Read-alouds for 100 years of women’s suffrage

In my latest video on YouTube: Ratification of the 19th Amendment on Aug. 26, 1920, officially granted women the right to vote in the United States. I’ve recorded read-alouds to help commemorate 100 years of women’s right to vote.

SRCSA library : Book-set donation for Women’s Suffrage Centennial

Video: Our school library will receive a donation of three books to honor the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote in the United States.

‘Red: The True Story of Red Riding Hood’

I never tire of reading contemporary fiction based on European fairy tales. So often, authors come up with a fresh angle of presenting the traditional story.

Liesl Shurtliff has done exactly that with Red: The True Story of Red Riding Hood (Random House Children’s, April 12, 2016). As readers may expect, Red sets out to visit her grandmother’s house — but while a wolf howls in the woods, it doesn’t dress up as Granny. Instead, Granny disguises herself as a wolf to deter nuisance visitors.

Granny’s reputation as a witch attracts various people who want spells and potions.

Women’s History Month

Women’s History Month will be observed in March, and in Bellview library, I plan to put out books that commemorate women’s achievements. Here’s a collage-style sign I made last year to be part of the display.

‘Cinder Edna’ by Ellen Jackson

The slideshow that accompanied our reading in The Joy of Children’s Literature this week raised an intriguing question: Do “fractured” or feminist fairy tales make sense if children don’t have the context of the original story?

With Cinder Edna by Ellen Jackson (1994), illustrated by Kevin O’Malley, children have a chance to compare and contrast the story of Cinderella with that of her next-door-neighbor. Both young women are similarly forced to work for a wicked stepmother and stepsisters.

Feminist Library on Wheels, books on custom tricycle

A ribbon cutting for the Feminist Library on Wheels.
Image credit: Feminist Library on Wheels on Facebook

The Feminist Library on Wheels, consisting of donated books shelved on a custom-built tricycle, is an “eclectic mix of analytical texts and more leisurely reads.” As related by Aminka Khan for the LA Times, librarians Jean Witte and Dawn Finley said they love “the crowdsourced definition of feminism on the library’s weathered shelves.” This library assistant and cyclist loves the idea of library outreach atop a bicycle.

Social sharing credit: Women Bike/League of American Bicyclists

Trolling: ‘part of the job’ for women in online media?

For The Mary Sue, Jill Pantozzi raises a valid question: “Is Dealing With Vicious Internet Trolls ‘Just Part of the Job’ For Women In Online Media?” She links to a piece in which “Jezebel Staff” describe the placing of violent pornographic images in the discussion section of their articles.

Although Jezebel staffers can manually dismiss comments and ban offensive commentators, “Literally nothing” stops abusive posters from signing up for another untraceable account and posting more abusive images. “It’s like playing whack-a-mole with a sociopathic Hydra.”

Feminist Library on Wheels, irresistible combination of librarianship and bicycles

Image credit: League of American Bicyclists

I’ve long been a fan of mobile library outreach; one of my projects in library school was to draft an argument for bookmobile services to the geographically spread-out population of a rural California county.

And as a bicycle rider, I’m even more enthused by library outreach on bicycle.

‘Victorian Secrets’ by Sarah A. Chrisman

In Victorian Secrets, author Sarah A. Chrisman (Skyhorse Publishing, 2013) shares her experience as a full-time wearer of the Victorian-style corset.

Chrisman’s husband Gabriel gave her the corset as a birthday gift and she at first resented the attitudes of female suppression that she believed the corset represented.

She tried it on, reluctantly at first, and found it improved her posture and seemed to reduce the severity of her migraines.

The size of Chrisman’s waist went from 32 to 22 inches.

‘Let Her Say No’

Show your daughters (and sons) that her “No” will be respected while the stakes are still low. At Huffington Post, an important essay from contributor Stephanie Giese.

Women’s History Month

March is Women’s History Month and this posterboard display in the Bellview library proclaims a “Spotlight on Women’s History.” From left to right are U.S. astronaut Sally Ride, Sacagawea, who guided Lewis and Clark on their expedition and First Lady Michelle Obama.

To accompany the display, I pulled several titles from the library’s collection of biographies. Civil rights activists, artists, aviators, politicians, sports figures and more. Women have contributed in numerous ways to U.S. and world history.

Daryl Hannah raises attention for women on autism spectrum

On Facebook, sharing a link to an essay about actress Daryl Hannah, Autism At About.com relates, “I feel a certain obligation to post this sort of celebrity news, though I personally don’t find it especially compelling ... do you guys enjoy reading about ‘celebrity autistics?’”

My response is that the main focus of the essay (by the consistently informative Emily Willingham) seems less to do with Daryl Hannah and more to do with misdiagnosis or under-diagnosis of women and girls. As a woman diagnosed in adulthood, I feel this is a legitimate issue that vitally needs more attention.

Film villains: a pretty homogeneous bunch?

At TheMarySue.com, Dan Wohl writes about a lack of female sci-fi villains, using the “Abramsverse” J.J. Abrams Star Trek remakes as examples.

Authors’ books get ‘Coverflip’ treatment

Image credit: Book Revels

Similar to the Hawkeye Initiative’s commentary upon women in superhero comics: A Huffington Post slideshow features book covers with the author’s gender and the target audience’s gender flipped.

The idea originated with author Maureen Johnson who stated on Twitter, “I do wish I had a dime for every email I get that says, ‘Please put a non-girly cover on your book so I can read it. - signed, A Guy’”

As  Johnson elaborated at Huffington Post:

“This idea that there are ‘girl books’ and ‘boy books’ and ‘chick lit’ and ‘whatever is the guy equivalent of chick lit’ gives credit to absolutely no one, especially not the boys who will happily read stories by women, about women. As a lover of books and someone who supports readers and writers of both sexes, I would love a world in which books are freed from some of these constraints. ...

“Which is why yesterday, I proposed a little experiment on Twitter. I asked people to take a well-known book, then to imagine the author of that book was of the opposite gender, or was genderqueer, and imagine what that cover might look like.”

Johnson said she received “hundreds of replies within 24 hours.”

Social sharing credit goes to Friends of the San Francisco Public Library.

Cosplay ≠ Consent

Here's Cosplay ≠ Consent, created by Kanthara on Tumblr, that is rich with themes I blog about: victim-blaming and the importance of bystanders to combat/negate bullying. Add to it the realm of science fiction/fantasy fandom in which, far from being an inclusive haven, women can be targets of hostility on the basis of their looks.

Credit goes to my brother Andrew Parkhill for bringing my attention to this image, which offers commentary on an incident at PAX East in which a male journalist posed sexually-suggestive questions to women portraying Lara Croft.

Is Sheryl Sandberg a role model? Short answer: I'll read the book

Is Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg a role model or not? An extra credit forum was posted this week in my women’s health class.

After viewing Sheryl Sandberg’s December 2010 TEDTalks presentation, I am concerned by the possibility that detractor Melissa Gira Grant is taking Sandberg’s message out-of-context to promote her own agenda.

To cite one example in Grant’s Washington Post commentary: Grant states that, for Sandberg, “the biggest threat to [women’s] ability to occupy a position of leadership is a woman’s desire to have a child.”

Grant’s statement fails to accurately represent what Sandberg said, at least in the TEDTAlks video, which is that women stop looking for opportunities to advance at work when they begin planning a pregnancy. As a result, I do not trust Grant to accurately represent Sandberg’s statements. I believe my best course is to read Sandberg’s book, Lean In, for myself.

One criticism that I thought valid, if accurate, was the restriction on sharing only “positive” stories among women in “Lean In Circles.” But I was unable to verify Grant’s claim.

I did note instructions at leanin.org/circles, that “Your Circle is yours. We encourage you to decide what works for your group.” Presumably this freedom of decision could negate any restriction such as Grant describes.

Grant raises a contention that Sandberg directs her focus only on corporate women. I found this argument also advanced in commentary by Atlantic writer Ellen Bravo.

In a piece titled “Many working-class women are already leaning in,” Bravo argued that all women would benefit from reflecting and acting on a question urged by Sandberg: “What would I do if I weren’t afraid?” The commentary highlights efforts by retail, home care, hotel and restaurant workers to win changes in the workplace.

This is a tough one. And I think my best course is to read the book and see if it has anything relevant for an aspiring library professional who has never felt comfortable with the “corporate” setting. A promotional video at leanin.org/circles seems to suggest a far more inclusive direction than Grant and Bravo indicate.

Finally, arguments by unidentified detractors paraphrased in an article by CNN writer Todd Leopold seem to reflect the very dichotomy identified by Sandberg in her talk: men attribute their success to themselves and women attribute their success to others: Sandberg “glided to the top thanks to the help of powerful men” like Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

My answer: I think that few people ever truly rise to the top solely upon their own merits. I would hope that the workplace is more collaborative than that. Let us assume that Sandberg received help and support from these men and from others, women whom she acknowledged in the video as paving the way for her.

If these men chose to act as mentor to Sandberg, it was because of her strengths, which include two degrees from Harvard and an early career in public service. Are these mentors somehow less valid, or are Sandberg’s accomplishments more about them, because they are men?

Bottom line answer: Sandberg’s book is worth reading and then I will determine if she is a role model for me.

Hawkeye Initiative: Male superhero duplicates women’s awkward poses

Source angels-assemble on Tumblr

My brother Andrew R. Parkhill shared this on his Facebook timeline: The Hawkeye Initiative duplicates female superheroes’ -- ahem -- overly exhibitive, off-balance postures with a male superhero, Clint “Hawkeye” Barton. It’s a refreshing alternative and commentary upon depictions of women in superhero comics. And it’s timely given the emphasis of my women’s health class upon media portrayals and social attitudes about women.

Don’t blame all media for unhealthy images of women

A selection of videos in my women’s health class this week raise interesting points about U.S. society’s unhealthy emphasis upon a narrow standard of female beauty. We were asked, in a discussion board, to respond to one film in particular, Miss Representation.

While I share genuine concern about messages of female dis-empowerment, one point that I object to is its attribution to “the media” of unhealthy attitudes about women.

A very small number of pundits, notably from Fox News, are shown presenting offensive comments dismissing Hillary Clinton, yet this attitude is attributed to “the media” as a whole. Images of emaciated models from magazine advertising are also attributed to “the media.”

News anchor Jennifer Livingston brought bullying into national dialogue when she responded to a viewer who called her fat.

Livingston’s television station is not Fox Network News and she is not Bill O’Reilly but when people dismiss “the media,” they lump Livingston into the same category as the pundits whose spiteful comments are featured in the film.

Why is it OK to stereotype “the media” and everyone who works in various media industries as somehow all contributing to these destructive attitudes?

I agree with a statement in the video about the importance of advertising as a source of media revenue and also agree that advertising is based upon making people feel anxious and insecure. But it is important to specify the medium and the type of advertising.

Mother rewarded with book deal for violating daughter’s privacy

Dara-Lynn Weiss, a woman who put her daughter on a diet and then wrote a Vogue article about it, had a book published in January. The Heavy: A Mother, A Daughter, A Diet was released by Ballantine Books.

As reported last spring by Jessica Samakow for the Huffington Post, Weiss's article drew the attention of bloggers who questioned her methods (A link to Samakow’s article was posted this week to a discussion board in my online women’s health class).

Jezebel author Katie J.M. Baker called Weiss’s piece “the worst Vogue article ever”:

“Weiss' initial quandary is a complicated one, to be sure: what do you do if your pediatrician tells you your child is clinically obese? But the justifications to which Weiss clings as she describes the abrasive, often irrational weight-loss strategies she imposed upon her young daughter are truly disgusting, as is the obvious fact that Weiss was projecting her hatred of her own body onto her child throughout her year-long diet. The ickiness of the essay is only overshadowed by the accompanying photos, in which Weiss and her now-slender daughter — who even Weiss admits is traumatized by the events of the past year — don miniskirts and giggle girlishly over tea.”

The article was published in April in Vogue’s Shape 2012 issue.

After reading the account on Huffington Post, my main issue of concern wasn’t that the child, Bea, was overweight: although, to be sure, some of the other bloggers included in Samakow’s summary seemed to have much healthier attitudes about a child who was overweight.

One blogger wrote under the name Mom De Guerre because she said she would never put her child's well-being at stake the way that Weiss had. And Samakow described a piece by HuffPost blogger Janell Burley Hofmann as an “honest, self-accepting response.”

(Hofmann’s initial response to her daughter telling her, “I'm fat,” was, “You are built just perfect -- strong and healthy.”)

From the excerpt in Samakow’s summary, Weiss displayed a self-pitying attitude that I found distasteful:

“‘Everyone supports the mission, but no one seems to approve of my methods,’ she admits and then goes on to mention her own exhaustion: ‘It is grating to have someone constantly complain of being hungry, or refuse to eat what she’s supposed to, month after month.’”

What most concerned me was the way that Weiss exposed her young daughter to public scrutiny and possible condemnation.  I know from experience that adults can be quick to judge someone else’s child’s behavior without knowing her circumstances.

Weiss crossed an important line when she wrote about her daughter’s weight.

I can choose for myself to share details of my life, including struggles and challenges. And there are details about my life that I don’t feel comfortable sharing, even as I readily disclose other areas. It’s my life, my choice what, and how much, to reveal.

Weiss could similarly make a choice to disclose her own struggles or insecurities. But her daughter Bea did not get to make that choice; Weiss took the choice from her daughter.

Now that Weiss’s book has been published, Bea’s life will be exposed before that many more people, in a story that, based on advance praise, casts Weiss and not Bea in the role of heroine. Weiss does not deserve to be financially rewarded for violating her daughter’s privacy.

My thanks to Cuesta College instructor Allison Merzon for posting a link to the Huffington Post article on our women’s health class discussion board.

Women with autism: members on two fronts of ‘non-dominant group’

Infographic by Landon Bryce: 1 of 252 girls in U.S. has autism
http://thautcast.com/drupal5/content/new-cdc-autism-numbers-looking-and-thinking

I enrolled last night for HEED 203, “Women’s Health Issues,” for Spring 2013. This course will satisfy general ed requirements to earn me an associate’s degree in Library and Information Technology.