Shaping Youth Honors Girls Rights Week May 3-7

May 3, 2010 In honor of Girls Rights Week, advocating for positive change in the world, I’m going to run a week long series of “all things girl” to show how media and marketing can HELP rather than hinder healthy development. What IS Girls Rights Week? Another ‘Hallmark holiday’ you ask? Not by a long shot... As one who changed radio channels four times on the way to … [Read more...]

Using Kid Lit To Read The Right Message About Bullying

April 18, 2010 Many of you know I clench when I hear the word ‘reporter’ (even though I’m one and the same, it’s different when you’re behind the keyboard) because media has powerful potential to ignite infernos and give too much heat to ill-placed words, creating drama instead of preventing same....So imagine my exhale when today’s edition of the Chicago Tribune rightfully … [Read more...]

Commodification of Kids: The Backlash Has Begun

April 16, 2010 About a year ago, TruthOut featured a poignant article called "Commodifying Kids, The Forgotten Crisis" by academic Henry A. Giroux, and though I read it with lots of head bobbing agreement on the tipping point of toxicity, I have to strongly DISagree with the "forgotten" notion. This issue is not the LEAST bit forgotten...it's on fire, baby and it's gaining … [Read more...]

Packaging Boyhood: What About BOYS Halloween Costumes?

Oct. 25, 2016 Update: Given that media is slowly giving more coverage to the impact of body image on boys, including wee ones as young as six years old being 'fat-shamed' and toddlers even at age three, it seems sites from WebMD to health platforms are finally beginning to 'get it' that boys are being impacted with buffed boy cues and puffy superhero abs too! Choosing a … [Read more...]

What About the Boys? ‘Packaging Boyhood’ Authors Respond

Oct. 12, 2009 Tomorrow Shaping Youth advisors and authors of Packaging Boyhood launch their sequel book to my favorite media literacy teaching tool on the 'pink think' stereotypes front, Packaging Girlhood. For years I've been asking the 'what about the boys' question in my work, because frankly, boys are getting just as hammered with negative cues about what 'real men' … [Read more...]