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In light of some past articles on diversity, SoylentNews: "How to Get Girls Into Coding" and SoylentNews: "Google to Release Diversity Data About its Workforce" This CNN article caught my attention.
Princess Free Zone offers empowering T-shirts with images such as dinosaurs, skateboards and soccer balls. "Kids should not have to be brave to wear the things they like," says founder Michele Yulo.
[...] "Girl clothes without the girly" is the mantra behind Girls Will Be, which includes longer shorts and T-shirts (no pink ones!) with images that seek to break gender stereotypes.
[...] The company buddingSTEM offers a line of girls' clothes celebrating girls' interests in science, engineering, technology and math.
Please, browse the photos. They are full of lovely little girls, minus what I call the "silly frilly" stuff. You might even click some links, and find something fitting for the young lady in your life!
Some might complain that it's a very small start - but the longest journey begins with a single step. Each of these startups seems to be doing pretty much what I've called for - giving the girls what THEY want, rather then telling them what they should want.
One of my favorite T-shirts, seen on girls young and mature, http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/img-thing?.out=jpg&size=l&tid=92703208
(Score: 5, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Sunday August 30 2015, @02:46PM
First off, when I said "media" I used it in the general sense of something that conveys information. I meant it in the sense of the messages that girls are surrounded by, coming from whatever source. You took it in the narrowest sense of "MSNBC/CNN/Fox/Whatever," as in, a directed plot, something that must be corrected by affirmative action or something.
I thought the clothing Runaway posted was great because it gives girls different messages about how they can not follow traditional gender roles without being forced to be boys to do it. I am not content to wave my hands in the air, saying, "Girls just don't like math, science, and computers," and leave it at that. STEM makes you productive and powerful in this world and I don't want my daughter to not have social permission to access that because everything around her is telling her overtly and covertly that STEM is for boys only.
The article opens a perspective on STEM for girls, that perhaps girls don't like STEM as it is now because it has been built by boys, for boys. Perhaps, if we follow the example of this clothing line, we can open avenues to STEM that will appeal to girls without forcing them to approach it as do boys.
Second, I'd challenge the idea that "men and women" are built differently as the absolute determinant for roles men and women play in society. Do you want to assert that in many parts of the world women wear burkas because they have more estrogen than men? Do you think tribal men in the Amazon wear lip- and ear pucks because they have more testosterone? Do men in Iroquois society have some physical basis for the fact that their social structure is matriarchal? Probably not, right? A great deal of what we think men and women can do and prefer to do is quite governed by culture, not biology.
Besides, nobody is forcing anyone to buy these clothes for girls. Buy them if you like, don't if you don't.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Funny) by albert on Sunday August 30 2015, @07:41PM
I have the answer to this one.
Where might one find a good husband? You don't want too much competition. You want men who can support a family. Oh, hey, look at mechanical engineering and electrical engineering! Obviously, if the goal is to be a housewife, you need to be in engineering classes. You'll need to qualify for admission. Obviously you'll want to be at a good school. You'll need to do well enough so that you don't get kicked out before you find a nice husband.
So yes, STEM is for boys. It's lots of cute boys that are lonely. STEM is boys, boys, boys... and that makes it the best place for a girl. Hit the books!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2015, @08:20PM
> Second, I'd challenge the idea that "men and women" are built differently as the absolute determinant for roles men and women play in society.
It is more than a little ironic that hairy's denial of the effects of social conditioning is the result of social conditioning affecting hairy.