parke and Armin Brott (Throwaway Dads: The Myths and Barriers That Keep Men from Being the Fathers They Want to Be) in my book New Black Man (2005), paying particular attention to the effects play with fathers has on the self-esteem of daughters. I can’t think of a father that doesn’t find such activity one of the most pleasurable experiences of parenting, especially with young children; such play is still a vital part of my relationships with both of my daughters. I can imagine play with fathers becoming one of the pillars of a normative American fatherhood, along with providing security and discipline.

Yet, regardless of race, the expectations associated with fatherhood are far less dynamic than those that we expect of mothers, so much so that there are even institutional impediments that discouraged men from fully engaging in parenting responsibilities beyond those that are viewed as normal. 

It is only within the last decade, for example, that public restrooms include unisex changing stations or changing stations in men’s bathroom to accommodate fathers. In interactions with child-care providers, teachers, and pediatricians, fathers continue to be treated as disinterested on-lookers. Child-care providers almost never provided me information about the kinds of days my daughters had when I picked them up, without me making an effort to get such information. They would freely share such information with my wife—and always with much more detail than they shared with me. It has been no different with their schooling, as teachers and administrators seem genuinely confused—or even concerned for their safety—when Black fathers, in particular, decide to be classroom parents or occasionally decide to visit, as if we are all party to some on-going child custody case with our baby-mama.

And if institutional forces didn’t do enough to discourage more engaged parenting by fathers, popular culture has been a trusted source to further dissuade engaged fatherhood. Indeed there is an entire comedic tradition—a cottage industry really —built around fathers and parenting. Films like Daddy Day Care (2003), Parenthood (1989) and Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) and numerous television sitcoms have flourished by making the clueless, ineffective father the regular punch-line. In early television culture—and well into the 1980s—the comic image of the father trying to survive the challenges of domestic life, where countered by equally troubling comic images regarding women in the workforce; I’m thinking specifically about a the highly influential I Love Lucy, which along with early sitcoms like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie (where the main female characters had magic powers) served as a backlash to the influx of women in the workforce during World War II.

Indeed, in our contemporary culture, the lowered expectations for Black fathers are powerfully contrasted by expectations for Black mothers that adhere to parenting standards that are almost impossible sustain, without an engaged co-parent; mothers in general are given little sympathy when they fail to live up the societal expectations of what a “true” mother—woman—is supposed to do.

While there are many criticisms directed at absentee Black fathers—and legitimately so—very rarely is that level of critique extended to Black fathers when they are present, even if they are engaged in abusive behavior towards their partners and their children. Not so ironically, there is a equally troubling discourse that blames Black women, their ambitions, and their so-called attitudes for the failure of Black fathers to remain in the home or as engaged parents. Such critiques place a premium for fathers being present, often overlooking that what many children need, is simply to have as many adults as possible involved in their lives, regardless of gender or if they live in the residence.

With so many communities being challenged by chronic unemployment, particularly among adult males, parenting and gender scripts are seemingly being re-written as we speak. The Today Show feature that I cite above, as well as sitcoms like Modern Family, is evidence of a culture trying to wrap its head around what fathers bring to the table as parents—beyond traditional expectations—at a time when many fathers have little choice but to take a hands-on approach to parenting in order for their families to survive. It should not have taken a national economic crisis for us to realize that in devaluing the role that men can play in raising children, regardless if they are parents or not, we are devaluing the lives of our children also.

***

Mark Anthony Neal is the father of two adopted daughters, aged 12 and 8.  The author of several books, including the forthcoming Looking for Leroy: (Il)Legible Black Masculinities (New York University Press), Neal also teaches African-American Studies at Duke University and is the host of the weekly Webcast, Left of Black, produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University. You can follow him on Twitter @NewBlackMan

Prepping Parents for Education Reform

Lofty plans for overhauling the education system are all very well and good. But parents have to be ready to take advantage of change.

Prepping Parents for Education Reform
by Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele

As a member of the burgeoning movement to improve public education, I believe that for education reform to happen, advocates need to focus their efforts on equipping parents with the appropriate mind-set to succeed in the rapidly changing school landscape.

Many parents will need help transitioning to and operating under the new paradigms proposed by school-choice advocates, primarily because -- well, public education has never been viewed as a commodity. Not all parents are aware of their options, and if they are, not all parents have the time to commit themselves to take full advantage of a sudden abundance of choice.

A few months ago, I attended a media-training seminar for school-choice advocates. There, one of the attendees described his laissez-faire ideal for America's schools: The public education system would function as a shopping mall, with parents picking and choosing from an array of public schools. As he saw it, parents wouldn't be forced to send their children to a school based on geographic zoning restrictions. Instead, mothers and fathers would be the consumers; school leaders would be the vendors. The vendors would be motivated to increase their products' efficiency to attract customers, thereby increasing the quality of all goods (think schools) sold -- and so on and so forth as the Business 101 supply-and-demand principles go.

While that proposed model is not bad or ill-intentioned, it is drastically different from the way that parents, particularly mothers, have traditionally gone about securing -- if that is even the appropriate term -- public education for their children.

Read the More @ The Root.com

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Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele is a multimedia journalist specializing in political thought and introspective narratives. She works in education reform. Follow her on Twitter.

Still a Nation of Cowards: Parenting in An Age of Violence

This isn't the better world we hoped our children would be born into.

Still a Nation of Cowards
by Mark Anthony Neal | TheLoop21

I was with my two daughters a few nights ago—my wife within an earshot—as my oldest, now 12, worked on a school project. She was supposed to develop a family timeline from 1910-2010, in which family events coincided with historical events. Of course, unlike some of my daughter’s classmates, there is no shared immigrant narrative that begins with a view of the Statue of Liberty and a visit to Ellis Island.

My daughter seemed genuinely perturbed at having to recount the role that racial discrimination, segregation and violence played in her family’s development and those of so many African Americans. When I explained that her grandmother and grandfather were not allowed on the beach that we now vacation at every year, my youngest daughter, eight, simply chimed in “lame.” Lame indeed, but this seemingly jovial recognition of how far we have come was dampened a bit, when I shared that their other grandparents, my parents, were married the same year that President John Kennedy was assassinated and that that their daddy was born the same year that El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X) was murdered.

I’ve often had these kind of conversations with my oldest daughter—the 20 minutes we spend in the car in the morning is my version of a daily freedom school—and it perhaps informs some of her rants at the fact that we’ve never had a woman president or that it matters to some people what somebody’s sexual orientation is while they are defending the country. Though she’s never said as much, I suspect she thinks that the world was brutish, boorish, and barbaric in the years before she was born. She would, of course, be right.

Yet, part of the faith that we all have as parents, is the belief that our children are born into a world that is far better than the one we were born in. The stress that we experience as parents, in part, is often the product of the reality that we are never quite sure that’s the case.

The recent shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, along with the shooting deaths of six others including Federal Judge John Roll and a nine-year-old girl, as well as the wounding of 13 others in front of a Tucson, Ariz., supermarket, is yet another reminder that we’ve not come as far as we’ve thought.

Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21.com