Mirthful

Someone, I no longer remember who, linked to Mattias Adolfsson a while back, and I’ve had his blog in my reader ever since. At some point I will give in and buy something from his Etsy store, but as of now I am content with following the blog. Lately there’s been some storytelling going on, and this last series makes me giggle and hug myself with glee.

Chippendales overdose

There has been a Panorama programme about sexual bullying (or, rather, sexual harassment) in schools, involving shockingly young children as the perpetrators. Several of the blogs I read have commented or linked, and you can read more here and here, to start with.

I think I’ll refrain from commenting much, at least for the time being (in fact the subject is almost too depressing for words, though that’s hardly constructive), but Naomi’s comment on Abby’s post highlights a related issue that’s increasingly relevant to me in my daily parenting, and which really annoys me no end. To quote:

In cartoons, an animated animal is male by default. A male sheep, say, will look roughly like a sheep, but with whatever human charateristics their particular character has. A male animated dog reading a newpaper and listening to the radio is simply a dog reading a newpaper and listening to the radio.

Female animated characters, on the other hand, have bigger eyes, longer eye-lashes, an hour-glass figure, a wiggly walk and so on, not to mention make-up (which those cartoons in which their male counterparts do not even wear clothes).

These female characters are often brought in to an otherwise all-male (i.e. all just pigs and rabbits and things) cast when the storyline requires one of the characters to fall in love, or to be almost distracted away from some world-saving task by the batting of those log eyelashes …

This puts across the following messages, and more, to children:

1. Male is the default; female is exceptional.

2. ‘Feminine’ appearance is universal and natural for females of any species.

3. The anatomical differences between males and females of any species are much, much greater than they really are.

4. The role of the female is sexual, and is defined in relation to the male.

5. The male is the agent, the female is the object of his attention.

And so on.

And it’s not only cartoons. A while back someone asked the participants at Tett inntil for tips on which boxes to look for to find “female Lego Duplo figurines”, excluding the rather tacky princess series. As a responsible parent, she wanted female role models for her daughters, police women or firewomen and similar. My question was: Well, how can you tell that they are not female? Most Duplo figurines are “degenderised”, they have eyes, nose and mouth, as do, to my knowledge, both men and women. Only the princesses have skirts. A few have beards, they can be assumed  to be men (though I have heard of bearded ladies).

This feeds directly into the argument Naomi is presenting: “Male is the default; female is exceptional.” Because, of course, there ARE female Duplo figurines – apart from the princesses. We have one from the Zoo set at home, she has longer eyelashes and a ponytail, and a more, well, made up look in general (defined lips and so on). However, most female zoo-keepers I’ve seen don’t look like that. Granted, some of them have long hair, and would naturally wear it up while at work to prevent it from getting in the way, but then, so do quite a few male keepers… And would you really put on make-up to go clean out the elephants’ cage? So why do we assume – because of course we do – that the un made-up Duplo zoo-keeper with the sensible haircut is male?

…I’d almost say to die for, but I’d prefer to keep my head, thank you very much. Without it I wouldn’t really be able to appreciate the wondrousness that is Grosgrain’s Marie-Thérèse dress. Lookee:

I’m flabbergasted.

I try to avoid buying clothes for the lass that are way too big and will have to lie neglected for years while we wait for her to grow into them, but, really, who can resist a giveaway? While you’re at it, the rest of the Grosgrain blog is worth investigating, too.

Dana of Old Red Barn is raffling out an absolutely gorgeus quilt. Go look (but don’t enter, because I WANT IT, ok?).

And she links to: Test and build your vocabulary and cause rice to be donated at the same time. Does it get better? (Well, yes, if they just gave the rice away anyway or even if there was no need for rice donations in the first place because everyone got enough to eat, I suppose things would be even better. Still: Vocabulary game, you know?)

Joining the game:  Challenge 8 – Folk Lore

My parents have a fairly large set of friends that they’ve kept in touch with since their student days, some even longer, so many, in fact, that even now I have problems remembering who they all are. This impresses me wildly. I’m lucky if I manage to keep in touch with anyone except a chosen few for more than a month after I stop seeing them daily – I’ve forgotten the names of most of the people I worked with a year and a half ago – and I’m of the internet persuasion and have all these social networking tools at my fingertips. It obviously doesn’t help.
Anyway, back to topic: Two of these friends, husband and wife, are both doctors and live on a farm somewhere in Nord-Trøndelag (I forget the details). Quite an impressive place, apparently, but definitely rural. My brother and I are both city/town bred, hardly “big city” in the international sense, but still, urban enough.

When I was 4 or so we went to visit this family. Apparently, the first utterance from my four-year-old self upon embarking from the car was “Where is the playground?”

Twelve years or so later, my brother accompanied my parents on a visit, he would have been nine or thereabouts. The lady of the house gave him a glass of milk from the cows of the farm out of the fridge. His answer, when asked how he liked it, was “Well, it’s kind of strange to think that it comes from the cow.”

My parents would have been mortified if they hadn’t been too busy laughing. What sort of city slickers had they brought into the world?

(In my brother’s defence, he knew better, of course, it just came out the wrong way. I was probably genuinely interested in knowing where the playground was.)

Having written that, I’m no longer sure it counts as family folk lore (though it’s told often enough in my family, I assure you), but at least it’s a good story.

I might try to catch up on some of the earlier challenges, too. The net knows I could use some new content on this so called blog.

Meg wrote a fantastic entry recently entitled Malapostrophication, crap marketing agencies, and why its they’re fault you’re business look’s dumb. Just in case you don’t go through my blogroll every day, you know.

I must remember to get my camera out more often when I see signs like that. I don’t seem to have any malapostrophication examples uploaded to Flickr, so you’ll have to make do with the one on the right as an illustration for now.

I, Mirthful, pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of “new” manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 2 months. I pledge that I shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. I pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovoated, recycled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog, so that others may share the joy that thy thriftyness brings! Signed Mirthful.

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And so it begins. I thought I’d try this for 2 months to start with, which is kind of a cheat as I can quite easily go 2 months without buying any new clothes even without a pledge – I often have a hard time finding anything I actually want in the shops (though I will probably find lots of items I actually want now that I’ve pledged not to…).

It’s on 29 July, apparently, which is all good. And no, I’m not even contemplating doing it this year, I have enough problems staying awake for twelve hours, 24 would be impossible and since the event starts at 3 pm local time I’d actually have to stay awake from whenever I wake up (which, knowing me, would probably be ridiculously early if sleeping in was the plan) until 3 pm the next day – a minimum of 30 hours or so. Not possible in any way, shape or form.

However, there is no need to despair, plenty of worthy people are blogging for worthy causes, and you can sponsor some of them instead. So far I’ve pledged about a dollar an hour to Jamelah’s chosen charity, because, well, Jamelah’s blog is entertaining reading and also who hasn’t figured that breast cancer sucks? Read more about the Blogathon here.

My friend Roger is walking (which is good in itself) a sponsored walk for the American Diabetes Association (which is even better), and either all his other friends are as forgetful as I am (I needed the reminder, Roger), or they’re miserable so-and-sos or possibly just piss-poor. What do I know. Anyway, if you feel you haven’t quite fulfilled that “give a tenth of what you earn” thing recently, why don’t you do some good and sponsor him, too?

And while you’re at the good deed doing, sign up to sponsor a child through SOS. I just did, and boy, is he adorable (yes, it’s a he, and that’s just about all I can tell you, as, for obvious reasons, we’re not supposed to plaster the personal details of the children all over the internet).

Then go toast yourself for being an excellent person.