A good opening shot, but I'm waiting for the discussion to develop

books:


	• Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers' Schemes Sharon Lamb, Lyn Mikel Brown St. Martin's Griffin, 2007 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 20 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A good opening shot, but I'm waiting for the discussion to develop

I work with young girls age 3 to 7 and try to stay informed on their behalf. As much as I wanted this book to be terrific, and agreed with so much of their book, I found myself wincing. This is an area where delivery of message must be as well executed as content or you will lose your audience, both mothers and daughters. Admittedly, this is a very fine line, but it is the one that this topic must navigate. The authors crossed it akwardly and repeatedly.

I wondered if they had co-written the book with the girls they claimed to know, if some of these bugs would have been worked out. I wondered if they might better present tools to dissect and examine the ways of media in a way that was more curious and exploratory than castagatory and critical, they may have found a better path through the media thicket.

As a scholarship student English major at a very competitive university, I was unprepared for the massive assault on my intellect, social being, and ability to communicate. One of the best lessons I had that helped me to navigate the swift currents of this environment was that the tools of deconstruction, analysis, statistical modeling, are all just tools to better see what is at hand. The better I could use them, like being able to choose between a screw driver or a hammer, the less I was dazzled by someone's fantabulous use of beautiful words and facile twisting of abstract theory. Eventually, I saw that these same dazzlers were victims of the very words and theories they espoused. Realising this made me a stealthy and eventually, enviable adversary. This is not unlike the environment created by mass media. I wondered if the authors might have presented the dilemma of mass media as something that can be mastered with the consistent patience, intuitive questioning, and joyful exuberance that is fortunately innate to girls and women inparticular, they would have convinced more compellingly and authenticly.

I'm glad to have have read the book, but I look forward to the further discussion, questioning that this book has initiated,and hopefully,paths worn through the media thicket that get girls to where they are going swiftly and confidently.

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rescue your daughter

This book was a revelation for me. I appreciate all the effort and research the authors did to help parents sort out the motives of modern marketers and the media when it comes to girls. I am definitely more aware of the destructive messages that are bombarding today's girls and teens. Why do toddler jeans come with little purses? Why do so many products for teens pit one type of girl against another? Why are girls either labeled one of the boys or for the boys? Why do they have to label a section of clothes in the girls department "active"? And why do they then put fake teams (e.g. jumping bunny cheer squad) on these "active" shirts? These are all questions I never asked before reading this book.

I also appreciate their guidance on how to talk to daughters about difficult subjects in a non-confrontational way. I plan on using their advice to navigate the world for girls while my daughter is still very young. And I hope my daughter develops the same analytical skills as she grows up.

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Thought-provoking but lumps together innocuous & harmful things

"Packaging Girlhood" is an important read for parents concerned about the toxic influence modern pop culture has on girls. Unfortunately, the authors do not distinguish between what is truly harmful and what is innocuous but lumps them all together for criticism. Age-appropriate frilly pink dresses and princess or angel Halloween costumes, nursery rhymes & jump-rope jingles touting love & marriage, and Disney movies are just as bad in the authors' eyes as slutty teen clothes & Halloween costumes, explicit rap, and "soft core" porn on cable TV.

The authors are also shockingly permissive when it comes to teen sex, alcohol, and narcotics use. They worry about whether a girl is doing these for the "right" reasons and in a "responsible" way rather than saying that *CHILDREN* should not engage in such risky behavior in the first place (which is what many if not most parents believe). Throughout the book, the authors pooh-pooh the idea of parents forbidding their daughters from problematic content, items, or behaviors. Instead of asserting their authority, the authors believe parents should simply engage in a discussion and hope their daughters make the right decisions totally on their own. However, his type of parental permissiveness is a major contributor to the problem in the first place. Children need *PARENTS*, not someone trying to be their "best friend".

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Inspire your girl on a road to true empowerment

Professional psychologists and educators Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown have rendered academic research and analysis into this book of practical strategies for parents and girls. Packaging Girlhood is a book of caution for any parent (or girl) who believes themselves immune from mass marketing schemes. "Girl power" has been undermined by marketers who sell girl power as a means of attracting boys, buying into the fashion industry, and aspiring to be a fly girl or glam doll.

The authors surveyed over 600 girls from the United States and Canada, along with their parents and school counselors. They drew upon that research to expose the pervasive stereotypes that harm modern pre-teens and teens. The core of their parenting advice is to tune in to your child--know what music, books, and television she is consuming, listen to her interpretation of the messages she sees, and provide a greater context and encourage her to be a thoughtful, critical consumer.

Parents will find answers to dozens of practical questions in Packaging Girlhood. Does pulling the plug and throwing away the TV work? (No.) What do you say when she begs you for a skimpy tank top? (There's an entire chapter on this subject.) Is all pink bad? (Of course not.) Is she allowed to own princess and Barbie items? (Yes, absolutely.)

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

Winner of the Books for a Better Life Award Every parent who cares about empowering her daughter should own a copy."
- Rachel Simmons, author of Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls ?...a must-read for parents and teachers who want to steer girls away from marketing schemes that distort female power and authority and toward true self-acceptance and authentic empowerment.?
-- Polly Young Eisendrath, author of Women and Desire and The Resilient Spirit The image of girls and girlhood that is being packaged and sold to your daughter isn?t pretty in pink. It is stereotypical, demeaning, limiting, and alarming. Girls are besieged by images in the media that encourage accessorizing over academics; sex appeal over sports; fashion over friendship.
Packaging Girlhood exposes these stereotypes and gives you guidance on how to talk with your daughters about these negative images and provides you with tools and information on how to help your girls make more positive choices. ?A tour de force of excellent scholarship put in a very readable context and chockfull of practical suggestions for parents for change!?
-- William S. Pollack, Ph.D., author of Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood

?Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown have that rare gift of translating cutting-edge research and analysis into strategies and information that every parent (and every girl) can use in daily life.?
-- Joe Kelly, president of Dads and Daughters (DADs)

?With compassion, insight, and humor [Lamb and Brown] unravel and demystify the messages girls confront throughout their development, and they offer adults useful tools to help girls resist their powerful pull.?
-- Lynn M. Phillips, Ph.D., Department of Communications, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

?Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown's sharp analysis and patiently pragmatic advice is just what we need to sustain our daughter's quests for healthy identities.?
-Michael Kimmel, author Manhood in America, Professor, SUNY Stony Brook Sharon Lamb, author of The Secret Lives of Girls, is professor of Psychology at Saint Michael?s College in Vermont. Her research on girls? and teens? development is widely cited. Additionally, she listens to their struggles and strengths in her private practice.

Lyn Mikel Brown, professor of Education at Colby College in Maine, is the author of three books on girls? development, including Meeting at the Crossroads: Women's Psychology and Girls' Development (with Carol Gilligan). She creates programs for girls at her nonprofit Hardy Girls Healthy Women (www.hghw.org).

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