Because we understand the implications.
Because we know that even as a romantic fantasy, it's a damaging one; that even for a trashy book, it's a lousy one; and that even-or especially-as an for escape for a young woman who's longing to break out of her everyday confinements, it's a trap."
Girldrive tracks a conversation between the next generation. It allows gutsy young women across the American cityscape to be seen and heard. It evaluates, through an intergenerational conversation, the current state of feminism and its many definitions. It’s about the past and the present, and it glimmers on the future. It’s about the promise of the open road. It’s about how young women grapple with the concepts of freedom, equality, joy, ambition, sex, and love—whether they call it “feminism” or not.
–Nona
Gender is not an “artificial construct.” It is biological fact. And just what exactly is wrong with boys wearing pants and girls wearing dresses? They’re just clothes. The gender of this Swedish kid will eventually manifest itself, naturally, whether its parents like it or not.
— Joe
To me, this isn’t a case of allowing a child to freely think of themselves and live as another gender than he/she is, if that child desires to do so.
This is a case of adults, no doubt acting out of good will and love, who are purposely clouding the entire issue of gender to a degree that I find quite disconcerting.
Withholding information can be as cruel as misinformation, and good intentions can have a tendency to go very very wrong.
— KCEveryone should just calm down. The child will eventually make a decision about which gender it identifies with and everything will be fine. No need for therapy, no need for panic.
But right now, when the child is young and most vulnerable to outside influences, the parents are trying to allow the most natural possible internal process of gender identification to occur. Soon, the child will be old enough to express this identification and can make choices about how to live its own life. I don’t think these parents are trying to stifle these choices. On the contrary, they’re encouraging self-identification and choice.
Chill out. He or she will be fine.
— L.Belaqua
LAUREN RENNER, 16 On Agirlsworld.com, blogged about her daily life and worked on the site’s “My first prom” magic story that lets girls fill in blanks and make a tale about themselves.
MARTINA BUTLER, 17 Stars in her own indie music podcast on Emogirltalk.com. Last Sunday’s episode included music by Sequoyah Prep School and Death Cab for Cutie.
Interesting sections:
“Most guys don’t have patience for this kind of thing,” said Nicole Dominguez, 13, of Miramar, Fla., whose hobbies include designing free icons, layouts and “glitters” (shimmering animations) for the Web and MySpace pages of other teenagers. “It’s really hard.”
Nicole posts her graphics, as well as her own HTML and CSS computer coding pointers (she is self-taught), on the pink and violet Sodevious.net, a domain her mother bought for her in October.
“If you did a poll I think you’d find that boys rarely have sites,” she said. “It’s mostly girls.”
Indeed, a study published in December by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that among Web users ages 12 to 17, significantly more girls than boys blog (35 percent of girls compared with 20 percent of boys) and create or work on their own Web pages (32 percent of girls compared with 22 percent of boys).
* * *
Explanations for the gender imbalance are nearly as wide-ranging as cybergirls themselves. The girls include bloggers who pontificate on timeless teenage matters such as “evil teachers” and being “grounded for life,” to would-be Martha Stewarts — entrepreneurs whose online pursuits generate more money than a summer’s worth of baby-sitting.
“I was the first teenage podcaster to receive a major sponsorship,” said Martina Butler, 17, of San Francisco, who for three years has been recording an indie music show, Emo Girl Talk, from her basement. Her first corporate sponsorship, from Nature’s Cure, an acne medication, was reported in 2005 in Brandweek, the marketing trade magazine.
Since then, more than half a dozen companies, including Go Daddy, the Internet domain and hosting provider, have paid to be mentioned in her podcasts, which are posted every Sunday on Emogirltalk.com.
“It’s really only getting bigger for me,” said Martina, an aspiring television and radio host who was tickled to learn about the Pew study.
“I’m not surprised because girls are very creative,” she said, “sometimes more creative than men. We’re spunky. And boys ... ” Her voice trailed off to laughter.
While creating content enables girls to experiment with how they want to present themselves to the world, they are obviously interested in maintaining and forging relationships.
When Lauren Renner, 16, was in fifth grade, she and a friend, Sarada Cleary, now 14, both of Oceanside, Calif., began writing about their lives on Agirlsworld.com, an interactive e-zine with articles written for and by girls.
“Girls from everywhere would read it and would ask questions about what they should do with a problem,” Lauren said. “I think girls like to help with other people’s problems or questions, kind of, like, motherly, to everybody.”
THE one area where boys surpass girls in creating Web content is posting videos. This is not because girls are not proficient users of the technology, Professor Palfrey said. He suggested, rather, that videos are often less about personal expression and more about impressing others. It’s an ideal way for members of a subculture — skateboarders, snowboarders — to demonstrate their athleticism, he said.
