Monthly Archives: August 2010

The Boychick’s Bookshelf: The Paper Bag Princess

Welcome to The Boychick’s Bookshelf! In this series, I review children’s books of interest to those who want to raise children free from and opposed to kyriarchy. These reviews will focus on books which showcase stories and lives beyond the dominant culture of white straight middle-class families, or which contain explicitly anti-kyriarchy messages (anti-racism, anti-ableism, anti-sexism, anti-heterosexism, anti-cissexism, anti-violence, anti-colonialization, and so on).

The Paper Bag Princess

The Story

“Elizabeth was a beautiful princess”, engaged to the snobbily-drawn Ronald — both of whom appear to be prepubescent — when a dragon comes, burns down her castle (and burns off her clothes! — at which illustration the Boychick accurately points out “she has no nipples!”), and whisks away her fiancé. Elizabeth dons the closest thing to a garment she has left — a paper bag — and sets off to find and rescue Ronald. When she tracks down the dragon’s lair (by following the trail of horse bones), she tricks the dragon with fawning praise into using up all his fire and then flying around the world so fast he promptly collapses asleep. The dragon now unarmed and unarousable, she slips past and frees the prince. Rather than being appropriately appreciative, Ronald declares her a mess, and tells her to come back after getting cleaned up when she is once again “a real princess”. Elizabeth retorts that his appearance is that of “a real prince”, but he is “a bum.” The final scene shows her skipping away — happily alone, still clothed in her paper bag – into the sunset, and we learn “They didn’t get married after all.”

Intended Audience

Elizabeth and Ronald are both white, blond, and (obviously) class privileged — at least until Elizabeth’s castle burns down — so the annoyingly usual expected audience of middle class white families applies. More specifically, The Paper Bag Princess seems aimed at white girls who are already familiar with the princess narrative, but I wouldn’t say that’s necessary: while the Boychick hadn’t yet been exposed to that narrative, it didn’t hinder his enjoyment of the book.

Changes in the telling

My main problem with The Paper Bag Princess — apart from the white, blond characters — is when Elizabeth declares Ronald to be “a bum”. Although the meaning of “bum” as “buttocks” predates that of “tramp”/homeless/lazy person (and let’s just pause a moment to marvel and be disgusted at the conflation of “homeless” and “lazy”), and outside the USA the bottom definition reigns supreme (if, thanks to US cultural colonialism, not exclusive), its primary use in the USA is lazy/homeless, particularly in the “you are a” construction. (In fact, the Boychick protests when I use bum for butt — it’s the one Britishism he actively rejects.) And as long as that strong implication of, and conflation of, “lazy hobo” is there, I am not willing to use it as an insult. Thus in our readings, we’ve changed it to any number of other insults, including jerk, butthead, or — my Doctor Who fanatic’s favorite — “giant eyeball“.

My only other concern with the book, which I can’t do anything about, is the way Elizabeth uses flattery to outwit the dragon. I love that she defeats him nonviolently, with only her intelligence and words, but it bothers me a bit that she uses such a stereotypically feminine way of doing it. “Is it true” she asks, that he can burn up ten forests/fly around the world in ten seconds? And then, when he does, she plays every bit of the easily-impressed femme and proclaims it “magnificent”. While I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with what she did, I do wish that she could have used her quick wit to out-think the dragon in some other way, if only to show girls that relying (even in such a fabulously subversive manner) on the tropes of femininity isn’t the only way to get what they want.

Right on!

The above caveats aside, I adore the messages of this book: intelligence and character are far more important than appearance, vanity will lose you your lunch (or post-castle-entrée snack), don’t stick around with someone who can’t appreciate you for who you are, girls are entirely capable of doing the rescuing, and the princess doesn’t need to end up with the prince to be happy. It is, essentially, a second wave feminist wet-dream of a kids’ book, and I love it for that, even as I acknowledge its concurrent problems.

But does it appeal? The Boychick’s take

The Boychick really likes The Paper Bag Princess, though I will say that seems to have more to do with the dragon than with the feminist messages. His absolute favorite part is first whispering and then yelling “Hey dragon!” with Elizabeth, as she checks that he’s well and truly out of it before freeing Ronald — I would not read this book with him any time I needed him to be especially quiet! But it seems to be just right for the stage he’s at: enough of a story to be engaging, but not so long and involved he loses track.

Buy it, Consider it, Skip it, or Compost it?

Consider it. (Link goes to Powell’s; or buy through Amazon.) The white leading characters, the use of “bum” as a derogative (again, given that we are USian and it doesn’t really mean arse to the Boychick), and Elizabeth’s use of flattery stop me from offering it my highest rating, but I do still love and recommend it. And, as demonstrated by how involved the Boychick gets, it is simply fun, and as willing as I am to share with him not-so-fun selections, to have one that is so upbeat that also carries excellent messages I find worth the imperfections.

Your Take — and Your Chance!

Have you read The Paper Bag Princess? What do you think, and what do your kids think? What other books with strong female protagonists and subversion of the princess narrative do you know of, and would you recommend them?

AND! Because I was sent a copy by a fabulous reader (thank you!) after buying one myself and before taking it off my wish list, I have an extra — which means one of you gets to have a copy. Simply comment below to the effect of “please enter me!” by 11:59pm Pacific Daylight Time (UTC – 7) Friday the 27th of August 2010, and I will draw a name at random the next day. Winner will be contacted via the email used to comment, and will provide me with shipping information.

Anyone, anywhere in the world is welcome to enter — I only ask you to refrain if you already own a copy.

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Purchases made through the Powell’s and Amazon links offered here support this blog and compensate — quite minimally — my time and work as a blogger. I encourage you to support local, independent booksellers whenever possible, but if you’re to order online anyway, why not support an independent blogger?

Have a book you want me to review? Suggestions are always welcome, and books sent to me via my Wish List receive priority review status and are an excellent way to support and encourage the Boychick’s Bookshelf project.

49 Comments | Posted on 21 August 2010 by Arwyn | Category: Body, The Boychick's Bookshelf | Tags: feminists don't laugh, Gender, gender roles, white privilege

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Dear White Lactivists

Dear White Lactivists,

Racism is not our prop.

Racism is not dead, it is not gone, it is not a thing of the past, it is not almost eradicated, it is not someone else’s problem, and it is not something we are subject to (please eliminate the phrase “reverse racism” from your vocabulary posthaste).

Racism is not our prop. It is not ours to hold up to compare breastfeeding discrimination against. It is not ours to make analogies with (“getting kicked off a plane due to breastfeeding discrimination is just like how black people used to not be able to eat in the same restaurants as white people!”¹). Here’s the thing: the very fact that we think racism is ours to appropriate, to pin down and treat as dead and gone and harmless now, is a sign of racism’s continued existence.

Please, read about white privilege (we have it), the definition of racism (we are all guilty of it), and the state of anti-racist activism since Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.

Yes, there has been anti-racist activism since 1968. Because believe it or not, racism didn’t end after a declaration of a dream or with the death of a dreamer.

If you take away nothing else from this letter, please, please remember that there are many lactivists of color, and we need them, and we need to center them in our mutual activism (because for decades we have been excluding them from our circles), and when we deny and erase and ignore and perpetuate the racism they face every damn day, we are driving them away, shoving them to the margins again, and saying “Your experiences don’t matter, your lived reality doesn’t matter, and if you care about breastfeeding then you should just shut up and sit down and take this degradation of your humanity.” Furthermore, we miss out on learning about — and thus lose the opportunity to dismantle! — all the ways that racism and breastfeeding discrimination interact and reinforce each other. Which means we are failing at lactivism.

Now, if we are extremely careful, and extremely respectful, it might, sometimes, be possible to draw parallels between anti-racism work and anti-breastfeeding-discrimination work. Because while specific oppressions differ, marginalization often functions the same (or similar) regardless of the topic — but again, it’s not as simple as saying “breastfeeding discrimination is just like racism!”, because that’s simply not true. Breastfeeding discrimination, like racism, is a social justice issue; it is a systemic oppression, with aspects both institutional and social; it needs to end; and everyone, breastfeeding or not, white or nonwhite, ought to care about these topics. But breastfeeding discrimination is limited to a specific time in a person’s life; one’s breastfeeding status is not visible in every moment, as it is for most (though not all) nonwhite people; and perhaps most fundamental, breastfeeding (or not) is an act, whereas race is an intrinsic, immutable part of who someone is². To say breastfeeding discrimination and racism are the same is to display a bewildering ignorance of the nature of both.

So please, my fellow white lactivists, I am begging you: stop it. Find other ways to raise awareness of the importance of breastfeeding, of the problems with discrimination against breastfeeding. Find other ways to make the emotional impact you desire. It may take you a few moments of thought before speaking, a few weeks or months to retrain your thoughts until it’s not the first analogy you reach for, but trust me: when fewer women are driven away from lactivism, when more babies are breastfed, when our common humanity is recognized and honored, it will be so worth it.

Sincerely,

A White Lactivist

This and all else in quotation marks in this post are paraphrases; I am not quoting or linking to specific examples, because the meme is so widespread: to point to one or two instances would be to pretend that this doesn’t happen again and again and again and again in white lactivist circles. This is not a “them” problem, something that only some white lactivists do and therefore something only some white lactivists need to care about: no, this is very much an us problem, because even if we haven’t done it, we have allowed it to happen and to continue. ↩
Being a person-who-breastfeeds might be a very important part of one’s identity, and I am not denying that; I am saying, though, that that identity is not created or solidified until one does the act of breastfeeding — whereas one’s race is more or less assigned at birth, through no will of one’s own. ↩

27 Comments | Posted on 16 August 2010 by Arwyn | Category: Body, Kyriarchy | Tags: activism, attachment parenting, breastfeeding, Privilege, Race, racism, USA, white privilege

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The Boychick’s Bookshelf: My Two Grannies

Welcome to The Boychick’s Bookshelf! In this series, I review children’s books of interest to parents who want to raise children free from and opposed to kyriarchy. These reviews will focus on books which showcase stories and lives beyond the dominant culture of white straight middle-class families, or which contain explicitly anti-kyriarchy messages (anti-racism, anti-ableism, anti-sexism, anti-heterosexism, anti-cissexism, anti-violence, anti-colonialization, and so on).

My Two Grannies

The Story

My Two Grannies is about Alvina, a multiracial girl, and her two grandmothers, one from Trinidad (Vero) and one from Yorkshire (Rose), both of whom now live in the same city as Alvina and her parents. Alvina loves spending time with each of her grannies, and doing the things they did as girls in their very-different cultures. When her parents decide to go away on holiday for their anniversary, Granny Vero volunteers to take care of her — but Granny Rose objects, saying she’ll do it, and Alvina suggests they both come care for her.

Thus starts the conflict of the book, as each granny insists things be done her way, and Alvina, unable to choose between the grannies (and the cultures) she loves equally, chooses neither. Alvina, showing far more maturity than either of her grannies, suggests that they each take turns for a whole day, and we see what a day with Vero in the lead looks like (a trip to the zoo to see the animals she grew up with, playing Dominos, eating red beans and rice, and telling an Anansi story for bed), and one with Rose in the lead (feeding the ducks in the park, playing snakes and ladders, eating steak and kidney pie, and telling Jack and the Beanstalk at bedtime). Alvina loves both these days, and we see the not-leading granny also learning to appreciate different ways and foods.

Intended Audience

Unlike most of the books on the Boychick’s Bookshelf, My Two Grannies is aimed not at middle-class suburban USians but at middle-class more-or-less urban Brits. Although it never explicitly states the city that Alvina and her family live in, it’s clearly meant to be a UK city, and many word choices reflect British English, such as mum instead of mom and pudding instead of dessert. None of it is overt enough I think it would be inaccessible to non-UK-English readers, and British children (and Doctor Who fans like the Boychick) might appreciate having a book whose colloquialisms are familiar.

While one appreciative audience for this book might be another child trying to combine multiple heritages, multi-race or not, the story is also about learning to share, to negotiate, to take turns, and to appreciate other cultures and customs (equally applicable to the macro cultures of Trinidad v. Yorkshire and to the micro cultures of different households).

Changes in the telling

There’s nothing we change in reading this to the Boychick (in part because he already knows the Britishisms), but some readers might find it a bit repetitive or preachy. I don’t think there is anything in it that particularly needs to be “fixed” for it to be palatable to readers of the right levels.

Right on!

I picked this book up for its depiction of a multiracial child and a multicultural family, and brought it home for the lessons in the fine art of taking turns and navigating jealousies. I also adore the illustrations, especially that Granny Rose is fat, Alvina’s kinky hair is natural and loose, and her outfit is midriff baring but not at all sexualized or hyperfeminine.

But does it appeal? The Boychick’s take

I had some concerns the Boychick wouldn’t like this, because it’s about a multiracial girl with two grannies and he’s a white probably-boy with only one living grandma, but I needn’t have worried: he loves it. He likes hearing about the grannies’ childhoods, and gets excited when Alvina dances with each of her grannies, and he always takes great pleasure in pointing out the scenes where the grannies are cross with each other. He’s at the perfect stage where he can sit through the length, but doesn’t mind the repetition or not-particularly-subtle moralizing (taking turns = good!). He does, however, get quite annoyed that Alvina refers to Vero and Rose as “Granny V.” and “Granny R.”, and tries to correct us, but we use this as an opportunity to talk about nicknames and the many ways people are referred to.

Buy it, Consider it, Skip it, or Compost it?

Strongly consider My Two Grannies, especially for multiracial or multicultural children. Even if your child, like mine, is monoracial and doesn’t have multiple grandmothers, consider it anyway: the story is enjoyable, the drawings delightful, and the messages universal.

Your Take

Have you read My Two Grannies? What do you think, and what do your kids think? What other books do you know of with multiracial families, or that address sharing or jealousy in an engaging way?

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Purchases made through the Amazon links offered here support this blog and compensate — quite minimally — my time and work as a blogger. I encourage you to support local, independent booksellers whenever possible, but if you’re to order online anyway, why not support an independent blogger?

9 Comments | Posted on 14 August 2010 by Arwyn | Category: Body, The Boychick's Bookshelf | Tags: identity, navigating cultures, Race, sharing

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Quick hit: Race affects everyone

I’ve heard it before. I’ve said it before. I base my writing and my activism and my parenting on this fundamental truth: race affects everyone’s life.

Still, when I heard it from Pam Spaulding¹ in a BlogHer session, there was that moment of frisson, that “what?” that comes from my privilege, from the belief drilled into my every neuron from birth on that race is about them, those brown people over there, not me, I don’t have to worry about race, race doesn’t affect my life directly.

Years of working to rid myself of it, and still that moment appears. Still. Maybe always.

Perhaps there is no getting rid of that moment completely. Most of the time, now, such a phrase feels right at home in my ears, familiar in my heart. Race affects everyone. White people have white privilege. I am infected with racism. My soul nods — not because it loves these things, but because it knows them, now, knows the knapsack I was granted at birth (was grafted on me at birth), and works daily to become familiar with its contents.

But still, sometimes, when least expected, someone will reference, offhand, the thing on my back — and I startle. Just for a moment, but I’d forgotten. I can forget. Everything in my culture wants me to forget, wants me to stop talking about my knapsack, wants me to stop pointing out the emperor’s. And sometimes it succeeds.

Maybe I can’t get rid of that moment completely, but I can change what comes next: of course it’s there. Of course it’s real. Of course race affects everyone. Of course race is a part of my every moment. I can recognize that frisson for what it is: the protestations and self-protections of the privilege inside me. It is not truth: it is what kyriarchy would have me think true, so that I might propagate racism, scatter its poisoned pollen everywhere I go.

I cannot counter that which I do not acknowledge exists, and so I say, again: I live with white privilege in every moment; race affects me; race affects you.

Race affects everyone.

Paraphrase: “…because race affects my life. Well, race affects everyone’s life.” ↩

8 Comments | Posted on 12 August 2010 by Arwyn | Category: Body, Kyriarchy | Tags: BlogHer, Privilege, Race, racism, white privilege

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Naked Pictures of Faceless People: Love the Way You Lie

Welcome to RMB’s Naked Pictures of Faceless People, a series of guest posts from diverse anonymous bloggers. (Read more about NPFP’s origins.) These are the posts that are jumping to get out of us, but for whatever reason — safety, embarrassment, conflict of interest, protection of loved ones’ reputations or feelings, or so on — we don’t or won’t or can’t post at our own blogs. Anyone, whether blogger or reader only, is welcome to submit or discuss a potential post by emailing me at arwyn at raisingmyboychick dot com.

Trigger Warning: There is a trigger warning on this post for descriptions of domestic violence.

Love the Way You Lie

Have you ever heard a song called Love the Way You Lie, by Eminem and Rihanna? That’s my marriage, with a baby thrown in, to a T. Isn’t that sad? Isn’t that beyond sad?

I can’t tell you what it really is
I can only tell you what it feels like
And right now it’s a steel knife in my windpipe
I can’t breathe but I still fight while I can fight
As long as the wrong feels right it’s like I’m in flight
High off of love, drunk from my hate,
It’s like I’m huffing paint and I love it the more I suffer, I suffocate
And right before I’m about to drown, she resuscitates me
She fucking hates me and I love it.
Wait! Where you going?
“I’m leaving you”
No you ain’t. Come back we’re running right back.
Here we go again
It’s so insane cause when it’s going good, it’s going great
I’m Superman with the wind at his back, she’s Lois Lane
But when it’s bad it’s awful, I feel so ashamed I snapped
Who’s that dude? I don’t even know his name
I laid hands on her, I’ll never stoop so low again
I guess I don’t know my own strength.

My pregnancy was hell. We would be all good for three days or so, and then wham! an explosive fight resulting in my trying to leave and him not letting me. I started talking to another guy — and told him about it. Sure, we had some great fun and good times. But when it’s bad it’s awful. We busted in some doors and put bruises on each other. One of us would always break down, cry and beg for forgiveness. This was happening even when I went into labor. I was just as much to blame as him.

You ever love somebody so much you can barely breathe
When you’re with ‘em
You meet and neither one of you even knows what hit ‘em
Got that warm fuzzy feeling
Yeah, them those chills you used to get ‘em
Now you’re getting fucking sick of looking at ‘em
You swore you’d never hit ‘em; never do nothing to hurt ‘em
Now you’re in each other’s face spewing venom in your words when you spit them
You push pull each other’s hair, scratch claw hit ‘em
Throw ‘em down pin ‘em
So lost in the moments when you’re in them
It’s the rage that took over it controls you both
So they say you’re best to go your separate ways
Guess if they don’t know you ’cause today that was yesterday
Yesterday is over, it’s a different day
Sound like broken records playing over but you promised her
Next time you show restraint
You don’t get another chance
Life is no Nintendo game
But you lied again
Now you get to watch her leave out the window
I guess that’s why they call it window pane.

Then we had the baby and we were good for about a week. Then I got sick, very, very sick. He refused to help, didn’t want to let me leave to stay with my mom so she could take care of me. I begged and I cried and he told me I’d get over it. Maybe it was then I knew we didn’t love each other anymore. I did leave with my mother and the baby, and after much pleading, he came to see us that night. I remember crying hysterically while nursing my baby, “Mom, he doesn’t love me anymore, he doesn’t love me, he doesn’t.”

Now I know we said things, did things that we didn’t mean
And we fall back into the same patterns, same routine
But your temper’s just as bad as mine is
You’re the same as me
But when it comes to love you’re just as blinded
Baby, please come back
It wasn’t you, baby it was me
Maybe our relationship isn’t as crazy as it seems
Maybe that’s what happens when a tornado meets a volcano
All I know is I love you too much to walk away though
Come inside, pick up your bags off the sidewalk
Don’t you hear sincerity in my voice when I talk
I told you this is my fault
Look me in the eyeball
Next time I’m pissed, I’ll aim my fist at the drywall
Next time. There won’t be no next time
I apologize even though I know its lies
I’m tired of the games I just want her back
I know I’m a liar
If she ever tries to fucking leave again
Im’a tie her to the bed and set this house on fire

We came back a month later. We were okay for a while. He supported my every decision with our baby. He was a great daddy. Then our fights started again. It was always over nothing, nothing at all, and escalated into what was bothering us everyday. I think I just read everything as if he didn’t care about me, since what happened with my illness. I still talked to the ‘other guy’, mostly after fights, fantasizing about a relationship that never could be. He still takes my keys, blocks my car, pins me down, won’t let me walk out the door. Now he takes our baby from me and says I’ll never see her again, and I better quit acting like a psycho or he’ll get custody as his family can afford an attorney and mine can’t.

Our baby is now almost six months old, and she knows when we fight. She hears us across the house, slamming doors and throwing things, screaming in each other faces, hitting, pushing, and she starts screaming hysterically. We both feel bad and I always say we have to end this or resolve this, I won’t keep fighting in front of our child and damaging her. So we both apologize, even though we know it’s lies. And then we do it again. I love him and I hate him. I can’t leave and let him rip our baby away from the only mother she’s ever known. But I can’t stay here and let her be in the midst of our insanity. Nobody knows about this storm that is our marriage but us. What the hell do I do, what the hell do I do? I keep saying it’ll get better the older we get, we’re still so very young. I hope it will. I hope it will. Until then, my daughter, forgive me. Please forgive me. I never intended for you to get wrapped up in the midst of a tornado and a volcano.

Just gonna stand there and watch me burn
But that’s alright because I like the way it hurts
Just gonna stand there and hear me cry
But that’s alright because I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie.

(Lyrics copyright Eminem or Aftermath Records. No copyright infringement intended.)

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