The makers of Barbie seem to apologize A LOT for underestimating young women. This time the Internet’s buzzing over a pretty cringe-worthy Barbie book, “I Can Be A Computer Engineer,” published out of Random House.
READ MORE: Mattel Pulls Sexist Barbie Book “I Can Be A Computer Engineer” Off Amazon | TechCrunch.
Last month, New York Times bestselling author Karen Abbott published a non-fiction book called Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy, with its subject four fascinating women who became spies during the Civil War—Belle Boyd, teenage rebel and “Secesh Cleopatra”; Emma Edmonds, dressed as a soldier, her nom de guerre “Frank”; Rose O’Neal Greenhow, seducer with an espionage ring; Elizabeth Van Lew, wealthy and quietly radical abolitionist.
Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy was reviewed at the Washington Post by Jonathan Yardley, a Pulitzer-winning critic known for utter decisiveness…
READ MORE: Washington Post Dismisses 500-Page Civil War Nonfiction Book As Girly | Jezebel
While it would be great if we were past the whole “banning books” thing, the fact remains that hundreds of books have their places in libraries or on school reading lists challenged each year.
According to the American Library Association, books are most commonly challenged for being “sexually explicit” or containing “offensive language.” But some of the books that are most often challenged are also literary classics, containing storylines that almost everyone can learn from.
In honor of Banned Books Week 2014, we’ve pulled together a list of controversial books that every woman should read. They cover sexual freedom and women pushing back against prescribed roles, oppression against women and people of color, and what it means to be a woman in different places and times. Above all, they are stories well told.
A culture of hate and suspicion has descended on the games industry, and at the centre of the vortex is a familiar foe: women. Ask Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn.
READ MORE: How to attack a woman who works in video gaming | Technology | theguardian.com.
Scary. As librarians we have a responsibility to uphold the right to intellectual freedom. For situations such as this, there has to be checks and balances that hold criminal behaviour, such as harassment and death threats, accountable. Brings up all sorts of questions about social media and freedom of speech, anonymity, censorship, privacy and trolling.
Wandering the grand halls of Scone Palace in Scotland you might stumble on a pretty portrait of two beautiful women in 18th-century clothes, seemingly affectionate sisters. Not so unusual — except one of the “sisters” is black.
Who is that, you might well wonder, as did Misan Sagay, then a young British college student of Nigerian descent, long accustomed to being the only black face in most British rooms. She stopped short upon spotting the painting while touring the palace near her university.
“I was stunned. And taken aback,” says Sagay, now in her 40s and a screenwriter (Their Eyes Were Watching God). The castle brochure named only the white woman in the portrait, Lady Elizabeth Murray. When she returned a few years later, Sagay says, there was more information on the label, naming the black woman as Dido, “the housekeeper’s daughter.”
“So the silent black woman had a name,” says Sagay. “But I looked at the portrait and the way they were touching, and thought, ‘I don’t buy this. There is more to this than meets the eye.’ ”
Indeed there was. Sagay dove into drafty palace archives to learn more, and years later the result is Belle, written on spec by Sagay, directed by Amma Asante, a British woman of Ghananian descent, and starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw,a British woman of South African descent.
READ MORE: Movie inspired by a painting, ‘Belle’ is a true story | USA Today
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The year my husband was born (1953), only 5% of Americans preferred a female boss. That number has climbed to 23%, according to a new Gallup survey. The proportion of people who prefer to work for men fell precipitously, from two-thirds in 1953 to about one-third today.
Perhaps even more important is the sharp rise in Americans who expressed no preference, even when cued to care. Gallup’s question asked, “If you were taking a new job and had your choice of boss, would you prefer a man or a woman?” Only 25% of Americans expressed no preference in 1953 but today it’s 41%. More good news: more people judge their bosses not by their gender, but as people. This is more likely to be true the higher the level of the job. Only 36% of those with high school or less, but 46% of those postgraduate degrees, expressed no preference.
Male privilege, you might say, ain’t what it used to be.
Once we scratch the surface, though, the news is nastier. Americans who currently work for men are twice as likely to prefer to do so. Only 16% of Republicans prefer a woman boss. American women still face a steep uphill climb, something the pipeline won’t fix: young people (18 to 34) are more likely to want a male boss and less likely to express no preference than Americans aged 35 to 54.
Most striking is that a much higher percentage (40%) of women than men (29%) prefer to work for a man. Women also are more likely than men to prefer to work for a woman: 27% of women versus only 18% of men.
Both these statistics are puzzling, but I may have an explanation for each.
Women might prefer to work with women for two reasons. They might, first, feel this offers them some protection from gender bias, including sexual harassment. Second, women without college degrees typically are in pink-collar jobs that have a distinctly feminine feel a male boss might disrupt.
How about the women who prefer a male boss? Have they just been burned by Devils Wearing Prada?
They may have experienced workplaces where gender bias pits women against other women, a patternThe New Girls’ Network calls the “Tug of War.” An important 2010 study of legal secretaries by law professor Felice Batlan illustrates this dynamic, as does my own research. Batlan surveyed 142 legal secretaries and found that not one preferred to work for a woman partner (although, importantly, 47% expressed no preference).
Why did many secretaries prefer male bosses? Simple: they aren’t dummies. In most law firms, most people who hold power are men. Women stall out about 10 to 20% of the time in upper-level management in professional fields like business and law, so if you’re aiming to hitch your wagon to a shooting star, men are a better bet. This is one way gender bias pits women against women.
Another is when women stereotype other women. “I just feel that men are more flexible and less emotional than women,” one secretary said, while another described women lawyers as “too emotional and demeaning.” The stereotype that women are too emotional goes back hundreds of years.
But “demeaning”? That’s interesting. Her boss may just be a jerk — some people are — but perhaps she was just busy. While a busy man is busy, a busy woman, all too often, is a bitch. Because high-level jobs are seen as masculine, women need to behave in masculine ways in order to be seen as competent. But if they behave too much like men — watch out.
This no-win situation fuels conflict between women who just want to be one of the guys and those who remain loyal to feminine traditions. “Secretaries are expected to engage in traditionally feminine behavior such as care giving and nurtur[ing], where[as] women attorneys are supposed to engage in what is stereotypically more masculine behavior. Given these very different expectations and performances of gender that occur in the same space, the potential for conflict is enormous,” Batlan concludes. Indeed, many professionals find themselves expected to do what Pamela Bettis and Natalie G. Adams, in an unpublished paper, call “nice work”: being attentive and approachable in ways that are often time-consuming and compulsory for women but optional for men.
Conflict also erupts due to Prove-It-Again problems: women managers have to provide more evidence of competence as men in order to be seen as equally competent. This pattern again pits women against their bosses. “It would seem as if female associates/partners feel they have something to prove to everyone,” noted one secretary. “Females are harder on their female assistants, more detail-oriented, and they have to try harder to prove themselves, so they put that on you,” said another.
But it’s not just female assistants who voice concerns about their bosses.
The interviewees for my forthcoming book What Works for Women at Work, co-written with my daughter Rachel Dempsey, illustrate yet another dynamic: some admins make demands on female bosses that they don’t make on men. And like many types of gender bias, this one’s inflected by race. One black scientist I interviewed felt her relationship with white administrative assistants was strained because, she said, she didn’t share their habit of bonding by sharing personal information (what Deborah Tannen called “troubles talk”). Black admins “just do not expect me to want to know anything about their personal business,” she said with some relief.
Women bosses also often feel that admins prioritize men’s work. One scientist I interviewed noted that administrative staff took longer to complete work given by women than men. Another agreed: “My stuff won’t get done first.” “They say the bosses are too demanding,” said a third, recalling a conversation with admins who worked with her. She had responded, “Well, the boss that you had before was equally demanding. The guy that you were working under was equally demanding.” The admins’ reaction: “Yeah, but that’s different.” Again, the secretaries know which side the butter’s on. And the female scientists I interviewed typically felt less powerful than their male counterparts.
As usual, gender dynamics are far from simple. The Gallup study confirms the eternal story: when it comes to gender flux, the glass is half full — employees now are more comfortable with female leaders and are more likely to simply treat people as people, leaving traditional gender stereotypes behind. But the glass is also resounding, maddeningly, persistently half empty. I read the evidence that more women than men prefer to work for women as evidence of persistent gender bias. And I read the evidence that more women than men prefer to work for men the same way.
Who Wants to Work for a Woman? | Joan C. Williams | Harvard Business Review
Computing has always been a boys’ club. How 18-year-old nikita rau–and other young women like her–are finally changing that.
Read: A Girl Who Codes | Fast Company | Business + Innovation.
Awesome, super popular post on HuffPo!!
Like all great children’s book heroines, Anne Shirley is just a bit odd. Okay, she’s very odd. Her crazy imagination and flowery diction differentiate her from most children you’re likely to meet, and despite a certain recent edition’s cover art, her hair is defiantly red. But somehow, her kooky adventures have spoken to generations of children, including me. Though in some ways L.M. Montgomery’s lesser-known heroine Emily Starr was more relatable to me as a kid — shy, withdrawn, bookish, and driven by professional ambition — lighthearted Anne is almost universally irresistible.
Anne is fearless. Anne is unpredictable. Anne is funny, though often unintentionally. Anne is smart, but not snobbish. Anne is so warm and caring you can feel it through the page. (And, cards on the table, her love interest Gilbert was my first literary crush.) Watching her grow up, stumbling from adventure to misadventure, was never dull. What’s more, it managed to teach young readers all about life without ever seeming preachy. Anne isn’t a model girl, but she’s figuring it out. Just like we all were at her age. Here are 11 of the most important lessons Anne Shirley taught me about life, love, and growing up.
Read: 11 Indispensable Life Lessons Every Woman Can Learn From Anne Of Green Gables | HuffPo.
infophile 