The Pocket Crisis and a Vomiting Glitter Isle

Whenever I look in the girls' section at a department store, I always feel a sense of disappointment. What I see is an assault of color and glitter, so that it looks like a glitter isle vomited on that section of the store. A few things are actually cute, even if they do have bright colors and glitter, but there aren't just a few things like that, it's everything. There is nothing wrong with a sparkly shirt in bright colors, but if you want a more toned down shirt, then your options are pretty much athletic gear or school uniforms. The store Justice is a perfect example. Everything has glitter, ruffles, lace, blinding colors, or all of the above. Some of those things do look nice, but when I see the boys' section, I feel a bit jealous.

The store Justice, where everything is
in blinding colors.

Boys have shirts with planets, math, dinosaurs, or even just nice colors. I would like a shirt with the solar system or some other science- related thing on it, but there aren't any shirts like that in Target or other stores where I shop often. Lands' End recently came out with some space themed shirts for girls, and I was really excited. When I looked, however, I was disappointed. It seemed that they had decided to compromise between the other girls' shirts and space shirts by ramping up the glitter. Apparently, they hadn't figured out that (gasp) not every girl likes glitter. Astonishing, I know. Some of the shirts did look nice with glitter, but I don't really like the glitter, and I would have liked the shirts if they didn't have glitter. When I searched Amazon for “space” in the girls' section, I found a few costumes for little kids, not gender specific, and a few other space shirts for little girls. When I searched for space in the boys' section, I found shirts, coats, pajamas, and a whole lot of other cool stuff. This post wasn't supposed to be about how I like space, but I don't think that people should have to settle for wearing stuff that they sort of like because they can't find anything else. I, personally, would like a shirt that has a nice pattern but still doesn't scream glitter, and that's really hard to find in the kids' sizes.

Another thing that really bothers me about women's and girl's clothing is the lack of pockets. It's true that some jeans are too fitted to have good pockets and still look nice, but even on pants that aren't very fitted, there are hardly ever good pockets. Once I had a pair of black pants from Target, and they were labeled “essential pants”. Of course there were a lot of jokes about that, especially since there weren't any pockets. If you look in the boys' section you could fit a small book in those pockets, and here are girls without any pockets at all. It's annoying that girls apparently can't like science or carry anything that isn't in a bag, especially since men who carry bags are made fun of.

--Luna

Hens in Pens and What Humane Should Mean

 Whenever I see something like eggs or meat advertised in the grocery store “humanely treated” it, like most people, makes me happy. But it also makes me mad that so many animals we farm are treated terribly to the point that we think it's an exception when they're not treated badly. Yes, it's a whole lot cheaper to cram as many animals as will physically fit into one space, but it would also be cheaper if people only walked places and never went on vacation. If we spend money to make ourselves comfortable, then can't we afford just a little to make animals healthier and more comfortable? When animals are penned and caged too closely together, they spread diseases more easily, and it's more likely to make the people who eat them sick. Many people say that you can taste the difference between an egg laid by a well treated hen and one from a badly treated hen. If people can taste when animals are unhappy, I think that it's really time to change things.

Hens in a commercial cage free farm

I'm really grateful that some places are actually treating the animals well, but doing the right thing should not be something special. Humans are not the only thing that matters, and everyone needs to realize that. Just because humans are the smartest animals does not mean by far that we are the most important. Everything else can feel to, and if we're breeding animals just to eat them, the least we can do is to make them happy. It's the same thing with products that are advertised as being made by people who were paid well and not mistreated. How can money matter more than health and happiness? It's not like the big commercial farms are going to go out of business if they let the animals out of their barns and cages. They would still have a lot of money. I can't see how someone can go to bed after working on a commercial farm and not feel terrible. Worst of all, usually eggs that are labeled cage free, if they're commercial, come from hens packed so tightly in barns that you can't see the floor, and the eggs cost more. If you do buy from farms that actually treat all of the animals humanely, everyone thinks it's great, but hardly anyone thinks it's bad when you buy from places that don't treat animals well. Packaging should stop trying to say that their animals are treated nicely when they're not. Humane should mean that the animals can go wherever they like, eat the food that they're meant to eat, and be happy. Inhumane should not be the standard. Cruelty should not be what everyone is used to.

--Luna

Princess to Professor and the Pink Toy Aisle

Because we've had mostly negative posts, I'm going to write a nice, positive-ish post about something that all, or nearly all of us love: Legos. Recently, Lego came out with a female scientist minifigure. It makes me really happy that they came out with her, and didn't just have a male scientist.

Lego's Intergalactic Girl
in a pink spacesuit

It annoys me that in toy stores there's always the blue aisle with a bunch of really cool toys, and then there's the pink aisle that looks like someone rolled everything in pink and purple glitter with a few cool toys. In the girls' section, it's all about dolls and princesses and dress up, and there aren't many toys that encourage actual professions. There are barely any toys where you have to think, and build, and make new things. Lego in general has great toys that let you build and engineer, but there's still a section where everything is pink. One of their other minifigures is a perfect example. Just because an astronaut is a girl does not mean that the space suit has to be pink. There is a time for things being pink and girly, but everything a girl does does not have to be girly.

Lego's female scientist minifigure

What we see when we're kids can effect the rest of our lives. If all we see growing up are girls being princesses and waitresses and dancers, with nothing else, then that's all you're going to think of. You won't immediately think of an engineer, or a scientist as being cool. Yes, you can still change your viewpoint once you grow up, but why? Why not just encourage girls from the start to get good jobs that they like doing, without gender restrictions? The answer is simply because it's different, and no one wants to see if something new is going to sell as well as something coated in pink glitter. There is nothing wrong at all with going into a profession that is already in the girl toy aisle, but there is also nothing wrong with going into a different profession. When you see a cool toy or character or something, sometimes it has no effect on you whatsoever, but sometimes it makes you think “I want to be like her when I grow up!”. Princesses are nice, but you shouldn't really plan on just marrying a prince and living happily ever after as your career goal. It's possible, but you should definitely have a backup plan. People are getting better, but there are still a lot of problems. I said that this would be a positive post, but I kind of lied about that. To make up for it, I'll have a happy ending. Now, finally, Lego has a female minifigure that isn't doused in glitter, and isn't in some girly profession. I love that Lego is having an actual person, someone that you could actually be if you worked hard. You probably still won't have skin that yellow, and if you did, you might need to see a doctor or wash your face.

--Luna Lovegood

“Strong” Female Characters Vs Real Female Characters

The Black Widow near the end of The Avengers

This is a rant about people who try to make strong female characters, and succeed, but make them so stereotypical that they might as well just be unique and squeal when there’s anything remotely dangerous. One of the characters that bothers me is Marvel’s the Black Widow. I do like the Avengers, but the Black Widow is exactly what I’m talking about. She always has perfect hair and makeup, even after she’s been fighting, and she walks around in a tight fitting catsuit that’s unzipped just a little too far, being a perfect Mary Sue character. It always seems like she can do anything. She’s always making witty statements as she dramatically knocks someone out. She’s a character who can actually do something, but she’s really good at pretty much everything. It seems like every female character has to either be wimpy, or has to be able to do everything. Having long hair gets in the way if it isn’t tied back, and if her outfit is designed to be multipurpose, then shouldn’t it have a few pockets? Also, in every movie that she’s in, her hair changes, and it just doesn’t seem realistic that she has time to either straighten or curl her hair everyday, and even if she did, her hair would get messed up at the end. If you’ve been fighting aliens for hours, you’re not going to be pretty, you’re just going to need a shower and a hospital. The Black Widow, however, still has great hair and makeup, with only a small cut on her lip and a bit of blood on her forehead, and just a little bit of dust. I wish that people would just get over the fact that people, especially women, need to look nice all of the time, or be laughed at. Sure, it would be nice if you could come back from a day of hard work, whether it’s defending earth from aliens, or something more ordinary, and look perfect, but that’s just not going to happen.

Another character that I don’t like is Melinda May from Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Melinda May is almost an exact copy of the Black Widow, but with a different back story, a slightly changed personality, and not as well known. However, she still is highly skilled in martial arts, can still win any evenly matched battle, and always looks perfect. In my opinion, Melinda May is worse than the Black Widow, because at least the Black Widow doesn’t wear heels, and never tried to put stitches in her own shoulder because she was tough.

Merida with a realistically dirty and torn dress

What my point is, is that all female characters seem to all be idealized, and something that no one could ever live up to. Maybe, if you trained for years, you could be good at martial arts while wearing high heels, but your hair just isn’t going to look good if you’ve been in combat, unless you put so much hair spray in it that it can’t move, which means you can’t dramatically peer out through a curtain of hair. A character that I do like, however, is Merida from Brave. I know, big surprise. In case you haven’t guessed yet, we really like Disney princesses. Merida actually has a personality, is sometimes selfish, and doesn’t always win every battle. She also can do things, and won’t just wait for a handsome prince to solve all of her problems either, and she doesn’t look perfect after she falls off of her horse. Her hair does still look the same before and after, but since it’s so curly, it’s still realistic. I really like it when characters aren’t either perfect or weak, whether it’s in their personality, their looks, or both. People need to stop making everyone seem perfect, and start making them real. It would probably make many more people happy, which would be good for business, so logically it makes more sense to have more realistic characters.

--Luna Lovegood

You ____ Like a Girl!

One of the things that really bothers me is when someone says you do something like a girl as an insult. Not only is that insulting girls in general, but it's setting an impossibly high standard for boys, saying that they all

have to be better than every girl.

One of the books that made me really angry, and had multiple stereotypes in it is The Dragon's Tooth by N. D. Wilson. It's a good series, but the protagonist’s sister, Antigone, while being a strong character, is pretty stereotyped. Antigone hates martial arts, but likes learning languages, while Cyrus (the protagonist) is the opposite. They are also forced to live in a house that has no furniture, and ugly paint, and Antigone, of course, cares while Cyrus doesn't, but the thing that really got to me was in the second book, The Drowned Vault. They had a conversation where Cyrus had screamed because of a bunch of spiders, and Antigone was saying how high he was screaming. Cyrus then said that Antigone wouldn't have done better, and part of Antigone's reply was “...when I scream like a girl, at least I am, actually, a girl.”

It was really disappointing to me when I read that, because not only was someone implying that it was bad to do something like a girl, but a girl was saying that, and no one seemed to think about the fact that it's insulting to girls, and it ruined the whole series for me.

Along with that, in sports, if you tell someone, “you play like a girl”, it's an insult. If people grow up thinking that playing like a girl is a bad thing, then they really think that girls don't play as well as boys, and if a boy can't play better than a girl, then the boy is a bad player. If a boy believes that playing like a girl is a bad thing, and then he comes across a girl who can play better than him, he'll think he's not a good player, and maybe that's true, but more likely, he is good, and the girl is just better. Then the boy will just beat himself up about not being better, and you don't have to be better than everyone. On the other hand, if a girl is better than a boy, people will just think that the boy isn't very good, and no one will think about how good the girl actually is. Even if boys were usually better than girls, you shouldn't use that as an insult.

If people think it's insulting to have someone say they do something like a girl, then that really means that they think girls can't do things as well as boys. If people then think that a girl shouldn't be able to do something better than a boy, then they won't help girls to be as good as they can be, which will just reinforce the stereotypes. If people really think that women aren't as good at anything than men, then they won't hire women if they can hire men, and that's really no different than when everyone discriminated against African-American people.

On that happy note, I think that I'll end my post.

--Luna Lovegood