A Thumbs Up Round-Up: Feb. 14/2010
A lot of the stuff we cover on this blog is criticism of how social inequalities are perpetuated in events, news, and pop culture. But it’s a beautiful, sunny 12 degrees here in Vancouver and the good weather put me in the mood to give some thumbs ups to some cool things that have been going on.
- Reading a great biography right now called
Dorothea Lange, A Life Beyond Limits by Linda Gordon. Lange was a photographer whose documentary photography for the FDR government helped form America’s understanding of the Great Depression. She also critically documented conditions at Japanese internment camps. This biography is a fascinating account of how Lange defied the constraints of her gender and her disability related to childhood polio, and used photography to challenge the ways people think. - Pleased to see the Westender with some alternative Valentine’s Day reporting today, including a discussion of singlehood by choice and coverage of the emerging BDSM community in Vancouver.
- Apparently Barbie is becoming a computer engineer. I’m only cautiously optimistic, as the New York Times points out “Computer Engineer Barbie still has her trademark cascade of blond hair, impossibly small waist, feet frozen on
Computer Engineer Barbie
tiptoes to slide into her high heels and a whole lot of hot pink.” But it’s a step in the right direction to show Barbie interested in something other than her clothes.
- I’ve spent the last few days trying out games for tween girls for a post I’m writing for About-Face. I’ll post the link when it’s up but needlesss to say, there’s a lot of creepy games out there, like Carrie the Caregiver, Wedding Dash, and Imagine: Babyz Fashion. But I did come across one game that pleasantly surprised me: Fix-It-Up: Kate’s Adventure, which features a muscular girl with dreadlocks building a business repairing cars. It was a really nice change from playing ones about girls being hyper-enthusiastic about changing diapers and winning rewards of new outfits for their hard work.
- The Pitch has a hilarious skewering of Harlequin romance novel heroes, just in time for Valentine’s Day.
- On the off-chance you’re not sick of LOLz, check out Bitch’s collection of I Can Has Feminizm?
Now to get out and enjoy the last few minutes of the sun!
What are you giving a thumbs up to this weekend?
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