Ugh!

You know what really grinds my gears? How much the media focuses on the marital and dating status of women like Jennifer Aniston. Like this article, calling her a spinster?! Why does it matter? A woman's marital status should not be her defining characteristic, and yet, that's all that the media reports on. I can't wait for when they don't even bother with this nonsense and all they worry about is her career.

Girls, Math and Movies

Here's another mixing of two of my favorite things: a blog about science in movies! The X-Change Files is the blog of a collection of scientists associated with the National Academy of Sciences, and their goal is to help the movie industry get science right in their films. So they provide experts in just about every field and facilitate communication between the two. Pretty cool, huh!

Recently they posted about girls in math and how the differences in scores between genders is not genetic, it is cultural. They used the movie Mean Girls as an example of the environment young women have to deal with and how movies can show that being good at math and being popular don't have to be mutually exclusive.

As a woman with a math and science background, I can attest to how having a positive and supporting environment is important in order to develop those skills. I can see the difference between me and my sister - I went to a math and science high school, where the importance and value of these subjects were emphasized and appreciated, and there were basically no gender stereotypes I had to deal with. She's going to a public high school, and while her test scores are just as good and better than mine, she claims that she hates math and doesn't want to have anything to do with it. I wonder, if she didn't have the social pressures to be cool, or if more (popular) girls around her were also good at math and enjoyed it, if she'd feel the same way.

I hope that someday our society can get to a point where we don't have to wonder whether girls aren't reaching their potential because of peer pressure, and we can focus on helping them become exactly what they want to be, no matter what it is.

Okay, enough preaching from me... but one more thing! If you know a young girl who is good at math or science, encourage her! Help her believe that she doesn't have to be dumb to be popular. :)

Blog link: Breaking the Silence: On Living Pro-Lifers' Choice for Women

I have been following this very liberal feminist blog for a week or so now. It gets me really riled up reading about all the different issues. It is easy for me to turn a blind eye to many things, because I am lucky in that I don't encounter discrimination in my everyday life. But I think reading this blog is eye opening and helps me keep my perspective. I think I'd like to get more involved.

Anyways, so this blog linked another blog entry by a woman who had given a child up for adoption and how it scarred her much worse than having an abortion (which she had also done). The entry is powerful and emotional and well worth a read. The comments are also an important part of the dialogue - there are perspectives from adoptees and adoptive mothers as well.

This is why I think sex education and improving the adoption system should be the main goal of the pro-life groups, instead of implementing anti-abortion laws. If you reduce the number of pregnancies, and make the adoption system much more supportive of mother and child, I truly believe you will have fewer abortions. And that's something that pro-life *and* pro-choice groups can work towards.

Article: Domestic Abuse Myths

There has been a lot of media coverage of Chris Brown abusing Rihanna. This newsweek article sums up everything that drives me nuts about how the media is covering it. Please look it over, and talk to your friends and family about it. Domestic violence is an issue that still needs increased awareness.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/188353

Article: Fashion's invisible woman

I wanted to share this article about 'plus size' women and the lack of fashion options for them from the LA Times. Here's a snippet:

When it comes to shopping, the average American man has it made. At 189.8 pounds and a size 44 regular jacket, he can wear Abercrombie & Fitch, American Apparel or Armani. Department stores, mall retailers and designer boutiques all cater to his physique -- even when it's saddled with love handles, a sagging chest or a moderate paunch. In menswear, shlubby is accommodated.

But the average U.S. woman, who's 162.9 pounds and wears a size 14, is treated like an anomaly by apparel brands and retailers -- who seem to assume that no one over size 10 follows fashion's capricious trends.

What do you think?