No one is too young to make the world a better place! Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Peace Prize when she was only seventeen. She began her public life as an activist for girls’ education in Pakistan when she was just eleven years old, blogging about life under the Taliban. She’s proof that ordinary young people can have genuine influence […]
I keep reading this baseless crap about how boys won’t read stories about girls, so we should just stop writing and publishing them. It’s nonsense. Worse, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, because how will boys read about girls if everyone’s been warned not to offer them those books? I recently wrote a round-up of 12 notable New […]
Have you ever noticed that all the animals in the popular children’s lift-the-flap book Dear Zoo are male? Every single one. It’s not an isolated example. Looking at almost 6,000 children’s books published between 1900 and 2000, the study, led by Janice McCabe, a professor of sociology at Florida State University, found that males are central characters […]
We’re still swimming in sexism Here’s a quick exercise for you: grab a pen and paper, or open a document on a device. Briefly note down the ten or so kids’ television shows that you see or hear most of when you are around kids. You could include kids’ movies as well if you like. What shows […]
A very warm welcome to Jessica, who wrote this stunning speech about feminism for her school speech competition. I am looking forward to hearing more from this extraordinary person. Ko Mataatua te Waka Ko Maungapohatu Te Maunga Ko Waikaremoana te Moana Ko Whakatane toku Awa Ko Tuhoe-Potiki te Iwi Ko Ruatahuna te Rohe Ko Ngati […]
A little visitor came to our house for the first time recently. This was the conversation between the visitor and my four-year-old son, SBJ: Visitor: Whose bike is that? SBJ: Mine! V: It can’t be yours. It’s pink. Pink is a girl colour. SBJ: No, colours are for everyone. Pink is one of my favourite colours. […]
A friend got in touch this morning about this article, gone viral, about a little boy standing up for a woman being verbally abused by a man in a street. I think this little guy is awesome, but I don’t find it a wholly positive story. See what you think: That was my trigger point. The B […]
This is something of an experimental post, so please be kind in your comments! I’d love your help to hone it. I’ve been working on it for months, so it’s time to let it out into the world and get your help. Thanks! Sexism in kids’ TV and movies I’m thoroughly, wretchedly ambivalent about children’s television and […]
I loathe and detest it when people call a brave or audacious action ‘ballsy’. Courage doesn’t come from testicles. The human race would be in trouble if it did. A professional colleague said in a meeting recently ‘don’t they say your vision is only as big as your balls?’ Lucky for all the congregations and […]
You’ll be astonished to know that my complaint via the Air New Zealand website (thanks Lucy for the motivation to make it) has not resulted in the ‘Safety in Paradise’ ads being withdrawn. Here’s how the correspondence has gone so far, and what I’m doing next. After I wrote this post about why I thought […]