October 12, Girls and cultural production; Driscoll girls
I am interested in the activities that girls choose to engage in, supported by and subverting popular culture, and also producing that which is meaningful and relevant to their own lives. My own girlhood practices usually involved craft, or at least some kind of handmade production. My mother and maternal grandmother both influenced most of my early interest in craft by teaching me to knit at a very young age, and how to crochet and sew, and my father influenced my interests in art, particularly in painting and wood carving. While very few of my peers seemed to engage in arts and crafts, they played with store bought toys that seemed more mature to me than my arts and crafts supplies from MJ Designs and later, Michaels. While I really enjoyed crafting, sculpting Fimo or Sculpey, making jewelry, and spray painting and drilling holes in tiny seashells to make even more jewelry, I remember feeling that these typically solitary activities seemed more immature than activities my friends engaged in. I think that for this reason, I relied on my reading life to help me to feel more “mature” in parent-approved ways. My academic and extra-curricular life was extremely sheltered, and generally, so was my reading life, but I do remember the intense curiosity that I felt when I read seemingly shocking things in books, or saw pictures that may have seemed a bit too grown-up for a reader my age. Books offered new insights, and views into worlds that I was not allowed to in my own mundane, real life. I think that books and magazines may have also influenced my art/craft production in limited ways.
October 19, Bedroom culture; McRobbie, Adams, Kearney
Children’s bedrooms can be very important and private spaces for young people who are often under constant surveillance. Choices for bedroom décor are often impacted by parents or guardians, so children may have limited choice in the way bedroom space is used, as well as what they are allowed to post on the walls, and even music that may fill the space. My childhood room still looks very similar to the way it looked while I was growing up. Regular posters were not allowed in my room, although I seem to remember seeing a poster in my brother’s room. Instead, I was allowed to put framed images on my walls, usually of animals. I remember feeling frustrated about this because my friends often had posters on their walls in their bedrooms. My dresser was white and my Dad helped me to paint my once-white desk forest green. I think this was important to me because it was one way I could influence my surroundings. On the walls, I was allowed to choose a framed poster of meerkats that I was allowed to buy from the Smithsonian, and a photograph of about ten yellow Labrador retriever puppies, all lined up next to each other. When I was an adolescent, I began to take interest in the alternative music that was popular during the early-mid 1990s, and most of my friends were able to display posters of their favorite bands on their walls. I tried to put up some very small pictures from my favorite bands, but my dad made fun of me for doing that, and so then I tried to keep the pictures hidden away in my CD cases.
One of my professors recently showed me pictures of her son’s bedroom. She allowed him to paint his walls red, and also to design stencils and spray paint his images black, and also to write words on his walls with black paint. I thought that this was very generous of his parents to allow him to take such dramatic ownership of his space, even at the cost and effort of having to (years) later repaint the room. My parents would barely allow me to put posters on my walls, so of course they would never have allowed me to paint on the walls. Students that I taught used to talk about drawing with Sharpie markers on the walls of their rooms, but when they would try to paint over the marker, the ink would bleed through the paint. My parents would have never allowed this. However, I think there are ways for parents and children to negotiate the décor of children’s bedrooms that do not have to include paint on the walls. Children often have such little autonomy in their daily lives, so decorating a bedroom (within agreed-upon limits) is one way for a child to exert at least some power over his/her private life.
November 2, Girls’ print media and fashion magazines; Malik, Curry
During our field trip to see girls’ magazines at Barnes and Noble, I was especially interested in two of the girls’ magazines because they seemed to have potential to empower girls in positive ways. I was impressed by Kiki magazine and American Girl magazine, because these publications seemed to address activities that girls can do, rather than just what to wear and how to attract for the purpose of attracting boys. I felt that these kinds of magazines were quite rare in the ocean of magazines that prepare girls for magazines such as Glamour and Allure. Kiki magazine covered topics that ranged from cultural studies and practices (how to make American Indian moccasins), to making art, and also encouraged girls to create their “own” style, rather than providing them with a ‘shopping’ list for the trendiest clothes of the day. Kiki also presented substantial D.I.Y. components, as did the American Girl magazine. I was impressed by the American Girl magazine because its content was much more substantial than I originally imagined. It included sparkly stickers, a story written by a real girl, along with some fashion suggestions, and also D.I.Y. activities that girls could do at home, which I really liked. Many of the other magazines that we observed seemed to prepare young girls for often over-sexualized, mainstream popular teen culture that is seen in Teen Vogue, Seventeen, Cosmo Girl, etc. I noticed that on Seventeen’s webpage, there is a link for girls to donate used formal dresses to girls who need dresses. I am not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, it seems like a good way to recycle gently used dresses and to help others get something they might not otherwise afford. However, I noticed that the images of the girls who are recipients of these dresses are mostly non-white, and I wonder if it is really a service for those girls to receive used dresses, with limited sizes and choices. I also wonder if this organization provides alterations, which can be very expensive.
November 9, historical and contemporary fashion and play dolls; Forman-Brunell, Peers, Mitchell and Reid-Walsh
I never had a set of my own paper dolls, but I played with my mother’s childhood set of paper dolls at her parents’ house. I remember feeling fascinated by these charming 1960s dolls, printed on heavy, durable cardboard. The dolls were very cute, with exaggerated features, and their clothing was also very interesting, colorful and appealing. I think that I was also intrigued by the time period of the clothing styles, and also the artful style of the 1960s character drawings. Remembering these paper dolls prompted me to call my mother, to ask her about her memories of dolls when she was a girl. I am pretty happy that we had this conversation, which seemed to help my mother recall fond memories of her family, and in particular, memories of her father, who passed away a year ago. We talked on speakerphone with my dad in the background, and our conversation was facilitated by the use of Google, especially with the image search application. My mother began by reminding me that she didn’t spend very much time playing with many dolls as a child, because of several reasons, possibly attributed to frugal family dispositions, desire to create rather than buy, a focus on academic studies, and also growing up with two sisters and plenty of friends in the neighborhood. First, she started talking about her earliest doll which was a Snoozie doll, a baby doll that mimicked movements of a real baby. She also recalled that her older sister, my Aunt Karen, had a Pollyanna doll because the movie came out right beforehand, and Aunt Karen has mentioned several times at family gatherings how she loved to play with her Pollyanna doll. (I also recall that my grandmother had a large doll during her childhood that she spoke about fondly, which may be a reason why Aunt Karen had a large doll, too.) Then my mother recalled having a Little Miss Revlon doll. At first, she couldn’t remember its name. She thought it was called a Reynolds doll, but she used Google to help her to refine her search, and she quickly found images of her Little Miss Revlon doll. She sounded excited on the phone when she finally remembered the doll and saw images of it.
Then she also seemed to sound excited when she shared her memories of her stuffed Green Giant doll. She spent time saving labels from cans of Green Giant vegetables, and then mailed them in for an offer for a free Green Giant doll. She remembered how excited she felt when it came in the mail, and how proud she felt that she was able to have this doll mailed to her because of the work that she put into the project. I think it is very interesting that this example of a child’s sense of agency is so long remembered and cherished as a fond memory. My mother and her Green Giant doll make a strong case for allowing children to research, collect, and ‘advocate’ for something that they want, resulting in strong appreciation for something personally relevant, which also transfers into a lasting memory.
