Save It for Later Saturday: Empowering Your Princess

In Save It for Later Saturday you’re getting a brief run-down of the stand-outs from my week's "Read Later" list.  This week, like last week, please replace the word Saturday with Monday.  I thought about skipping my weekly recap all together due to its lateness.  However, my penchant for perseverance will not allow it to be.  Reality, though, is an unavoidable nuisance, and I must tend to other Monday duties.  So this week’s Save It for Later Saturday is brief.

I wouldn’t call myself a feminist of the stereotypical kind, but I am very passionate about female empowerment.  When I came across this article shared by @DrPriceMitchell, I knew it would be one I would include in this week’s review.  In 10 Wonderful Quotes from Women, Dennis E. Coats, Ph.D. give us his favorite quotes from famous females after acknowledging that, “Women raised the family. Men went out into the world, got educated and went to work. And so it has been mostly the voices of men that were recorded throughout history.” I was pleased to see included in his list a quote from one of my favorite authors, Anaïs Nin: 

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” 

One of the reasons I began Sperk* is because I saw blogging on a list of 100 ways to be a feminist.  Blogging takes courage.  No one knows this better than my fellow bloggers.  Let’s take it a step further and begin quoting each other.  Maybe one day it will be written that it has been mostly the voices of women that were recorded throughout history.

Continuing to focus on the topic of feminism, I bring you Princess debate part two: Peggy Orenstein on culture, gender, and parenting from Washington Post reporter Janice D'Arcy. D'Arcy interviews Peggy Orenstein, author Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girly-Girl Culture, which was released in paperback last week.  In the article, Orenstein reflects on the differences between girls and boys, the trouble with gender specific marketing (including the LEGO Friends controversy), and shares her insight about allowing ourselves to be true to our own visions for our daughters. 

In Dear Middle School Girl, Shannon Torrence uses wit and empathy to challenge girls to look within to become person who is being stirred by the voice inside:

Listen to and trust your own inner voice.  Act accordingly.  Do not try to be someone you are not.  Do not for a second think that anyone else is any better or cooler or more interesting than you are.  No one is perfect, but everyone has something wonderful to offer this world.  The point is not to be the coolest, most attractive, best-dressed kid in school; it’s to be a kind, thoughtful, responsible and compassionate human being.

Dear Middle School Girl is a great read filled with brilliant reminders not only for our daughters, but also for us as we navigate parenting through the middle school years.  I am thrilled to have discovered at Michelle in the Middle which was shared by Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms on that most powerful tool for the dissemination of information, Twitter.

See you next Saturday.

photo credit: Gabriela Camerotti via photopin cc