I’m reading The Golden Compass and I absolutely love it. The main character is Lyra. She is fierce, smart, and brave. The villain is also female: Mrs. Coulter. She’s brilliant, beautiful, and wicked.

There are several indirect references to sexism in the book. When Lyra first meets Mrs. Coulter she is shocked that the woman is a scholar because female scholars are few and dowdy. Lyra notes many times that the male scholars get access to special rooms. Just like in the real world, right? We all know real life Oxford is sexist as hell. So what’s wrong with referencing that sexism in the story?

There are further parts of the story that make note of sexism. Only the male gyptians are allowed on the boat to recover the children. The female gyptians argue they should be included, not to battle, but because someone will need to be there to look after the children once they are rescued.

Of course Lyra, just a child, goes and battles and is the heroine of the story. But I’m wondering as I read, are there imaginary worlds where there is no sexism? I would love girls and boys to be exposed to this fantasy much more than they currently are. Before we can realize it, we’ve got to be able to imagine it. We get to that surprisingly little if at all. Obviously, the challenge is that writers exist in real life sexist worlds so as Luce Irigaray wrote, even creating a “female imaginary” can be practically impossible to fantasize about. Though, honestly, it doesn’t seem like it should be that hard. Remember, battles are symbolic and metaphorical as are magical powers. Put a female front and center. It seems that at least two other main female characters besides the star must also be in the story. That’s a start. Maybe the Oz series would fit?

The obvious answer is that so many women lack access to money and power as Virginia Woolf told us years ago. In order to create, you need a room of your own.

I read another great theory in a book I love called Goddesses in Every Woman. I first read this book in a feminist theory class in college. I re-read it every few years and can’t wait to give it to my daughters when they are old enough. The  author, Jean Shinoda Bolen, writes that artists need someone to hold their dream, to believe in them. Many men get this faith and support from the women in their lives, but how many women get the same from men? Partners can give lip service to supporting art, but how many allow for the time and mental obsession it actually requires? Or are secure enough to tolerate the exposure art can result in?

I have a theory as well that I came up with while reading and blogging. I think that the whole “tortured artist” archetype doesn’t apply to most women. This is not to say that women don’t experience pain and despair. But rather, if women are going to create, especially mothers, it’s fairly impossible to get stuck in those emotions. And getting stuck is the closest definition I’ve come to sickness. I think in health, you experience the same range of emotions, just as intensely if not more so, but there is movement instead of stagnation. That movement is key to creating.

Please read my blog post on the book Against Depression titled: What if van Gogh took Prozac? The author, Peter Kramer, shares his fascinating theory on how the origin of our standards for measuring great art came from the depressed Greeks. We’ve been stuck in that warped and limited model ever since. I love this theory because, as a former philosophy major, I am no fan of how those guys screwed up our views on reality and women.

Inkheart

From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

Sarah, Plain and Tall

Walk Two Moons

Little Women

Anne of Green Gables

Nancy Drew: The Secret of the Old Clock

Wonderstruck

The Hunger Games

The rumors are true! We are teaming up with DC Comics and Marvel to bring new super hero sets including characters like Batman, Superman, Iron Man, The Hulk, and many others! What hero are you most excited for?

On bricksuperheroes.com, you can see also see photos of Green Lantern, the Joker, Nightwing, Lex Luthor. Superhero sets also include: Robin, the Riddler, Killer, Mr. Freeze, Scarecrow, Bruce Wayne, Mr. Freeze’s Henchman, Bane and Twoface. The females I can find are Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and Hawkgirl. That’s 17 male characters to 5 female ones. Please let me know if you find anymore!

At least there are 5 females, and I would advocate buying these for your kids, but I am so annoyed with LEGO for its hyper-sexist Friends sets that I can’t support this company.

In recent years, child development experts, parents, and scientists have been sounding an increasingly urgent alarm about the decreasing amount of time that children – and adults, for that matter – spend playing. A combination of social forces, from a No Child Left Behind focus on test scores to the push for children to get ahead with programmed extracurricular activities, leaves less time for the roughhousing, fantasizing, and pretend worlds advocates say are crucial for development.

So what happens when kids’ toys and media– major tools for fantasy play– increasingly focus on perpetuating limited gender stereotypes? Unlike in the past, TV series and movies today are often created around products in hope of moving merchandise. The Christian Science Monitor reports:

In the early 1980s, the federal government deregulated children’s advertising, allowing TV shows to essentially become half-hour-long advertisements for toys such as Power Rangers, My Little Ponies, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Levin says that’s when children’s play changed. They wanted specific toys, to use them in the specific way that the toys appeared on TV.

Even Lego’s Friends toys eagerly promises movies and games to accompany the sexist sets.

Read more here.

In the same post, I wrote about United Nations world population fund director Nafis Sadik, widely credited with bringing attention to the correlation between over population and the status of women. When women are educated, when they achieve economic independence, when they have access to good health care, when they are valued in society for their intellect and their accomplishments, they have fewer babies.

Finally, I posted about France where mandatory sexuality education begins when students are 13. Parents are prohibited from withdrawing their teenagers from this program. France’s teenage birthrate is approximately 6 times lower than the rate in the US; its teen abortion rate more than 2x lower, and overall AIDS rate, more than 3x lower.

Now a new study has been released by The Lancet that shows areas with less restrictive laws on reproductive rights show lower abortion rates.

From the Ms blog:

The Lancet has just released a study on global trends in abortion, focusing on overall rates, access to safe vs. unsafe abortions, and how the legal status of abortion impacts abortion rates. The results shed some interesting light on the effects of efforts to reduce abortion by outlawing or restricting access to it. Looking at data from 1995 to 2008, the authors found that abortion rates were actually lower in areas of the world with less restrictive abortion laws:

[Via ThinkProgress.]

The Guttmacher Institute provides a full summary of the article. Not surprisingly, the more restrictive abortion laws are, the higher the proportion of unsafe abortions (with Eastern Europe being a significant outlier, with the highest global abortion rates). About half of all abortions are unsafe, leading to the deaths of roughly 47,000 women each year, or 13 percent of all global maternal deaths—almost entirely in developing nations, where restrictive abortion laws are more common and access to contraception and medical care are generally lower.

It’s clear that top Republican candidates are being short-sighted and ineffective, rushing off in the precisely the wrong direction if their goal is truly to reduce abortions.

As governor, Mitt Romney vetoed a bill that would have given rape survivors access to emergency contraception. As a presidential candidate, he’s promising to defund Planned Parenthood and eliminate federal funding for birth control.

As a member of Congress, Newt Gingrich voted anti-choice 72 times. He voted for “personhood” rights, which would make abortion and many forms of birth control illegal. He voted 10 times to bar the city of Washington, D.C. from using its locally raised tax dollars to provide abortion care to low-income women.  He voted to eliminate Title X, the nation’s family-planning program.

And this from Rick Santorum:

Well, you can make the argument that if she doesn’t have this baby, if she kills her child, that that, too, could ruin her life. And this is not an easy choice. I understand that. As horrible as the way that that son or daughter and son was created, it still is her child. And whether she has that child or doesn’t, it will always be her child. And she will always know that. And so to embrace her and to love her and to support her and get her through this very difficult time, I’ve always, you know, I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you. As you know, we have to, in lots of different aspects of our life. We have horrible things happen. I can’t think of anything more horrible. But, nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation.

The first kids’ movie posters of 2012 have descended on the Bay Area. “The Lorax” is now pictured on buses all over town.

I’ve seen this one as well, for a game derived from the movie, mostly by bus stops:

If you Google the poster, a few come up showing the token “feisty” female voiced by Taylor Swift, but I have yet to actually see this poster anywhere in San Francisco. Please let me know if you see a poster with the female character from ‘The Lorax’ anywhere in SF, or your city/ town and send me a photo.

The other main character in this movie besides the Lorax himself (played by Danny Devito) is Ted (played by Zac Efron) who goes on a quest to please the girl he’s infatuated with. Here’s the synopsis from imdb.com:

A 12-year-old boy searches for the one thing that will enable him to win the affection of the girl of his dreams. To find it he must discover the story of the Lorax, the grumpy yet charming creature who fights to protect his world.

Here’s the description on Wikipedia:

Taylor Swift has also been cast as Audrey, Ted’s romantic interest.

So this young, little kids get to go to the theater to see the boy playing the starring role; the girl in the supporting one as the love interest.

“The Lorax” also has an ugly woman joke in the preview. You can watch that here.

Click here to see Girls Gone Missing From Movie Posters in 2011.

Click here to see stats on the lack of girls in kids films from the Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media.

So why does Rick Santorum, who cares so much about our economy, believe that a woman who has been raped should be forced to have a child?

Here’s what he said last week on CNN to Piers Morgan:

Well, you can make the argument that if she doesn’t have this baby, if she kills her child, that that, too, could ruin her life. And this is not an easy choice. I understand that. As horrible as the way that that son or daughter and son was created, it still is her child. And whether she has that child or doesn’t, it will always be her child. And she will always know that. And so to embrace her and to love her and to support her and get her through this very difficult time, I’ve always, you know, I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you. As you know, we have to, in lots of different aspects of our life. We have horrible things happen. I can’t think of anything more horrible. But, nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation.

How is this mother going to financially support her child? What are Santorum’s plans to help to get this baby access to health care and a good education? Why didn’t he talk about that on CNN?

As governor, presidential candidate Mitt Romney vetoed a bill that would have given rape survivors access to emergency contraception. As a presidential candidate, he’s promising to defund Planned Parenthood and eliminate federal funding for birth control.

As a member of Congress, Newt Gingrich voted anti-choice 72 times. He voted for “personhood” rights, which would make abortion and many forms of birth control illegal. He voted 10 times to bar the city of Washington, D.C. from using its locally raised tax dollars to provide abortion care to low-income women.  He voted to eliminate Title X, the nation’s family-planning program.

Don’t these candidates understand that all of these policies are inextricably linked to the economic status of women? To all of those pro-choice Republicans who plan to vote for one of these men because you want to just “focus on the economy” this election, if you refer to yourself as “fiscally conservative but socially liberal:” That division makes no sense when it comes to women’s lives. Choice isn’t “just one issue” and it isn’t one choice.

Reproductive rights mean that women have the choice to graduate from college, the choice to borrow money to start a business, the choice to get a good job with a fair wage, the choice not live in poverty and keep their kids out of poverty. Choice means that women get to be autonomous citizens, just like men do, with the power to determine their own destinies.

Years ago, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, said that pro-life politicians believe “life begins at conception and ends at birth,” meaning pro-life politicians are adamant about protecting the fetus but don’t care much about protecting the child once its born. I can’t think of a more obvious proof of this short-sightedness than the current Republican presidential candidates who pledge to get Americans out of financial crisis while simultaneously promising to deny women their reproductive rights.

Frank’s statement is also strongly supported by the work of Jean Schroedel, a professor and dean of the School of Politics and Economics at Claremont Graduate University, who examined the relationship between state abortion laws and spending on children. Her research revealed that the states that most severely limit abortion are the same ones that spend the least on foster care, parents who adopt special needs children, and poor women with dependent children. States with strict abortion laws consistently accorded lower political, economic and social status to women. For example, Louisiana had some of the toughest abortion laws and spent $602 per child. Hawaii had some of the most liberal laws and spent $4,648 per child.

Schroedel also discovered that states with restricted abortion laws consistently accorded lower political, economic and social status to women.

Her findings echo the work of Nafis Sadik, who was the executive director of the United Nations World Population Fund. Sadik has been instrumental in turning the debate over how to limit population growth into a campaign for women’s rights.

She is widely credited with bringing attention to the correlation between over population and the status of women. When women are educated, when they achieve economic independence, when they have access to good health care, when they are valued in society for their intellect and their accomplishments, they have fewer babies.

In France, mandatory sexuality education begins when students are 13. Parents are prohibited from withdrawing their teenagers from this program. France’s teenage birthrate is approximately 6 times lower than the rate in the US; its teen abortion rate more than 2x lower, and overall AIDS rate, more than 3x lower.

So what’s wrong with America?

If our presidential candidates really want to help our economy, they ought to be improving the status of women, not taking away their rights. They should be advocating for for preventative policy initiatives to reduce unintended pregnancies, expansion of family planning and funding services, comprehensive sexuality education programs, and insurance coverage for contraceptives.

Last week, President Obama did just that. He passed the Affordable Care Act ensuring that most women will get their contraception covered with no copay. He’ll have my vote, because I understand that reproductive rights have never been “just one issue.”

I couldn’t be more thrilled. I’ve written several posts about Herge, the creator of Tintin, and his disturbing thoughts about women. Herge believed that females had no place in Tintin’s imaginary world. What is so offensive and damaging about this sexism is that Hollywood would never allow an animated movie to be made in 2012 for kids where males were almost completely ignored. Yet, excluding females is just fine, even award-worthy. That’s because the male dominated cast of “Tintin” is consistent with most animated movies made for kids today. Leaving girls out of kids’ movies teaches children a horrible lesson: males are more important than females.

Not only did “Tintin” not get nominated for best animation but two foreign movies did. I haven’t seen either but both look as if they feature females in important roles.

“Chico and Rita” is summarized on imdb.com:

Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unites them, but their journey – in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero – brings heartache and torment.

Just displaying a female so prominently on the poster is rare in animated films. This movie looks great, though I don’t think its for kids.

Here’s the synopsis for “A Cat in Paris” also from imdb.com:

Dino is a cat that leads a double life. By day, he lives with Zoe, a little girl whose mother, Jeanne, is a police officer. By night, he works with Nico, a burglar with a big heart. Zoe has plunged herself into silence following her father’s murder at the hands of gangster Costa. One day, Dino the cat brings Zoe a very valuable bracelet. Lucas, Jeanne’s second-in-command, notices this bracelet is part of a jewelery collection that has been stolen. One night, Zoe decides to follow Dino. On the way, she overhears some gangsters and discovers that her nanny is part of the gangsters’ team.

The cat in the title is a male and he is obviously the star of the film, but the little girl Zoe and her single police officer mom look great from the synopsis. I can’t wait to see this movie!

It’s clear that in order to award some diversity in animation, Oscar had to go outside of Hollywood and its male dominated world of kids cartoons. The other three Oscar nominations for animated features all go to films that star males and are titled for those males: Kung Fu Panda 2, Puss In Boots, and Rango.

This morning’s biggest winner scoring 11 nominations? “Hugo.” Another kids’ movie about a boy and titled for a boy.

But still, the “Tintin” snub is progress, right? Do you think Hollywood is reading Reel Girl? Starting to care about girls and the women they’ll become? Maybe not. Internet chatter suggests “Tintin” was left out because the Academy stipulates that motion-capture is not considered legitimate animation.

Reel Girl is now on Facebook. Click here to join.

Yet Peeters squarely faces two issues that hang over Hergé’s career: his resort to ethnic and racial stereotypes, mainly in the early stories, and his record of accommodation in German-occupied Belgium.

The issues can’t be avoided. In both word and picture, the depiction of Africans in “Tintin in the Congo” makes your jaw drop. (“It’s very nice of these blacks to bear us triumphantly to our hotel!”) The villainous financier in “The Shooting Star” has a hooked nose and has been given the name Blumenstein. Some of this work was later revised, imperfectly. And “Tintin in the Congo” has been gingerly treated by publishers and libraries. As for accommodation, Hergé published “Tintin” throughout the war in the collaborationist newspaper Le Soir. Peeters doesn’t excuse any of this (who would?), though he does try to put it in context. He observes that Hergé’s prejudices were those of his time and place, and notes that the cartoonist, as he matured, acquired a more enlightened sensibility. In “The Blue Lotus,” Chinese ideograms on signs in the background say things like “Abolish unfair treaties!” and “Down with imperialism!” (These were drawn by an influential assistant, a French-speaking native of Shanghai named Zhang Chong Ren.) Hergé was not in essence a political man, publishing in Le Soir because collaborationist newspapers were the only ones allowed to exist.

I haven’t read the book, and I hope Peeters explores Herge’s misogyny in it, but if he does, why would Cullen leave that out of his review? Why does Peeters “squarely face two issues” but not that one? If Herge’s sexism is indeed left out, why doesn’t the reviewer ask the reason for the omission? Are women as unimportant in this story to the reviewer and biographer as they were to Herge?

Read more about the creator of Tintin’s disturbing thought on women.