I have fond memories of my collection of childhood toys - wooden blocks, Big Ted, My Little Pony, the Cindy doll my parents bought me (instead of the Barbie I REALLY wanted), Lego, railway tracks... And nowadays I enjoy sometimes escaping into the imaginary world with my four-year-old boy and his collection of treasured toys.  I read about the toys on offer for kids, I see kids playing with toys and the students I work with tell me about the toys that are and were important in their lives.  

There is a lot of writing about the highly gendered and also sexualised nature of many childhood toys these days, but on Friday I suddenly realised that I could count on one hand the number of times I have been in a toy store since entering adulthood.  Inspired by other writers, I decided it was time to hit the front-line. What was on offer for New Zealand children? Was it as bad as it was in the USA? (where much of the research I read comes from) And what are the 'good' options out there?

Armed with my camera, I entered our local toy store (one of a nationwide chain).  And thus began an hour of walking up and down every aisle, taking note and photographing the good, the bad and the plain downright ridiculous. 

Into 'GIRL ZONE'

Thanks to Dannielle Miller for pointing me to this video.  A powerful statement on the media's portrayal of women.  It sent chills down my spine and tears to my eyes.

It’s not often (ever?!) that I am heard uttering the words “Good on you Britney”, but today, I think Britney Spears has done good.  She agreed to let the UK's Daily Mail release un-airbrushed images of herself next to the digitally-altered versions.  They say "the 29-year-old singer made the extraordinary move in order to highlight the pressure exerted on women to look perfect".

I spent some time looking at these photos, comparing the 'before' and 'after' shots and am amazed at how extensively every blemish and "not perfect" aspect is corrected. The dry skin is covered, the bruises are banished. Even Brit's muscles have been smoothed over and 'minimised', and the *ahem* 'camel toe' dealt to. With glossy magazines and bill boards taunting women with impossible beauty it is great to actually see the full extent of how we are being deceived by the use of digital enhancement.

On a conscious level, I know that most magazine and advertisements featuring scantily clad women are airbrushed.  On a subconscious level, I still find myself marvelling at the petite bottoms, incredibly long legs and flawless bellies.

I am long past aiming for such “flawless perfection” and have even come to love my belly that always has and always will have a slightly-pregnant pose to it.  But as a teenager facing these billboards and glossy pictures, I remember having such a distorted view of my body.  At 14, I went bikini shopping and spent hours in front of shop mirrors in countless numbers of size 8 bikinis grabbing every piece of “fat” (read: skin fold), only to finally conclude that I was definitely too fat to wear a bikini and went home empty handed. It makes me sad to think that I, age 14, incredibly fit and swim training up to 16 hours a week, was so sucked in by the media portrayal of ‘beauty’ to think of myself as too fat to wear a bikini. (But it also makes me smile when I throw on my a-few-sizes-bigger-than-an-8 bikini now!)

My heart goes out to the girls growing up now, in a society so much more saturated by mass media and commercialism than it was in my childhood.  Countless studies have shown a direct link between the media’s portrayal of beauty and body image disorders such as bulimia and anorexia.  These disorders are increasing at a disturbing rate. We need to get real about the unrealistic images of “beauty” that are so prevalent in the media.

So I thank you Britney for showing the world that in fact you do have dimply thighs. You don’t have a concave belly or shiny skin and you even get bruises on your legs like the rest of us.  I hope more celeb’s follow suit. In fact, I hope this starts the tide of people demanding that we see REAL people in our magazines and advertisements.  Getting rid of digital enhancement is an unrealistic request, but what I want to see alongside all future airbrushed images is a statement like this:     
“This woman’s body has been digitally enhanced. She really has dimply thighs, a cute sticky-outy belly and a small scar on her knee, but we were worried you wouldn’t buy our product if you saw those humanising features”

“What do you do?”

I lose track of how many times I am asked this in a week.  Maybe it has always been so, but I think previously my answer to this has been somewhat simpler, so I hadn’t noticed the regularity to which I was asked this.  At various times I have answered with: I am studying. I am a management consultant. I am a recruitment consultant. I am a children’s party fairy.  I am a surf lifeguard. I am a traveller. I am a counsellor. I am a teacher.I am trying to decide what I am going to be when I grow up.

But now, “what I do” is so much harder to define. A man asked me this question on Sunday. I mentioned a couple of things that I “do”, at which point he interrupted and said he didn’t need my CV.  I was a little taken aback – I had only just started! : )  I think that for this man, the question was a superficial nicety, he didn’t really want to know. Particularly once I had uttered the word ‘sexuality’...  

But it got me thinking – can I sum up “what I do” in a short, concise socially acceptable sentence?   I thought long and hard, and decided “no”.  But I did think that it was a good topic for a blog post.  I am just getting started in the blogosphere and I thought it would be apt to define “what I do” at this early stage.

First and foremost, I am a mother.  This is my most important role and the one that will always take priority – for the rest of my life.  This is my grounding principal and I will never apologise to anyone if this role interrupts other things I am ‘supposed’ to be doing. Being a mother is a huge privilege and my child only has one of me. (NB. The value our society places on this role is a whole post in itself, coming soon!)

I provide education around sexuality - I teach in schools, I run workshops for parents and youth.  I want every person to love, value, respect and understand their whole body.

I write. I am currently writing for Birthright NZ, redeveloping their website and increasing their profile.   I love it that my work will help and raise awareness of the fantastic job that so many one-parent families are doing around the country.

I educate and empower local business women with their online presence and run workshops on social media.  This was something that evolved, rather than a conscious decision to get involved in this area. It is so rewarding to see women who had shied away from such things become confident and innovative online networkers.  

I mentor young women.  This is a huge privilege and one of the most inspiring parts of any week.

I read. Current topics of interest are body image and the media... advertising to youth... the sexualisation of children... alcohol and pregnancy... how social media can help not-for-profits and small businesses... worm farming... sustainable living.

And now... I blog.  Increasingly so. My goal is three posts a week.  Help keep me honest ; )

As soon as we found out that I was pregnant, we told our three-year-old son Sol about my pregnancy and involved him in all the midwife appointments. He recently accompanied us to the 20-week scan.

After the radiographer had done all the important measurements and observations, she got to the least important part – finding the vulva or the penis.  As she was looking for that part of our baby’s body she said to me “Ouhhh, you’ll soon know if you’ll have to be buying a pink tutu!”

(I am sure my husband smothered a laugh at this point. I refrained from launching into a tirade about gender stereotyping and the findings of various neurological studies on babies and gender.)

As it turns out, we spotted a vulva. 

And I realised that, at 20 weeks gestation this wee girl had already experienced her first gender stereotyping. 

It isn’t that pink tutus violently offend me. It's that there was an assumption that if my baby had a vulva, then buying a pink tutu would be the most important consideration and that her vulva would automatically predispose her to an uncontrollable urge to wear pink tutus.  Who knows, perhaps she will be an absolute ballet fanatic, in which case I am sure our house will be loaded with tutus of all description. Or she could be a soccer player, a hip-hop dancer, a chess-genius, a swimmer... - in which case we may have no pink tutus at all.  Or maybe she’ll have stages of being all of the above, and our already cluttered house will have a collection of all sorts of outfits in all sorts of colours.

All I do know is that I will do everything in my Mama-Bear power to protect my daughter from all the gender-limiting stereotypes that will attempt to smother her from birth (and before!). Suddenly I am hugely grateful on a personal level to those dedicated organisations and people who are out there campaigning on behalf of our girls - Enlighten Education, 7Wonderlicious, Pigtail Pals Ballcap Buddies, Pink Stinks and many more. 

I will leave you with little Riley, who articulates my feelings just so well: