Generation Zii» Life

Faminist Theory

Generation Zii — Fri, 14 May 2010 13:09:24 +0000

The feminist battleground, with its slogans, marches, and campaigns for reproductive rights, has given way to the playground and the fight for lactation rights, stroller rights, school-system rights, unpasteurized milk rights, charter schools, birthing techniques, nutritional value of bagged lunches and water quality. It is not so much about the Fem as it is about the Fam.

How to Parent by Community

Generation Zii — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:49:04 +0000

In July 2008, I learned that I had a seven-inch cancerous tumor in my left femur. I instantly worried about my three-year-old twin daughters and what life might be like for them. Three days later, I awoke with an idea of how I might give them my voice. I would reach out to six men from all parts of my life and ask them to form a “Council of Dads”.

Working at home: Family-friendly?

Generation Zii — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 14:13:34 +0000

The technology that allows parents to spend more time at home — laptops and cellphones and mobile e-mail — is blurring the lines between work and personal life and distracting them from the “family time” they crave.

Cruel and abusive behavior in a high-tech world prompts growing response

Generation Zii — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 14:17:33 +0000

Schoolyard bullies have existed as long as schoolyards, and they have brought many a kid to tears. As hurtful as those bullies were, at least victims had an escape — home. Today, however, kids deal with cyberbullies, and technology is around the clock, inescapable. Cyberbullying is when a child or teen is tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another child or teen using technology.

Breastfeeding rooms hidden in health care law

Generation Zii — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 13:40:25 +0000

Nursing mothers will now get additional support, thanks to page 1239 of the health care bill that President Obama recently signed into law. It requires employers to provide “a place, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from co-workers and the public, which may be used by an employee to express breast milk.”

Death Rates Higher in Non-White American Children

Generation Zii — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 16:00:23 +0000

Asian, African-American, Hispanic, and Native American children in the United States have higher rates of death and more illness compared to their white classmates.

Study: Breast-feeding would save lives, money

Generation Zii — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 14:04:31 +0000

The lives of nearly 900 babies would be saved each year, along with billions of dollars, if 90 percent of U.S. women breast-fed their babies for the first six months of life, a cost analysis says.

A generation of women bred to work

Lilia Rivera — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:11:37 +0000

Our careers were proof that generations of oppression were over, the revolution complete and women were finally “free”. …Our mothers hoped that we would be more independent from men — but they equated independence entirely with money. So while we no longer rely on men for cash, now that we are working, we need them in so many more ways than before.

Hyper-sexualization in the Media and our Kids

Ileany Fields — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 22:15:13 +0000

Lady Gaga via Wiki Commons

We all have our guilty pleasures and mine happens to be music videos. I watched history in the making when I – ehem – stayed home from school sick to watch MTV the first full day it was on air. Since that day I have been hooked. Right now one of my favourites is Video Phone (Beyonce and Lady Gaga). The imagery in it is engaging, stylistic, creative, energizing, and sexually charged. My least favourite? Well, it will inevitably be one of the so many videos containing yachts, souped-up cars, a lot of buttocks shots of the scantly clad local girls flaunting their goods.

I have been watching the craft of mainstream video making since the beginning, and in the past years I have seen the subtle art of sexual insinuation in videos turn into in your face raunchiness. Those bad videos make me wish for the good ol’ days of “Video Killed the Radio Star” (low tech and just cool looking musicians playing their instruments – no hot shorts or fishnets – hurray!) As a live-and-let-live kind of girl I am only slightly offended by the portrayal of women in the majority of the videos now. I do however find myself guarded about the imagery when my son is watching with me.

Since he is older, we don’t censor our music video time as much as we used to, but I do wonder what message he is receiving from them. I can’t help to think that at a subconscious level his expectation of what a girl should act like and look like is being shaped by music videos, and the imagery around him. Sex sells hence sexual images are everywhere. A beautiful marginally clothed Eva Mendez is selling perfume in a magazine, super hot models are selling lingerie on the huge red double-decker buses about town, a beautifully clothed woman that is about to engage in a ménage a trois is selling a watch on TV. Call me “old fashioned” but lately, I find myself slightly uncomfortable by the “hyper-sexualized” images that we come across every day. It is not the visuals that bothers me, but it is the frequency and the context in which we are exposed to them.

Year after year there are studies and reports issued that confirm that the “mainstreaming of the sex industry” has many negative effects on our psyche and especially that of kids. “Sexualization” not only affects our cognitive abilities, it makes us self-conscious and affects our concentration. So much of it all really is about the female body, so it is the girls that are getting the message loud and clear.

The interesting thing is that sexualization is human nature. Sexual imagery has existed from the beginning of time. Artist have been depicting naked children, naked women and men in compromising positions, compromising setting, and some times with compromising object in their portraits since pre-historic times. We see these works in museums and look at them without malice and with much admiration for the beauty that is the human body. At the time these works were completed they were controversial, and looked at with shock and possibly disgust rather than admiration. Hmmm…. will future generations look at some of the rap videos and think, wow that is beautiful and compare it to Francisco Goya’s Nude Maja or a Michael Angelo?

But seriously, I have come to terms that this is one of those “issues” that will never go away because of the sheer fact that it is human nature, it drives our economy and there are so many tiers to it (kind of like oil and consumption). Like cartoons aren’t real, neither are most of the media visuals we encounter and truth be told we are tuning in to it for pure entertainment value and what fun would it be if we were always looking at dowdy imagery? I guess the key is to make sure that we continue to promote and advocate media literacy with our son, not only in front of the TV but constantly.

I will say that as long as advertisers continue to think that we, as women and girls, aspire to be sex kittens we will continue to see limited creativity in how we are sold products. Wow, imagine how much innovation there would be if you took sex and the female body out of the equation.

Attachment Parenting Made Easier

Generation Zii — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:00:45 +0000

“As a grad student in psychology I loved attachment theory — it made intuitive, evolutionary sense. But as a mom the label attachment parenting turned me off because it seemed to be defined by distinct lifestyle choices. Even though Dr. Sears says in the first chapter of The Baby Book, “You will grow and develop your own style,” that message gets lost in the translation.”