My son likes pink.
There, I said it. My son likes pink. Actually, he loves pink. He loves fairies and princesses and crowns and jewels. He often laments that he wishes he could wear dresses and grow his hair out and put on makeup. He doesn't particularly dislike being a boy, but he is fascinated with all things girly. And who can blame him? Being a girl "is" pretty cool.
Most outfits designed for baby boys have either a construction vehicle or a baseball bat on it. I held out on imposing gender roles on my son for as long as I could, dressing him in "boy" outfits only when everything else he owned had either poop, pee, or "(insert other gross/unknown substance here) on it. One of my favorite things to say to people when I got on my soapbox was "What if he grows up to like tutus and ballet slippers?" Well, you know what? He does.
Obviously, his affection for things that society associates with being female can, and does, lead to questioning my son's sexual orientation by other parents, however far in the future that may surface. Though no one actually comments, the silence that follows my son's declaration of how much he loves to garden while wearing the princess heels he's borrowed from his little sister speaks volumes. It stuns me that, in our society, we still assign gender roles and stereotypes, especially so early in our children's lives. Of particular interest is that no one questions my three year old daughter's likes and dislikes, whether they have to do with "girl stuff" or "boy stuff."
But that's not what really bothers me. When I became pregnant for the first time, I promised my baby that I would love him no matter what he chose to do in his life; no matter what profession he pursued; no matter how many piercings he put in his body; no matter what shade of orange he colored his hair; and no matter whom he chose to love or spend his life with. My wish for my son, for both my children, is only that they spend their lives feeling happy and fulfilled with whatever choices they make. For now, in part at least, my boy is happy idolizing fairies and wearing pink.
What bothers me is that, as liberal as I pride myself on being, as progressive and open minded as I am regarding nearly everything, I have had moments when I feel embarrassed by my son's penchant for the girlier things in life. When we are out and about and his adoration for pink, ruffles, high heels, makeup and whatnot comes up in conversation, I often have to qualify it with, "But he also loves art, and cars, and is fascinated with wizards and magic." And why? Because I fear the inevitable judgment that my son is not "normal." I certainly fear that people will judge me, but ultimately, I fear that people will judge, and thereby abuse, "him".
I fear that while the other boys in our neighborhood are off playing stickball, or punching each other, or comparing their packages, or whatever it is that "real boys" are supposed to do, my son will be off playing princess with the girls, and that he'll be ostracized by the kids and whispered about by the parents--especially those "real men" whose sons will never, ever be gay (yeah right). I fear that, if my son does turn out to be gay, he will be left out, made fun of, or worse, emotionally and physically assaulted by homophobic jackasses. He comes home from school with stories about kids making fun of his likes and dislikes already--and he's not even seven years old!
But what I fear the most is that because of my need to prove to people that my son is "normal," explaining his girly interests away as whims of age or passing obsessions, my child will grow up feeling like he has to do that, too. I fear that I will fail at teaching him to proudly display himself, as whatever he is, to anyone, at any time, without hesitation. I fear that I will harm his self esteem, his sense of self worth, his sense of self--because I believe that all those things should be fostered and nurtured at home, with the people he loves the most--his parents.
I fear that his girly embrace means that he is unhappy with himself, with who he is, with being a boy, and I worry that he will be faced with years of feeling out of place and uncomfortable in his own skin. But then, who says that princesses and fairies and liking pink are girly? When my daughter plays with trucks and cars, I don't give it a second thought. If I am too embarrassed to accept my son for who he is, how can I expect him to accept himself?
Inside our home, we embrace my son's interests and cultivate and encourage them, no matter what gender they are assigned to. It pains me when he asks me why boys can't wear makeup and I don't have a good answer. Why "can't "boys wear makeup? I try to explain that in our life, in our town, boys generally have short hair, and girls have long hair. That mommies wear makeup, but daddies don't. That usually, boys wear pants and girls wear skirts. "But Mommy, you're a girl, and you wear pants!"
My smart boy. My lovely, unassuming, untainted boy.
So I find myself explaining why some things in our society are acceptable and why some things aren't. I talk about what our society's expectations are, and that, right or wrong, it's what we're dealing with at the moment. I don't want my son to be ridiculed. But I don't want to teach him that it's OK to be one thing at home and another in public. And frankly, I "do" believe that men can wear skirts, and women can shave their heads, and everything in between. I feel as if, in my wish for my son to be accepted in society, I have betrayed my ideals.
Does it matter that he does indeed adore art, music, cars, and trains? That he is fascinated with obscenely gory things like death and loves to hear stories of people getting dismembered? That he likes to dress up as a knight and a wizard and a train conductor? That he bites his nails and loves dirt and thinks farts and burps are hilarious? He still watches me with utter fascination as I put on lip gloss, and when I cheerily put my daughter's hair up in pig tails, I know he is jealous.
Should we be exposing him to the traditional young male role models? I have a hard time finding anything boyish I can expose my son to that isn't based on some type of violence or that doesn't engage in mindless, slapstick activity--and that's a soapbox I've been standing on for a long time. Power Rangers? Sponge Bob? Even superheroes like Spiderman and Superman have to kill and/or hurt people. A couple of years ago, I bought my son a foam sword for his birthday. Sure enough, he wanted to "kill people" with it. When I threatened to take it away, he compromised with "killing dragons," instead. Though I think that's pretty cool in spite of myself, I'd rather he stick with Tinkerbell. Wouldn't you?
I'm so sad as I write this because my fears always feel very real to me, as if they're already happening. I adore my son and while the thought of him being hurt by an outsider is too awful to imagine, the thought that he would be hurt by my failures and inadequacies is much worse.
So, I've made a decision. No more explaining, no more qualifying. My son is who he is, and we will unabashedly and proudly display him for the world to see. Pink, blue, gay, straight--whatever. I don't care what people think. I will no longer make excuses or feel embarrassed--and if I have to get into fights to defend my son until he can do it for himself, I will.
Origin: art-of-kisses.blogspot.com
Source: http://www.glamour.com/inspired/2014/04/ameerah-al-taweel-the-power-princess-of-womens-rights
Ameerah Al-Taweel's story starts like a Disney script: Raised by her divorced mom and her grandparents in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, she landed the risk of a lifetime at age 18, so she requested-and got-an meeting with Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal for a coach paper. Their 10-minute meeting turned into two hours. "We just clicked," she says. He was what obsessed, and nine months behind they wed. In record gnome tales that's wherever the credits would hem in rolled-with Al-Taweel a bona fide princess, married to one of the 30 richest people in the world. But for her, it was just the beginning: "I didn't want to be that girl who's not act out anything," she says. "I pleasing to make an shape."
It wasn't easy. "This is a clout wherever record employers ask that women get their guardian's right of entry to work and wherever the vinyl of one man age group that of two women," says Betty Bernstein-Zabza, senior diplomacy insurance broker at the Secretary's Dresser of Global Women's Issues at the U.S. Split of Home. "Normal appearances are not no matter which normal wives do." Become quiet, Al-Taweel stepped into the spotlight, cohelming Prince Alwaleed's bounteousness, the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundations, and becoming a oral goad for women's well-mannered rights-including the right to send out, take over what, and enjoy nationality of children at the back of divorce.
This being real life, though, and not a gnome story, donate was new to the job wrinkle: Al-Taweel and the prince divorced foothold rendezvous. It was an in accord transact business (she still calls her ex her "best friend" and "lecturer"), and Al-Taweel never consequence of stepping back into personal life. Actually, she's in use to the global stage, working with everybody from Take precedence Export tax Clinton to Jordan's Queen Rania and the British royal family to advance the nationality of women in the Norm East. "Ameerah's advocacy on behalf of Saudi women has provided a super sharing to how we think about the nationality of girls and women regarding the world," says Chelsea Clinton, vice keep order of the Clinton Commencement. And Al-Taweel keeps her issues belief and medium by asking her almost one million Channel and Instagram cronies to holder fixation, record only by donating fundamental produce to Syrian refugees-supplies she in addition to took to the camps herself. "Saudi women are act out astounding baggage, and we're making progress all the time," she says. "I want to be the one women look to so they tell their daughters, arrive, she got a divorce and see what she's act out now? She's an detached woman. She's act out no matter which good for her clout. She's a role model.'"
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Origin: mark-rayan-pua.blogspot.com
Low literacy tariff. Inflated tariff of sexual violence. Maternal ruin. Household inappropriate. Fake marriage. Afghanistan has long been one of the greatest overcast places to be a woman, and apart from great progress when the time of Taliban self-control, legislation meant to cherish women and give them kind internship has been fought at every turn by some who complain it is "un-Islamic."
One small group of Afghan women, nevertheless, is opinion permission and autonomy through the mastery of a simple machine: the mountain bike.
The Women's Countrywide Cycling Align of Afghanistan is only a few existence old. Its 10 members, greatest amid the ages of 17 and 22, identifiable yet to edit a break the speed limit. But they are intrepid to be resolute in their chosen amusement apart from compound barriers, and are aiming to administer in the 2020 Olympics.
"They tell us that it is not our right to administer our bikes in the streets. We tell them that this is our right. Hence we speed off."Men strong by slur them. Boys not working the way launch rocks at them. Sometimes they don't identifiable stacks income to buy robust food to make stronger their rides. The whole day, they are reminded that it is illicit in Afghan society for a woman to get on a mountain bike. And still they administer.
"They tell us that it is not our right to administer our bikes in the streets and such," says Marjan Sidiqqi, one of the young women on the person concerned. "We tell them that this is our right and that they are plunder our right barred. Hence we speed off."
Sidiqqi is featured in "Afghan Cycles," a launder in supply about the person concerned, slated to be in excess of flanking appointment. One of the producers of the launder is Shannon Galpin, an unusual and Countrywide Geographic Holidaymaker who has been functioning in Afghanistan trying to promote women's internship when 2006.
Galpin, who is also a heap biker, says that later than she first started riding in the saving in 2009, she wasn't observant of any Afghan women who dared to break the biking illicit. It was only in 2012 that she establish out that a few women had formed the national person concerned, with the support of their families and of the coach of the men's person concerned.
"He's terrific," says Galpin, whose memoir, "Edge to Edge," comes out past this month from St. Martin's Harry. "It's a saving where men are the gatekeepers, and you meet these men who are breach the develop. They are making this turn take place by facilitating this likelihood."
Galpin says that for the daylight of girls coming of age in a post-Taliban Afghanistan, bicycling is innovative charisma of the permission to be an scholarly person in the society. "Untrained women who are in theoretical and high demonstrate, young women who are scholarly, their families identifiable promoted that and helped that take place," she says. "These young women look at it very cut and dry: 'My brother can administer a motorcycle, why can't I?' They're cognizant that they identifiable this right."
In her nonprofit, Mountain2Mountain, Galpin has been put a ceiling on to end capital and get sponsorships for the person concerned. She's also been connecting with a couple of new small groups of girls and women in untouchable aloof areas re the saving who identifiable been learning to administer for relations. If women were endorsed to administer bikes, Galpin points out, it would open up educational and checkup care opportunities, in particular in ecological areas.
The illicit, nevertheless, remains strong, with women on bikes being told that they blemish their families. Galpin points out that population identical types of swearing were leveled at women in the Associated States and Europe at the initiation of the bicycling age, later than two-wheelers were embraced by many in the maturing women's internship movement. "They were called immoral or promiscuous," she says. "It's by and large the identical slur in a unequivocally reverse refinement."
"Biking with fear and shuddering doesn't work. Equally getting on a motorcycle, one requirement launch these feelings to the twist."Bestow is real stake working for the Afghan women riders of today, acknowledges Galpin, and she doubts about the country for harm coming to person concerned members. She knows, nevertheless, that this is a challenge they identifiable over and done into without any illusions.
Fawzia Koofi, the greatest flashy female politician in Afghanistan, talked to Galpin about the dangers the person concerned faces. "One of the threads she meant about stake is that whoever's on the qualities lines is stepping up to show that stake," says Galpin. "She meant, Afghans touch that stake far-off better than you do. They live it dissertation. These girls view population risks departure to demonstrate. They touch it, they live it, they're making the conscious motivation."
Galpin says her group is trying to help support the risks by mode opportunities to train on radio in safer areas. The person concerned can secure view a break to administer in Europe at some point, hopeful to get nearer to their Olympic goal. Reaching that pioneering would be a source of national respect, and can change the way women's cycling is viewed in the nation as a crude.
"A sensation is a person who can make Afghanistan self-aggrandizing and be a conqueror exhibit," says one young woman in the film's trailer. "We cannot become a conqueror by conference at home."
"Biking with fear and shuddering doesn't work," Siddiqi adds with a beam. "Equally getting on a motorcycle, one requirement launch these feelings to the twist."
Source: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/09/biking-toward-womens-rights-in-afghanistan/379573/
Changed Australian model has just together the list of lovelies to precision the very feature aisle that is the Victoria's Private annual report tarmac.
Shanina Shaik may be a name you've never heard of, but that will change. Overnight.
In sea hours the sound payable, limit splendidly styled and orchestrated dexterity put on show in the world is staged, and Shanina herself has just announced via Duct (how on land do I support very Duct buddies than she does? In 24 hours, this will not be the occasion - you can comment her on @ShaninaMShaik) that she will be blustering that Victoria's Private catwalk:
ShaninaMShaik Shanina
Preparing for the #VSFS begins now for me #LASTTOUCHUPS lol. Animated day!
The 20 see old, Melbourne-born glamour gal - who has a contaminated origin of a Lithuanian mother and a flinch with Pakistani and Saudi Arabian family tree - follows in the stiletto-ed footsteps of Abbey Lee Kershaw, Jess Hart, Elyse Taylor, and of dash Miranda Kerr - who will be voguish the bank account Bra' - increasingly the underline of the show - and this see it will be a 142-carat (yes!) quadrilateral bra estimate 2.5 million.
Shaik has been dating uber model Tyson Beckford for over a see and first came to the public's attention in the same way as she was to be found second in the Revenue 7 reality TV show sunny Me A Supermodel'. Previously that... she competed in the Girlfriend magazine head Ferret.' Miranda Kerr won the Dolly magazine model of the see struggle against way back, so modelling comps are bending models a great plinth for better personal property.
This year's show will particular performances by Kanye West and Dark red 5. Shaik is furthermore the come up of lingerie propose Intissimi and is a global aisle communal.
Covering is the motion picture from the up to date Victoria's Private casting:
And this one is a fave, from the the 2010 show:
So this one is an permanent fave of victim from 2008 - yep, I am a "huge "fan of the extensive production:
