"Femme fatales," "Supermoms," "Sex kittens," & "Nasty corporate climbers": Women, Media, & Stereotypes

I was viewing the latest addition of new sites added to Librarians' Internet Index, and as the official library liasion to the education and communication departments at Rider University and a little brother to seven older sisters, I was thrilled to find the MNet site listed and evaluated, highlighting its "Media Portrayals of Girls and Women" section. And being that today is the official beginning of Women's History Month, I thought I would blog about it.

MNet is the Media Awareness Network, and it houses a fairly comprehensive various resources intended to educate the young and older folks about media promotion and very related topics. They state that they provide "information and tools to help young people to understand how the media work, how the media may affect their lifestyle choices and the extent to which they, as consumers and citizens, are being well informed," as well as easily leading us to "reference materials for use by adults and youth alike in examining media issues from a variety of perspectives." After spending quite a bit of time on their site this morning, and especially regarding this section on media and females, I was impressed.

For instance, when viewing the Media Portrayal of Girls and Women main section, if you choose the subcategory of "Beauty and Body Image in the Media," you can read some short discussions under the subheadings of unattainable beauty, the culture of thinness, and self-improvement vs. self-destruction. However, what I really liked about each of the subcategories under the Girls and Women main section was that, on the right-hand side of the page, it also listed related MNet resources and recommended readings, for instance, from university studies (i.e., Purdue U.), scholarly journals (Sex Roles), mainstream magazines (Ms.) and/or online newspapers and websites (CBSNews.com). Certainly, librarians can help any interested researcher in finding more up-to-date information within our databases and other research resources, but I think this site is a worthwhile one to explore.

By the way, if you are interested in another collection of resources regarding women, check out Gary Price's ResourceShelf posting from this morning, "Resources for Women's History Month," providing links to excellent resources from the U.S. Census and the Infoplease sites, among others--how can you not like what Gary Price does for all of us, and so early in the morning (and I thought I was posting early)!

Technorati Tags: media, stereotypes, media portrayal,
women's history month

A tempest has been brewing... AKA, yet even more on the scrotum story

One Troublesome Word , Article, Editorial

"A tempest has been brewing over a children's book..." begins today's New York Times editorial. Ahhhh, the passive voice... last refuge of scoundrels.

Perhaps it is too much to expect the Old Gray Lady to acknowledge that, prior to it's own troublesome reporting, there was nothing brewing but a fairly respectful professional discussion on librarians' discussion lists (or as the Lady quaintly refers to them, "message boards".)

Perhaps it is too much to ask that, having started this hooha (if that's the right word--gulp), the Lady restrain from invoking comparison's with Marian the librarian. Surely this is writing at it's absolute laziest! Hey Lady, while you were at it, couldn't you have thrown in a comment or two mentioning that librarians' commitment to intellectual freedom is generally, oh I don't know, as tall as an oak? As deep as the sea?

(Note to the NY Times editorial board: The next time you want to disabuse your readership of the "Marian the Librarian" stereotype, it might be more effective to point out that REAL librarians don't fit the stereotype, rather than pointing out that Marian herself was actually quite a bawdy gal, judging from her reading habits.

Check this out: It wouldn't be fair to characterize Arthur Sulzberger's comment that "I really don't know whether we'll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don't care either" by saying that he's kind of like Nero, fiddling while the MSM burns. You know why? Because Nero really played the LYRE. See how that works?)

But I get it, Lady. mentioning Marian, was really just an easy transition to mentioning her love of Balzac, which sounds kind of like "ball sack" which is another way of saying scrotum (giggle, snigger), so we can all see how wonderfully witty, cultured, well-read, AND terribly bawdy the Times editorial board is. Look out Dorothy Parker, you've got competition! Oh wait, you've been dead for 40 years. My bad.

Well anyway Lady, thanks for throwing in that last bit about helping children on their journey from ignorance to knowledge, blahdiddy, blah, blah, and for not using the word "shhhh" anywhere in the (final draft) of the editorial.

Technorati Tags: Media, MSM, Stereotypes, Censorship, Newbery Award, New York Times, Librarians, LibraryGarden, Libraries