I wanted to draw your attention to this comment from Mom Librarian on my post on alternatives to a Scholastic book fair, excerpted here:

For the past 8 years, I’ve been Librarian for our children’s private school, and we’ve done Scholastic fairs every fall. . . . Our entire Library budget comes from our Book Fairs, so it’s not an option not to have them.

Here’s the deal. As for the Scholastic, they have always been really nice and extremely concerned and responsive to our needs as far as their distribution strategy allows. I have explained that we don’t want all the licensed characters and cartoon junk, we are trying to promote literacy with well-written books. . . . They always attempt to send what I ask for, but the truth is their warehouse people are not trained in children’s literature, they are packing widgets. They send 8 cases, I pull everything I don’t like and store it in two of them, show the other 6. Call it censorship, call it whatever you like, but that’s the way we do it. . . . Scholastic knows I do it. It is a matter of letting me sell what the parents at our school are willing to buy, and its not cartoon junk.

The really sad thing, to me, is that Scholastic has an amazing network, great people, a massive system already in place, and nearly unlimited capacity to do great things, but in the past 8 years, they have discontinued carrying nearly every kids series considered wholesome classics by most librarians. . . .

Back to square one. As for Fall, we’ll keep struggling on with Scholastic till something more tailored to our needs comes along. But for the stuff I won’t sell, I just say no.

Thanks, Mom Librarian, for sharing your strategy. Frankly, I didn’t know this was even possible. More importantly, however, this is�a call to Scholastic to give customers what they want.

I was struck by President Bush’s kind words to the Obama family in his farewell address:

And I join all Americans in offering best wishes to President-elect Obama, his wife Michelle, and their two beautiful girls. 

It was the “beautiful girls” that threw me. Unfortunately, I can’t make a direct comparison to the most popular descriptions of young sons who have moved into the White House — there haven’t been any in recent history — but I’m going to venture to guess that they wouldn’t have been described as handsome. Or cute. Or with any termingology that described their physical appearance.

So this is where we are. On Tuesday we’ll be witnessing an historic inauguration and on Wednesday, it will be back to business as usual for American girls: Corporate-created media images and messages telling them that their value lies only in how they look and what they buy.

No example is more appropriate than this dissection* of the premiere lifestyle brand, American Girl:

Some might argue that American Girl is not as bad as other materials on the market, or as offensive as Barbie or Bratz dolls. This argument misses the key features of what makes this phenomenon so insidious: how corporations play on the feminist and /or educative aspirations of parents, teachers, girls, and young women and turn these toward consumption. American Girl is less about strong girls, diversity or history than about marketing girlhood, about hooking girls, their parents and grandparents into buying the American Girl products and experience.

Meant to be lessons in history featuring girls, their books fail, too:

. . . any potential “girl-power” lessons are short-circuited in these books through the use of historical fiction to deliver traditional lessons about what girls can and should do. While the stories take place in key historical moments, such as the Civil War, and World War II, the girls rarely participate in historical events in any substantial way. Meet Molly is set in WWII and her father, a doctor, serves in the U.S. military. Molly’s concerns center on what to be for Halloween and how to deal with a bothersome brother. The historical fictions encourage a limited independence and emphasize conventional “good girl” behaviors. Girls might go on an adventure or two, but these are usually within the bounds of family relationships (e.g., playing tricks on brothers) rather than as social actors in a larger world.

As for those “good girl” behaviors, we look to Harvard historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich who said, “well-behaved women seldom make history.” 

My hope is that we take the inspiration of electing our first black President and continue the momentum until we elect our first woman president. And until half our senators and representatives are women. And until women receive equal pay for equal work.

And it all begins with girls. Smart girls. Strong girls. Capable girls. Energetic girls. Creative girls. Hopeful girls.

More on hope:

New Moon Girls: Advertising-free social networking site for girls 8 to 12, plus the classic magazine. This week they are welcoming Sasha and Malia Obama to the White House and calling on girls to report on inaugural activities. Citizen journalism!

TVbyGirls: In the Twin Cities, TVbyGirls teaches the skills needed for girls to learn how to create their own media to expand expanding “the vitality of images about girls and women.” Watch their videos and if you’re local, get a girl you know involved.

The Girl Revolution: For grown-ups who love girls, “The Girl Revolution’s only aim is to heal the soul of the world by raising powerful girls. . . . We’re going to protect them from media consumption and dissolve every single barrier that exists between girls and gender and economic equality.”

*H/T to our friends at the Institute for Humane Education.

A trip to the American Girl Doll Store in the Mall of America, courtesy mspmag.com. I suggest you watch curled up in a fetal position, as more than likely you will end up there anyway.

Drop everything and go immediately to join CCFC’s letter-writing campaign to tell toy makers to stop targeting kids this holiday season. I know the economy has already caused riffs in our home about what we can afford — and my kids rarely see televison commercials.

. . . Even though experts predict parents will spend less on toys and gifts this year, marketers are still planning their usual holiday ad blitz to kids.

It’s never fair for corporations to bypass parents and market directly to children.  But with parents everywhere worried about making ends meet, it’s especially cruel to bombard children with ads for expensive toys and electronics.

Your letter will go to: Mattel, V-Tech, Leap Frog, Hasbro, Spin Master, Jakks Pacific, Techno-Source, MEGA Brands, MGA Entertainment, LEGO, Activision Blizzard, Thinkway Toys, ThinkFun, Electronic Arts, Ganz, Oregon Scientific, Disney, Playmates Holdings LTD, Nintendo, Take-Two Interactive, Microsoft, KMart, Walmart, Target, and Toys R’ Us.

Blogger Daddy Types takes on the “baby industrial complex” and exposes one of its useless, expensive products sold to new parents:

When I started my investigative crusade against BabyPlus last year, I just figured exposing it was an entertaining diversion. BabyPlus was an outlier, an isolated example of one crazy, unaccountable huckster in Seattle who’s made a twenty year career peddling the most outrageous bullshit marketing that new parents are subjected to, the kind of stuff that pushes every insecurity and aspirational button a First-Time Expectant has. So someone is gullible enough to drop $150 and strap a piece of superstitious, nonsensical junk around her belly for a few hours? Where’s the harm?

But since then, the involvement of Mothers Work, the biggest maternity store company in the country, and now Dorel, the largest baby gear company in the world, changes the game. These companies are on the hook for BabyPlus’s manipulations and deceits, in large part because they fit perfectly into the companies’ core business model, which is to sell as much stuff as they possibly can to First-Time Expectants, even if that means teaming up with a complete quack to make completely unverifiable claims to sell completely useless products.

Reader Marsha was reading my mind when she commented on yesterday’s post about complaining when you can’t find appropriate children’s clothing:

In addition to voicing your concerns . . . remember that thrift stores are a great option. Not only can you find good, affordable clothing, but by shopping at thrift stores you’re not supporting multinational corporations, sweatshops, unfair labor practices, fuel consumption from transporting goods thousands of miles, etc.

I had already planned to write about thrift stores, prompted by something I saw in Sunday’s comics (of all places). You Can with Beakman & Jax is a syndicated column for kids that appears in our local paper. Kids write in with a question and they are answered with an experiment they can do.

You Can columnist Jok Church took the high road when he answered the question: What is a good makeover for a teenager?

I think it would be best to pass on to you the teachings of a personal style expert, Quentin Crisp . . . who always said style is “being yourself, but on purpose. Fashion is advertising. Style is you, intentionally.

Church continues with a thrift store experiment: Take a quarter of your school clothes budget, go to a thrift store and pull out everything you like. Write down a couple words describing why you like that piece of clothing. Go back to the clothes you chose and put back everything with a logo on the outside.

Logos advertise for the maker of the item. You should not wear a logo that shows unless that clothing maker pays you an advertising fee.

Not only does Church expose the clothing industry’s marketing machine that profits at the expense of a teen’s fragile sense of self-worth, he’s encouraging recycling. I love this man.

My girls have grown up on thrift-store shopping. At first we shopped at our local Goodwill because the boys and girls clothes are mixed together. We didn’t have to deal with that’s a boy’s sweatshirt! Now we’ve expanded to others shops. I love knowing that we’re not putting money into any corporate pockets, we’re lowering demand by not buying retail, and we’re not adding as much to our landfills.

And saving a lot of money.

Read also: Waste Couture: Environmental Impact of the Clothing Industry

Friday evening I had the pleasure of being a guest on Fathers are Forever, a radio talk show broadcast from Montery, California. Although the topic was the sexualization of children (Diane Levin, co-author of So Sexy So Soon, was the guest during the first hour), the conversation expanded to cover many aspects of marketing to kids.

One caller, Mike, complained that the clothing he wants his daughter to wear — modest and without suggestive words or phrases — is more expensive than the current fashion. I’d add that it’s harder to find, too.

So in answer to Why do parents buy that stuff for their kids? one reason may be cost and availability. Many people need to shop in the most convenient locations (big-box stores and shopping malls) and don’t have much money to spend. They’re stuck with what is available to them.

When we cannot find appropriate clothing for our kids, we need to complain. We need to talk to store managers. We need to write to customer service representatives. We need to let companies know that we want something else.

Retailers want to please us. They want us to come back to their stores. But they can’t give us what we want if we don’t ask them to.

Read also: What if back-to-school shopping didn’t require selling ones feminist soul?
Photo courtesy Clean Wal-Mart

Asthma Mom looks at a summer “Fashion Camp” held at a Louisville mall in Teaching Young Girls How to Shop. For Self-Confidence.

The camp coordinator says that while the camp “has a fashion background . . . it also has to do with personal development and self-confidence.”

The personal development must come from these activities:

– lessons in modeling and posing;
– learning fashion terminology;
– putting together and accessorizing outfits;
– understanding the importance of thank-you notes (courtesy Hallmark); and
– standing up in front of the class and describing fashion choices.

The youngest camp attendees (ages 6 to 8) can join in on the fun with these sessions:

– Let’s Play Fashion Seek and Find! (courtesy J. Crew);
– Let’s Accessorize a Dress! and
– What Do I Need To Do to Keep My Skin Pretty?

I suppose an argument could be made for the merits of teaching girls to present themselves in an appropriate manner. That argument would work well in, say, the 1800s. But not today, when we know that the marketing-body-image-consumerism cycle is actually detrimental to girls:

. . . The “quick-fix” of a purchase actually robs [girls] of self-determination, self-awareness, and self-esteem. Encouraged to look outside of themselves for comfort, values and direction, girls become easy prey to addictive behaviors and unrealistic images . . . . In fact, the diet, tobacco and alcohol industries target girls, capitalizing on the body image, weight concerns, and beauty ideals that make them most vulnerable.

And let’s face it: this camp exists only to encourage girls to become shoppers at this neighborhood mall.

“As far as we know, this is the only program of its kind in the country,” says the camp coordinator.

Amen.

Read more: I Want, Therefore I Am: Global Girls in Consumer Culture