Happy Day

Today is a very happy day, for many reasons. The main one? That girl in the blue flowered dress.

Why stories are important

Over at blackfeminism.org, tiffany points to a story on Yahoo! News about fairy tales and domestic violence.

She goes on to ask:

…it does raise an interesting question about the role of stories and storytelling in shaping the roles of women (and men). After all, storytelling — whether in print, television, movies or theater form — is the primary way we learn cultural values and expectations.

That makes me wonder, what fairy tales are out there that go against prevailing notions of femininity and masculinity? I’ve found a couple of kids’ books that might fit the bill – The Paper Bag Princess comes to mind immediately.

But what about stories that get passed on orally? Or stories that end up as Disney movies? What ones of those resist traditional gender stereotypes? How might we begin to change the stories we tell children so that the kind of conclusions found in the study are transformed? How can we help girls grow up to be strong women, who don’t try to “live happily ever after” if there is something wrong in a relationship?

New Do!

You know how sometimes getting a haircut can be so peripheral to life’s big details? And so because it is peripheral, and dealing with the eroded backyard or the dog who smells like a pina colada or the mounds of work takes all your time, you don’t get it cut?

And then one day you wake up and realize that you can wear pigtails*, only you haven’t done that since you were two years old?

Those are the days when the haircut suddenly seems not so peripheral. Amy and I both look a lot better now. See?

We’ve spent a lot of time over the past two days saying things like, “You’re so cute!”, “No, you’re so cute!” and “I just love your/my/our new haircut(s)!” And yes, we are that disgustingly cute with each other.

* She went out in public like that. I said to her, “You’re not wearing that out of the house, are you?” which is automatic relationship-speak for “Don’t wear those out of the house” and which automatically invokes a response of “So what if I do?” Fortunately, people in my neighborhood dress in a wide variety of ways, and have an even wider variety of interesting hairdos, so no one stared.

Lovies!

A list of lovies today:

Paula has a nice list of ways to be lovey to your spouse/partner.

Speaking of loving your partner, Anna knows what battles to pick, and I know which one she’s going to win.

Stephanie loves her new house, with good reason! That balcony off the main bedroom – I’m drooling!

Lovies to Jon for the amazing baby blanket he’s knitting.

LML and Alex are growing so big, and I’m proud that my friends are such great parents to such little lovies.

The final lovey of the day? This beauty, which is currently blooming in my (exceedingly shady) backyard.

Shrub’s iPod and my email to Billmon

Billmon over at Whiskey Bar always has some good things to say about what’s going on in the world today. Today’s post on what’s on Shrub’s iPod was pretty thought-provoking. I’m an iPod user – I’ve had mine for a couple of years now, and use it somewhat frequently. Today I had it on all day, as I was writing a couple of letters of reference and needed to drown out all the office noise. Anyhow, I was struck by his concept that there is “an iPod demographic” of sorts, and that they consist of what I’d call Angry Young Men with Nothing To Do. So I emailed Billmon, and this is roughly what I told him:

Billmon,

I’m not sure that you’ve totally got the iPod demographic right…

cynthia has pink hair and is going to grad school in the fall at UCSD for computer science.
babs loves wonder woman, her recently-deceased hedgehog, and is a lifelong philadelphian.
anna works with someone you know [but she works the late-night shift so probably never sees that person.])
and me – i’ve got nothing posted about my ipod yet, but I did spend a good chunk of my day at work listening to it.

and almost all of the rest of my female, feminist, knitting, 20-30ish friends are iPod owners. i’m just saying that we are also “the demographic” for ipods, and shrub didn’t get any points in that article from us.

So, what about you? Did you read any of the articles? Did Shrub’s iPod playlist speak to you? Where do you get your tunes? Any recommendations for good, free, legal music online?