More Sexism..Ghostbusters then and now.....

Here is a picture of The Ghostbusters of my childhood.

Now here's a picture of The Ghostbusters of 2016:

Notice any differences?

Wait? They're ALL women? How can we possibly have a blockbuster movie without a single lead, male character??  And none of them are even hypersexualized? What will the men in the audience do?

Kidding aside, reactions to the  movie and it's all female cast were mixed and, often, predictably sexist.

The old thinking goes that girls will watch shows with male lead characters but that boys will not watch female lead characters. One possible reason for the predominance of male lead characters.

Here's an interesting, and important twitter debate about the casting of this new movie.

Gender Stereotyped Media

What does the media they consume tell girls about what it means to be a girl? What does it tell a boy about what should be important to them?

Unsurprisingly, young men and women get vastly different information about what should be important to them.  For girls, it's most important to be attractive and focused on your appearance...even first thing when you are getting out of bed!  For boys, it's important to focus on your career options which are numerous: engineer, fire fighter, military service, scientist etc....

Here's an image of an issue of "Girls Life" magazine right next to an issue of "Boy's Life" Magazing.

How do you think these kinds of messages impact boys and girls??

Someone, noting the gendered nature of these magazine covers, very  helpfully "edited" the Girls' Life cover to be more parallel to that of the Boys' Life cover.

Better??  What do you think?

Child Porn proliferates on the Internet and includes self created content...

Pornography is no longer confined to back rooms in video stores or magazines under your older sibling's bed.  With the advent of the Internet it is readily accessible from the palm of your hand. Obviously, this raises some concerns for underage viewing, especially given the prevalence of more hardcore and violent types of pornography easy to find online.

This article details the efforts of local police to shut down child pornography distribution and consumption.  Importantly, it also mentions self created child pornography. If a child creates an explicit video or shares an explicit photo and shares online, it is virtually impossible to undo.  Children themselves can face pornography charges which can have lasting impacts on their future.

Read the article here:

Netflix reduces children's exposure to advertising...

Given the research evidence for harmful effects of advertising on children, many parents understandably would like to insulate their children from constant ad bombardment.

Previously that meant recording all programs and fast forwarding through ads, or even editing them out. Time consuming and not all that effective necessarily.

Recently, however, kids have shifted much of their screen time to subscription streaming services such as Netflix or Amazon Prime.

My kids can find many of their favorite shows on Netflix as well as a large amount of original, child oriented programming. The lack of advertising was not lost on me!

 Here's an article.