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.

YouTube tops kids' list of favorite brands!

Most parents will tell you that kids LOVE YouTube. In a historic first, YouTube has been out such iconic and beloved kids brands as Disney and Oreo for the top spot in a recent study looking at kids' favorite brands.

YouTube is no longer considered the "wild wild west" by many parents.  However, what concerns should we have about kids' exposure??  You can find just about anything on youtube. For example, my then 7 year old daughter discovered that people post entire hours long videos of themselves giving birth!

Here's the article with the rest of the list:

The dangers of look-alike "Smart Snacks."

The nutritional value of school lunches has been a hot topic for a number of years. Schools have been under increasing pressure to provide healthy and nourishing lunch options, as they should. Kids learn better when they are getting the nutrition they need.

Unfortunately, some of the offerings are still "light" on nutrition. For example, some brands such as Cheetos and Doritos have reformulated their products to meet requirements for "smart snacks" put forth by the USDA. This allows them to market these products to kids in schools.

Setting aside the questionable nutritional value of Doritos (which I love, don't get me wrong), another problem is that the original package and the "smart snacks" package looks very similar.

This could lead to confusion among parents and children when they are inevitably pestered to "please can we buy some cheetos" at the grocery store.

Here's a recent article out of UConn (Huskies!) on this topic:

If your teen rejects social media, are they missing out?

Statistics suggest that most kids between 13 and 19 spend time online and many of them use social networking sites such as Snapchat and Instagram.

But, what if you have a child that doesn't want any part of social media? Or what if you forbid it? Are they missing out? Will they miss important social opportunities, leading to weakened social relationships?

Here's an article addressing that question. What do you think?