In Memory
Ahoy Matey, Pirates Have Run Ashore!
Arrrrrr….did you know that Pirates weren’t always men? It’s true. History is full of women who dressed as men and boarded pirate ships, taking on life as a Buccaneer. The most famous of these were the inseparable Anne Bonney and Mary Reade who were also known to be some of the fiercest pirates to ever set sail with a black flag. Anne was reputed to have become such an expert fencer that she publicly stripped her male fencing instructor with her sword, and severely beat a man with a chair for making a pass at her. In 1720, Anne and Mary were aboard a ship that was being attacked. When all of their crew retreated, Anne shouted “If there’s a man among ye, ye’ll come out and fight like the men ye are thought to be.” When none of the men responded, Anne and Mary went to work defending their ship by shooting all of the men. As they say…”dead men tell no tales”. (I’m not condoning violence against men here - just quoting history 
).
Katie Couric’s Lack of Support Affects All Women
My sister gave me the heads up on this very intriguing article titled “How Much Abuse Can Katie Couric Take” by Susan Estrich. Katie has been under fire lately about how she is doing as the first female anchor on a major network. Comments have come from men and women on all sides, criticizing her on everything from word choice to the amount of make-up she does or doesn’t wear.
I was really stunned by the fact that Katie was being attacked by other women in journalism. Not that women aren’t allowed to criticize her but Susan points out:
Of all people, you’d think other women in the news business would understand just what Katie is up against and how her future is connected to ours. You’d think women would appreciate the challenge of settling into a role for which there are no role models, sitting in a chair that is usually occupied by older white men and convincing viewers to accept an attractive woman as equally credible.
Willie Mae Rock Camp
Here is a great opportunity for women of all ages to get involved in music. You don’t even have to own an instrument or know how to play! Willie Mae Rock Camp is a non-profit organization that teaches females the fundamentals of music and helps more experienced musicians with techniques and master classes. Instruments are provided or you can bring your own. The available instruments are drums, bass, electric guitar, keyboard, vocals and DJ turntables.
There is a “Ladies Camp” for adult women in July and a “Girls Camp” for ages 8-18 in August. Both camps are held at the Urban Assembly School of Music & Art in Brooklyn, NY. You do not have to be a NY resident to attend. Visit the Willie Mae Rock Camp web site for more information.
Special thanks to Scott at Ladystar.net for sending me this info.
3…2…1…Blast Off!
Have you ever dreamed of being an astronaut? I can’t say that I ever wanted to be one, but I think spending a day in an anti-gravity tank would be kind of cool. My 10 year old daughter has been fascinated with astronomy and earth science ever since her class completed a unit on space and the universe and has been telling me I need to make an astronaut design. So I’ve been working on the Girls Can’t WHAT? Astronaut design for a couple days now and despite about a half dozen technical issues (you know…”Houston, we have a problem”), it is finally available in the Girls Can’t WHAT? Shop.
As always, I try to do my homework before starting a drawing to get a feel for the style of the design. Finding a good action photo of a female astronaut proved to take a bit longer than I anticipated. That surprised me because I remember enough from high school history class to name several women cosmonauts. Here is a quick timeline for women in space: Read more
Take Your Daughter to Work Day
Just a heads up that “Take Your Daughter To Work Day” is coming up this Thursday, April 26th. This is a great time for you to connect with your kids and expose them to what you do for a living and how it affects the world we live in. With a little planning, you can make this a fun as well as educational time for your child. Here is a short list of things to help make the most of the day.
- Make arrangements with your workplace as well as your child’s school.
- Don’t keep your child with you all day. A few hours should be sufficient enough.
- Take a tour of your workplace and introduce your child to coworkers.
- Explain your job in simple terms and show your child samples of any product or services your company provides.
- Select a few simple tasks that your child can manage on his or her own. Make some up if necessary.
- Plan a couple of breaks to keep your child from getting bored.
- Bring snacks. Kids always love snacks.
For more ideas and information, visit the official Daughters and Sons to Work web site.
Stand In The Rain
This morning I woke up with the lyrics to “Stand in the Rain” by Superchic[k] stuck in my head. This is an amazing song and I was in awe the first time I heard it. I wanted to share it with you today, so I went looking for it on youtube, but alas there isn’t an original Superchic[k] video for it yet. There are, however, about a thousand videos made to this song. I sifted through about 100 before I decided to go with this one which uses clips from the tv series “Lost”. I don’t watch “Lost” and I know nothing about it, but I thought the video was decent. Most of the other videos were set to cartoons and computer animated graphics. You don’t even have to bother to watch the video - just listen to the song.
Here are the lyrics to “Stand in the Rain”: Read more
Does This Blog Make A Difference?
This post is in response to Lorelle’s Challenge “Does your blog make a difference in the world around you? How?” that was posted on her site last week. I’ve been thinking about the best way to answer this question, trying to avoid the traditional cheesy answers and really taking a step back to discover a sincere statement. I think what I am going to end up with is more of a confession.
The first thing I thought of when faced with this question was the embarrassing admission that “I am worth $242.08” in which I lamented that I wasn’t making a whole heck of a lot of money for the amount of time I invest in this site. I don’t do this for the cash, but it is difficult for a college grad to earn just twelve cents an hour. It was not a very inspiring post and to my defense I was heavily medicated for an ear infection with some prescription drug that causes depression, so I blame the meds. The responses to that post were amazing and I have to admit I almost cried. Ok, maybe I did shed one tear, but no one needs to know that. Shhh 
Girls Can’t WHAT? on TV
This is just a heads up for the local folks (Central Illinois). Girls Can’t WHAT? will be a featured news story on WAND this Sunday, April 22nd at 10pm. The story is part of Scot England’s “Central Illinois A to Z” segment. If I can get the clip in digital format, I will post it here. 
No One Really Looks For Your Personality
There were some surprised reactions to the Dove video I posted called “No Wonder Our Perception of Beauty is Distorted.” I guess I just assumed that most folks new that celebrity photos and magazine covers were all doctored up. I even set my 10-year-old daughter down and we watched and discussed it together. I’m not sure she completely comprehended it all, but it’s a starting point. She needs to know.
There is another more in-depth video where Dove interviewed several girls about their perceptions of themselves and what they think others see in them. One comment really hit me. A young girl stated “No one really looks for your personality”. How true that is. Listen to what these girls have to say and let me know what you think. (You will have to click on the video and let it take you to youtube to watch it. Two clicks - that’s all. It’s worth it.)
Shoes Send a Girl to School
Got a heads up from Katelyn Clapham on a simple way we can make a difference in the lives of girls in Africa:
Katelyn Clapham wrote:
Hi, wow- the post today nearly made me fall over. I sent it to all of my friends in total shock. WOW.I was hoping that you could write up a small post on a project that I have started. It is called: Shoes Send a Girl to School. http://changingthepresent.org
/drives/show/39/
This is the idea: A girl’s education is identified as the most powerful weapon against poverty and the spread of HIV/AIDS. Benefits include a decline in infant mortality rates, malnutrition, and an increase in educational enrollment for the next generation. But in rural Africa, millions of girls can’t attend school because they don’t have shoes. By raising $14 for one pair of shoes, I can’t help but wonder how many more girls we can help send to school.
Can you share this with your readers?
Take care,
Katelyn
I just bought a pair of shoes, will you?
No Wonder Our Perception Of Beauty is Distorted
My sister insisted I post the new Dove Commercial that shows the evolution of a “Supermodel”. In light of the recent Hooters and Trophy Wife threads, it’s fabulous to take such an eye-opening look at how “beauty” is created. This is an absolutely amazing video that every girl must see.
Please support Dove: www.campaignforrealbeauty.com
The Forums Are Back!
As promised, the forums have been revived. I had to do some converting to get them integrated into the new site so it has taken me longer than I planned. Not everything is converted yet, so please have patience. I’ll try to finish it by the end of next week.
All users have been converted to the new site. The passwords, however, could not be converted. If you cannot login, you will need to reset your password and enter a new one. If you have any trouble logging in, please contact me. I intend to add a few more gizmos to the forum like smileys, avatars and PM’s. Hang tight, it it will all be back soon.
To access the new forums, click in the forum link from the main menu in the upper right hand corner of the page. Enjoy!
Help an underprivileged woman
A favor to ask, and it takes less than a minute… The Breast Cancer site is having trouble getting enough people to click on their site daily to meet their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman. It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on “fund free mammograms” (pink window in the middle).
This doesn’t cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertiser use the number of daily visits to donate mammograms in exchange for advertising. Here’s the web site…pass it along to people you know. www.thebreastcancersite.com
“Trophy Wife” Is Not A Compliment
While skipping through channels in our Chicago hotel room last weekend, we came across a NutriSystem commercial. NutriSystem is some kind of weight-loss gimmick for people who don’t think a healthy diet and regular exercise will work for them. Anyway, the commercial ends with a success-story-testimonial of a woman who says “now my husband calls me his trophy wife.” 
I think it is time we women sit up and take notice of marketing and speak up when it is offensive. “Trophy Wife” is not a compliment…just take a look at the following definitions:
Contest: Guess The Next Design
Thought I’d spice things up around here with a little contest… I am currently working on 4 new Girls Can’t WHAT? designs. The first person to correctly guess any one of the four will win a free Girls Can’t WHAT? T-shirt with any character on it you choose. If no one guesses correctly, I will draw one name at random from all of those who participate in the contest.
Here are the contest rules:
1. You have until midnight on April 14th (next Saturday) to place your guess.
2. You must post your guess as a comment to this announcement and also tell me what design you would like to have on your shirt if you win (it can be a current design or you may request something for me to draw).
3. You are only allowed one guess so make it a good one!
First Female Umpire in Major League Baseball
For the first time since Pam Postema in 1989, a woman is calling the plays in the game of baseball. Ria Cortesio became the first female umpire to work a major league exhibition game last Thursday as she made calls on the bases during games between the Chicago Cubs and the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Ria had hoped to sneak into the game and blend in with the other officials, but that just didn’t happen. The game itself was rather ordinary, but several folks took notice of the new female umpire on the field. By Thursday afternoon, the sports world was buzzing with the news.
Read more
What if American Idol was a Radio Competition?
American Idol is losing it’s edge. It’s becoming more and more like a popularity contest and less and less like the talent competition it was intended to be. The American Idol women are getting an especially raw deal. I realize that American Idol is about being an “Idol” and looks do play a role in that, but it shouldn’t be the focal point. Every week when the men sing, the judges comment on their vocals. They say things like “a little pitchy”, “you were ahead of the beat a little”, and “I really like the tone of your voice in that song”. The women get a few comments on their vocals as well, but it is almost always mixed in with “great outfit tonight, “you look good in green” or “you look so much younger in that dress.” So we give the women a subliminal message that they must be skinny and cute in order to win.
I can’t help but think that if American Idol been around when Aretha Franklin or Mama Cass was getting started, would we have voted them off? What other great artists might we have missed out on because they didn’t fit the physical mold that the media has created for us? What if Season Six of American Idol was a radio competition?
WordPress - You’re Hired!
Checking my statistics, I still see a lot of hits coming in from the Joomla! forums. This is not surprising at all considering that I spent a lot of time there and posted weekly for almost a year as I developed the Girls Can’t WHAT? web site. It also helped that I had a very popular “New Site” thread that spawned a ton of compliments and suggestions. However in January of this year, I moved completely away from Joomla! and am now using WordPress to power the Girls Can’t WHAT? site. Moving my entire site from one platform to another took about 4 days. Considering I only “work” about 6-7 hours a day…well, you can do the math.
If you are not a geek the rest of this article will bore you, if you haven’t already fallen asleep at your monitor. For the geeky among us, let me walk you through my decision to switch from Joomla! to Wordpress.
Blogger Threatened Because She’s Female
You may have heard about this in the news already and I have debated about posting this for over a week now, but I just can’t ignore it anymore. Popular blogger, Kathy Sierra was the target of a personal attack and death threats on the Internet that has brought her dynamic writing to a screeching halt and has her living in fear, afraid to even go outside her own home. I can see no other reason for this attack other than she is female. The kinds of threats that she has faced both publicly in forums and in her comments and privately in her personal email are disgusting and hateful. The perpetrator(s) involved gives no reason for their hate, but continues to spew lewd commentary and post photo-chopped images of Kathy that are quite disturbing. If you want to read the full details and read some of the comments, you can visit Kathy’s site but be warned the images are graphic and the threats are highly descriptive. Is it dangerous for women to blog on the Internet?
New Sheriff Design
Last night I was impressed by a news clip on my local tv station WAND. Reporter Scot England featured Debbie Harrison on his weekly report. Debbie was recently appointed the first woman sheriff’s deputy in Shelby County, Illinois. Debbie herself was inspired to become an officer when she saw another female officer out directing traffic for the police department. Debbie is active in educating students and is often found in the schools, hopefully inspiring other girls to follow in her footsteps with a career in law enforcement. You can read more about Debbie in the Shelbyville Daily Union where she admits “I was the first female officer for the City of Rochelle and Ogle County as well.”
Isn’t That Everything Video by Danielle Peck
In case you need a little pick me up on this April Monday, check out this video by Danielle Peck…
Here are the lyrics for “Isn’t That Everything”:
300 Movie Review: Spartan Women Shown Respect
Ok - so I was dragged kicking and screaming to see the movie “300″ by my Gerard-Butler-obsessed friend Kelli. Blood-and-guts movies do not interest me, especially when the plot has anything to do with ancient history. I lose interest in these types of films quickly and most often I turn to a book or play games on my palm to pass the remainder of the time. As we showed up at the IMAX in Chicago this past weekend to see “300″, I had a book in my hand and a fully charged palm TX in my pocket. However, within the first 10 minutes of “300″ I started noticing that the Spartan women had some really good lines and the Spartan men (at least in the movie) were showing utmost respect for them. It was not your typical “women are here for the sex scenes” war movie.
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