Ending Sexualization of Females

Calling All Men: Join the Movement Against the Sexualization of Women and Girls

Educational psychologist and consultant, Lori Day

Posted: 8/15/11 09:29 AM ET

This article has been co-written with Michele Sinisgalli-Yulo of Princess Free Zone.

It’s hard to admit it, but we need you. We need you to join the effort to end gender stereotypes and the exploitation of women and young girls. They are being sexualized around the globe in alarmingly rising numbers and alarmingly widespread ways. It is alarmingly invisible because it is alarmingly ubiquitous.

In making the case for more male voices, particularly from business leaders, politicians, and thought leaders, there are immediate obstacles:

• How do women avoid being seen as male bashers, uptight feminists, mommies with too much time on their hands, women with some irrational hatred of pink sparkly things, or all of the above?

• Is there a way to effectively develop a partnership between women and men within a grassroots movement that is still very much under the radar, despite the hard work of a great many individuals?

“This is often seen as a women’s issue or parenting issue,” says Melissa Wardy, owner ofPigtail Pals – Redefine Girly. “It is an issue of civil rights, as our children are having their childhoods cut short by marketers turning them into lifetime consumers.” So much is at stake, and this is a time for unity, not divisiveness.

It brings to mind a favorite quote of a dear male colleague:

When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before. ~Jacob August Riis

to read the rest of the article, go to:   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lori-day/calling-all-men-join-the-_b_926078.html

5 Myths About Girls and the Sciences

Top 5 Myths About Girls, Math and Science

LiveScience Staff
Date: 27 August 2007 Time: 10:10 AM ET
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Participants in the Integrated Science Teaching Enhancement Partnership Program. InSTEP is part of the NSF’s Graduate Fellowships in K-12 Education Program and is designed to foster student interest in science while boosting teacher confidence in integrated science content and inquiry-based instruction.
CREDIT: InSTEP Program, Florida Institute of Technology

The days of sexist science teachers and Barbies chirping that “math class is tough!” are over, according to pop culture, but a government program aimed at bringing more women and girls into science, technology, engineering and math fields suggests otherwise.

Below are five myths about girls and science that still endure, according to the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Research on Gender in Science and Engineering (GSE) program:

to read more, go to:    http://www.livescience.com/7349-top-5-myths-girls-math-science.html