Subversive Princesses

I'm going to try to do a series on gifts for children this holiday season. This will be the first of a few, hopefully.

Here's the issue I want to tackle: sometimes the little girls in your life become princess obsessed. This can be worrisome, because you don't want them to grow up idolizing pretty faces who don't do much. But once they latch on, it can be tricky to get them interested in anything else.

So if you have a little girl you love who is determined that she is a “princess”, the best thing you can do is teach her that princesses and fashionable people can do all sorts of things!

Without further ado, here's my list of subversive princess toys:

The Secret Lives of Princesses by Philippe Lechermeier

Hey, books TOTALLY count as toys! There are a great number of subversive princess picture books, and I highly suggest checking them all out, but this is one of my favorites. It's really kind of a coffee table book, dense and beautiful. It's not meant to be read all at once, but flipped through. It contains beautiful art and beautiful stories about all different kinds of princesses. There's even a princess with a long beard. It's the best altogether image I can think of giving children that lets them know that princesses are whole and interesting people (and thus women are whole an interesting people... since they are taught from an early age that women are “princesses”).

Groovy Girls

  

Notall of these dolls are princesses, but they are all “fashion” dolls. They're a really nice alternative to Barbie. For one, these dolls wear no makeup, and have generically “child shaped” bodies. And generally speaking, the dolls themselves are pretty modest. Modesty should not, of course, be forced upon girls, but I think showing them that if you want you can be fashionable & modest is a good thing. So often they are pitted against one another. The other wonderful thing about this line is that each doll has a slightly different skin tone, and they run quite a gamut. Instead of having a “token” doll of color, Groovy Girls agknowledges that there is a whole array of living, breathing people who look different ways.

GoldieBlox & the Parade Float

 

GoldieBlox is a brand new company who became famous almost overnight when their kickstarter campaign went viral. I have some issues with the gender essentialist language used in marketing the toys (talking about girls “innate” verbal skills instead of their “ingrained” verbal skills), but the toy itself is really fantastic, so I'm going to let it slide. Goldie is a girl engineer who uses engineering to solve her problems. As kids read Goldie and her friend's stories, they play along, building simple machines to solve problems along with the book. It's a great way to get kids invested in engineering, and this kit is even themed around her princess-pageant-competing friend, Katinka!

Nancy B's Science Club

 

Now, Nancy B isn't a princess. But she is a woman.  And there might be just enough purple on this toy to get “girly girls” involved. Another product created by a female scientist, Nancy B's Science Club integrates traditionally “girly” things (keeping notebooks) and hard science.

End Note: if you don't have to get the “girlified” version of something in order to hold a girl's interest, don't, unless you have some other reason she'd like it better. Never buy the pink version of a toy JUST because she's a girl. There is no reason girls can't like green, blue, skulls and other “boy things”. This list is really only for those times you have a girl who rejects things outright that aren't “girly”. And of course, ALL of the items on this list are also perfectly good gifts for little boys, provided they are somewhat open-minded.

Government definition of “essential” programs shows America's skewed priorities

A shocking majority of the government agencies affected by the government shutdown can be broken down into two groups: cutting services for marginalized groups & cutting corporate oversight/enabling corporate crime.

While the cuts to marginalized groups are horrific and most likely to affect the people in their day-to-day lives, I feel that's been well covered.  Lots of people have talked about the impacts the shutdown will have on women, the poor, and everyone in general. So I'm going to focus on a broader, quieter, more sinister issue.

 

Cutting Corporate Oversight: What it Boils Down To:

• no audits
• few investigations into money laundering
• fewer product recalls (and if there are any, the USDA won't be calling the press)
• less mine & fishery oversight
• no FDIC investigations
• privacy & civil liberties investigations halted
• litigation slowed
• no investigations of any chemical spills
• no campaign finance investigations
• no anti-trust investigations

There's a serious pattern here, and it's an opportunity for corporate crime. Regulations exist for a reason, and quite a few of them have been enacted in the last few years.  And now the agencies in charge of enforcing those new protections are hobbled.

For instance, the FDIC insures the public against bank failures. There is an independent regulatory board assigned to make sure banks are acting in accordance with the law, seeing that insuring every account-holding individual is a big deal. This board is closed right now. Does that make a nice incentive for bank fraud?

Money laundering, tax evasion, and campaign finance fraud are the biggest and most common crimes of the 1%, and there will be little to no oversight over such crimes during the government shutdown. As such, these already insanely powerful individuals have a serious capitalist incentive to keep the shutdown going on as long as possible.

Anti-Trust litigation is already paltry in this country, but I highly doubt any good can come of getting rid of it. What happens exactly if a merger officially takes place during the shutdown? I would imagine it would be much harder to start an anti-trust investigation after the merger has already occurred. Usually mergers are stopped before they officially occur, which is much less messy.

Chemical spills won't be investigated until after the shutdown is over. If there is a spill, depending on how long the shutdown lasts, the company responsible will have some time to create a version of the facts that makes them seem less at fault.

Mines & fishing operations will receive limited oversight during the shutdown. As two ecologically dangerous industries, this is a big problem. Not to mention that mine safety for workers is another big issue.

And of course, active duty military, FBI, ATF, Bureau of Prisons, Border Patrol & DEA get to keep the VAST majority of their employees & operations.  Because things that are a matter of "national security" continue to run.  Things like keeping bases running in peaceful countries, staying at war with Afghanistan, spying programs, and "protecting our border" from people who want jobs are "essential".  Stopping pollution, providing jobs, caring for starving children, and ensuring corporations don't buy our elections?  Those are, of course, the "non-essential" portions of government.  

 And of course, everyone is going on and on about how both sides aren't willing to compromise.  So let me make myself abundantly clear.  I am not a fan of Obama.  Also this is 100% the Republicans fault.  Republicans don't seem to know the definition of the word "compromise".  I didn't vote for Obama in 2012.  I voted for Jill Stein and the Green Party and their Medicare-for-All plan.  And we lost.  And I wouldn't hold the government hostage to get my version of the best healthcare.  Thankfully, it looks like on this, the public is on my side.

And while imperfect, Obamacare is not too shabby.  I'd say it's definitely a step in the right direction.  I know quite a few people who are hungrily awaiting January 1st, when they can sign up for health insurance.  Because, aside from some Tea Party crazies, most of the uninsured really really want to be insured.  And a step in the right direction is a big deal.  It gives me a bit of hope that we're finally getting our act together on at least trying to get healthcare for our people.

And I have a very, very optimistic hope.  I hope this is the last nail in the GOP coffin.  I hope they crash and burn and become a tiny little fringe group with little power.  The Democrats are already well poised to become the new moderate right.  And then maybe, just maybe, there will be room for a new left.  A true left.  A Green Party or an Occupy Party or some other sort of People Powered Party.  Maybe it's time.  Maybe this will be our last showdown.  Maybe this will be our opening.

That's my kind of hope.

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