As I've mentioned in a previous post, I admit to being shamelessly basic. I spent, no joke, two hours reading articles about celebrity gossip (especially about the
Duggar family!) because I kept getting sidetracked while looking for articles to write about. Anyway, I was able to eventually find a couple of articles that were interesting and
didn't have to do with the
Kanye West and Wiz Kalifa fallout.
- Keeping with the gender neutrality track to satisfy my inner social activist, Mark Lewis wrote a really interesting article for Time Magazine about a preschool in Norway, Vikaasen, that took a pretty radical stand against gender stereotyping. They decided to cancel their annual carnival celebration because they said it reinforces the typical gender roles by boys dressing up as overly-macho superheroes and the girls dress up like frilly princesses. Although these aren't necessarily bad for kids to want to dress up as these things, the principal, Renate Kvivesen, said that if a kid didn't want to dress up as either/or, she doesn't want them to feel left out or teased by the other kids.
- Another super interesting story that I ate up as a feminist was an article written by Tom Jacobs for The Week about how language reinforces the wage gap. There was a study that showed countries whose languages had a sex-based gender system tended to have larger wage gaps and gender roles were more heavily enforced in workplaces. The study concluded that countries whose primary language was more gender-neutral tended to have a lower gender wage gap. I find it so crazy how much a language can influence a culture, but that makes a lot of sense now that I think about it.
- Ok so all of Norway seems really chill and super open and progressive. For God's sake 40% of Norwegian lawmakers and the prime minister are all women. I mean the principal would definitely be the most sympathetic since she's the one who proposed the idea of banning the carnival, but all the parents who were involved were very polite and understanding of the situation. Something that's completely 100% absent from American school systems.
- I would have to say that Jacobs himself is the most sympathetic character, since he gives a voice and pathos to the researchers findings. He not only introduced a problem, but also coupled a reason as to why the problem exists, which opens up the possibilities for ways to solve the problem.
- Literally I don't even know who the least sympathetic person would be. They were all so nice. The one parent who disagreed with what was happening literally said at the end, "I appreciate that they try to open the kids' minds [though]." What is that? Where are all the raging Republicans promising hellfire to all those who succumb to these radical, unbiblical social changes?
- Definitely the least sympathetic character are the people the researchers have to argue against. I like to call them the invisible characters, they're not mentioned, but they're very real. These characters are the reason why the researchers have to defend their study because there are undoubtedly some self-proclaimed "meninists" who love to sit around and catcall women on the streets then get offended when they feel uncomfortable.
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