A couple of days ago I sat down with the list that my daughters made for me to download music to their iPods. While I can’t stop what they listen to on the radio, I can have some control over what I pay for and what ends up on their iPods. I downloaded a few to listen to before I purchased the whole list. From Ludacris: (From My Chick Bad)“Now your girls might be sick, but my girl sicker/She rides that d**k and she handles her liquor/I knock a bitch out and fight/comin out swingin like Tiger Woods’ wife…a chick so bad the whole crew want to bone her.”
And from Ke$sha: (From We R What We R) “We’re dancing like we’re dumb/our bodies go numb/we’ll be forever young…I’m just taking truth/I’m tellin you bout the s**t we do/we’re sellin’ our clothes/sleepin in cars/dressing it down/hitting on dudes.”
These words took my breath away. As a parent, I feel a bit panicked and shocked. I know these songs exist, but in my mind they were the exception. Now, I realize, they are more of the rule. Leonard Sax, an M.D. who wrote Why Gender Matters, points out that girls and boys don’t date anymore, they “hook up” at the end of the night after being out in large groups. These “hook ups” are just for sex, most often girls servicing boys without intercourse.
The songs on the radio reflect that – there is no romance, no connection. Girls to themselves and to boys are objects to be used, bodies numb to sex and to violence. As a parent, I know I have to teach my daughters discernment in the face of this much bombardment. But how? Not even the Supreme Court can define whether or not this is an infringement on women’s rights. But clearly, girls need a conversation.
There are many important messages that need to be part of this conversation. Among them is the idea that in a free society, artists create work that reflects their environment, personality, lives, beliefs and imaginations. It is their story to tell in whatever form that takes – music, dance, theater, poetry, etc. Understanding that their story isn’t your story is a big epiphany. And just as artists have the freedom to express their thoughts, it is our responsibility to accept or reject it, to set the guidelines for each family on what is acceptable for our own daughters, and then following our own personal convictions. It’s not about burning books or smashing CDs in protest, it’s about looking at art with your own eyes and values.
Our conversations about music are reminiscent of my mother’s conversation with me as a teen. My daughters and I looked at our mothers’ as un-cool, not up with the times and just old fashioned. The music my mother objected to had more to do with tone (too much screaming) and not necessarily the message.
Sometimes, time and perspective makes a difference and as adults, we can see that perspective. Kids haven’t developed that yet and maybe discernment is what we need to encourage. If we ask ourselves what would our reaction be if these songs were about a particular race or religion as they were in the days leading up to the Holocaust in pre-war Germany? Would we at least talk about it and try to get our kids to understand the concept of bigotry? Really, this is the same conversation.
I know that I am setting a role model that is different from the music the girls hear. And as a parent, I have to take solace in that. But it still worries me that our children are listening to music that demeans and degrades women, that reduces relationships to violence and random sex. While this used to be the music on the edges, it is now the music in the center. Sometimes I wonder what the motivation would be to create a different standard. What would it take for the content to shift? And, what is our role in all that? We have seen the standard change over the years in regards to a lot of behaviors that have become acceptable and not acceptable in art. While women have made a lot of progress in regards to our status in society, it seems that the music of another generation continues to dictate a place that continues to seem undesirable for women and girls. How do we encourage the conversation?
Monday, November 29, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Taking "Middle School Behavior" Out of the Workplace
At dinner the other night, I heard about how some of the girls at my daughter’s middle school were talking about another girl behind her back. The collective group didn’t like this girl and so instead of telling her to her face the behaviors they were upset with, they just talked about her. They don’t have a Facebook page, or I think they might end up with some of this naughtiness on their pages.
Seizing a teachable moment, I felt compelled to ask them to think about how the “other girl” must feel – being the subject of personal attacks by the group. They were unwilling to look at it too closely, but they did begin to see the importance of what we have talked about in Girl Scouting as being a “sister to every Girl Scout.”
When it gets to the workplace this same type of interpersonal “bullying” has been called by some management gurus as “middle school behavior.” Even though men do more of the overt bullying in the workplace, women target each other 70% of the time for the covert, behind the back kind of talking about someone which can be just as stressful and damaging in the workplace. The under the radar behavior by women to other women includes sabotage and the abuse of authority.
The secret weapon of all bullies is an enabling environment. This use of a relationship to hurt someone else is something women do without thought sometimes. If we are talking about someone with another co-worker, you can bet that the other co-worker will eventually talk about you. Thus we keep the enabling environment fertile.
To stop personal attacks, gossiping and name calling behind or (in the case of Facebook) in front of our co-workers and friends, we need to remember to practice three simple behaviors. 1) When someone talks about another in front of you – Disrupt It. Sometimes people are not being malicious and are drawn into conversations before they realize they are perpetuating a hostile environment; 2) Co-create new rules of engagement – by disrupting or challenging others to address specific issues and not personal attacks, we create new ways for all of us to interact with one another. It models a new way of behaving that is more in integrity. 3) Maintain consistent standards of behavior with everyone. Managers, directors, CEO’s, and other volunteers all are made from the same things. No one has a thicker skin or is made of unbreakable stuff. Everyone who is a target of personal attacks feels the pain of those attacks, no matter whether you feel you have power in the organization or not.
Creating a collaborative community, a place where everyone feels safe, is something I know that we all aspire to do. The world at large can sometimes be a somewhat hostile place; it would be nice to know that the places in which we volunteer, work and live would be safe places. Only you can make that so.
Seizing a teachable moment, I felt compelled to ask them to think about how the “other girl” must feel – being the subject of personal attacks by the group. They were unwilling to look at it too closely, but they did begin to see the importance of what we have talked about in Girl Scouting as being a “sister to every Girl Scout.”
When it gets to the workplace this same type of interpersonal “bullying” has been called by some management gurus as “middle school behavior.” Even though men do more of the overt bullying in the workplace, women target each other 70% of the time for the covert, behind the back kind of talking about someone which can be just as stressful and damaging in the workplace. The under the radar behavior by women to other women includes sabotage and the abuse of authority.
The secret weapon of all bullies is an enabling environment. This use of a relationship to hurt someone else is something women do without thought sometimes. If we are talking about someone with another co-worker, you can bet that the other co-worker will eventually talk about you. Thus we keep the enabling environment fertile.
To stop personal attacks, gossiping and name calling behind or (in the case of Facebook) in front of our co-workers and friends, we need to remember to practice three simple behaviors. 1) When someone talks about another in front of you – Disrupt It. Sometimes people are not being malicious and are drawn into conversations before they realize they are perpetuating a hostile environment; 2) Co-create new rules of engagement – by disrupting or challenging others to address specific issues and not personal attacks, we create new ways for all of us to interact with one another. It models a new way of behaving that is more in integrity. 3) Maintain consistent standards of behavior with everyone. Managers, directors, CEO’s, and other volunteers all are made from the same things. No one has a thicker skin or is made of unbreakable stuff. Everyone who is a target of personal attacks feels the pain of those attacks, no matter whether you feel you have power in the organization or not.
Creating a collaborative community, a place where everyone feels safe, is something I know that we all aspire to do. The world at large can sometimes be a somewhat hostile place; it would be nice to know that the places in which we volunteer, work and live would be safe places. Only you can make that so.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
The Edge of Adolescence
The Edge of Adolescence
“For over a century, the edge of adolescence has been identified as a time of heightened psychological risk for girls. Girls at this time have been observed to lose their vitality, their resilience, their immunity to depression, their sense of themselves and their character.”
Lyn Mikel Brown and Carol Gilligan: Meeting at the Crossroads
Last week my oldest daughter slid down hill. It started with finding out that she was occasionally cutting (“ditching”) her first class in the morning. This was discovered when someone caught her and a friend off campus during that school hour. I could make a case for middle schoolers not being in school with high school students – particularly in the sixth grade, when all of this newfound freedom is dizzying. But I will save that for another day.
It ended on Friday afternoon with a phone call from the Vice Principal telling me she had been suspended for calling another girl a bad name, the same girl she was cutting school with the weeks and months before. My daughter has been most of the last few years, quiet, introspective. Prior to the volume of homework she has had this year, she read voraciously – mostly long novels with big stories. Her friends were three sometimes four girls who formed this bond early in the school year. A few falling outs during the year were nothing like what happened on Friday morning. This small group of friends imploded, leaving all of them with suspensions and I am sure some hurt feelings.
Girls – we hear it from principals all the time – take up a lot of school discipline time. They fight over friendships; their breakups with their friends are painful and cruel and maybe last a day or two. They talk about each other, they cast aside friends they pledged their devotion to just the week before. One minute they are in love with life and the next they are painfully sullen. My younger daughter, when happy, can bring light and joy into a room, when she is angry, she can suck the life out of a place.
As a mother, I was stunned by the turn of events in just a week. I knew that she had been struggling with the class, but never in my wildest dreams thought she was skipping the class. For one, I thought the hallways at school were patrolled better than that. The suspension took my breath away for a brief moment after a week of bad news and head scratching. And yet, as I thought about it, my eldest has found herself more of a follower than a leader. Even though she says she knows everything she needs to know about leadership (in response to why she doesn’t need to be in Girl Scouts anymore), she has proven to me this week that I need to get her back involved – and find her some additional adults with whom she can connect.
After I righted myself, I asked her to write me an essay about friendships – what she looks for in a friend, what she feels like when she is friended and what it feels like inside when she is a friend to herself. Her answers weren’t that introspective; in fact, they were very behavioral, which caused me to ask some follow up questions. We talked about her inner compass. Did she feel it? Did she listen to that inner voice? When her friend wanted to leave class, did she hear that voice?
When we were talking I realized that she really didn’t have the ability to override the friends’ voices. She may have the moral and ethical reasoning, but that voice, that inner compass, was being drowned out by peers. I shared with her a couple of times I wished as a girl, that either my mom stepped in or I invited her in. I told her she may not always know what to do – but I wondered if she might want to think about asking me to help sometimes. At least, inviting me into those moments when she is hearing the voice, at least a nudge from the inner compass, but really feels pulled in another direction.
It seemed to shift something for her. Maybe some weight she has been carrying. I reminded her that 12 is not really that big, that even though she feels “old” she is not very. I got the sense that this was somewhat of a relief to her.
As a mom and a Girl Scout – I know that Lyn Mikel Brown and Carol Gilligan are right. This edge of adolescence is a challenging time. It is a time when girls need Girl Scouts – a time when moms also need Girl Scouts – as we shepherd our daughters through this rocky road of adolescence.
“For over a century, the edge of adolescence has been identified as a time of heightened psychological risk for girls. Girls at this time have been observed to lose their vitality, their resilience, their immunity to depression, their sense of themselves and their character.”
Lyn Mikel Brown and Carol Gilligan: Meeting at the Crossroads
Last week my oldest daughter slid down hill. It started with finding out that she was occasionally cutting (“ditching”) her first class in the morning. This was discovered when someone caught her and a friend off campus during that school hour. I could make a case for middle schoolers not being in school with high school students – particularly in the sixth grade, when all of this newfound freedom is dizzying. But I will save that for another day.
It ended on Friday afternoon with a phone call from the Vice Principal telling me she had been suspended for calling another girl a bad name, the same girl she was cutting school with the weeks and months before. My daughter has been most of the last few years, quiet, introspective. Prior to the volume of homework she has had this year, she read voraciously – mostly long novels with big stories. Her friends were three sometimes four girls who formed this bond early in the school year. A few falling outs during the year were nothing like what happened on Friday morning. This small group of friends imploded, leaving all of them with suspensions and I am sure some hurt feelings.
Girls – we hear it from principals all the time – take up a lot of school discipline time. They fight over friendships; their breakups with their friends are painful and cruel and maybe last a day or two. They talk about each other, they cast aside friends they pledged their devotion to just the week before. One minute they are in love with life and the next they are painfully sullen. My younger daughter, when happy, can bring light and joy into a room, when she is angry, she can suck the life out of a place.
As a mother, I was stunned by the turn of events in just a week. I knew that she had been struggling with the class, but never in my wildest dreams thought she was skipping the class. For one, I thought the hallways at school were patrolled better than that. The suspension took my breath away for a brief moment after a week of bad news and head scratching. And yet, as I thought about it, my eldest has found herself more of a follower than a leader. Even though she says she knows everything she needs to know about leadership (in response to why she doesn’t need to be in Girl Scouts anymore), she has proven to me this week that I need to get her back involved – and find her some additional adults with whom she can connect.
After I righted myself, I asked her to write me an essay about friendships – what she looks for in a friend, what she feels like when she is friended and what it feels like inside when she is a friend to herself. Her answers weren’t that introspective; in fact, they were very behavioral, which caused me to ask some follow up questions. We talked about her inner compass. Did she feel it? Did she listen to that inner voice? When her friend wanted to leave class, did she hear that voice?
When we were talking I realized that she really didn’t have the ability to override the friends’ voices. She may have the moral and ethical reasoning, but that voice, that inner compass, was being drowned out by peers. I shared with her a couple of times I wished as a girl, that either my mom stepped in or I invited her in. I told her she may not always know what to do – but I wondered if she might want to think about asking me to help sometimes. At least, inviting me into those moments when she is hearing the voice, at least a nudge from the inner compass, but really feels pulled in another direction.
It seemed to shift something for her. Maybe some weight she has been carrying. I reminded her that 12 is not really that big, that even though she feels “old” she is not very. I got the sense that this was somewhat of a relief to her.
As a mom and a Girl Scout – I know that Lyn Mikel Brown and Carol Gilligan are right. This edge of adolescence is a challenging time. It is a time when girls need Girl Scouts – a time when moms also need Girl Scouts – as we shepherd our daughters through this rocky road of adolescence.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Post Realignment Musings: Or the Tectonic Plates of Culture Change
An interesting thought: for an organization that’s constituency is always in a state of transformation, how “risk averse” some of the Girl Scouts’ volunteer constituency has been. Courageous girls wake up one day and their clothes don’t fit, their hair looks odd and now they have braces. Days later they feel funny, maybe a little bloated and, well, you know. Yet they still have to go out and face the world, go to school, take those changes in stride, and keep moving forward. We should all take a page from that book.
At our recent annual meeting, held at an historic hotel in Oklahoma City, we hosted almost 200 Girl Scout delegates from all over our 39 counties in central and western Oklahoma. For those of you not in Girl Scouts, we take the democratic process very seriously. Delegates are elected in Service Units across the Council’s territory to represent their area at the annual meeting.
Annual meetings are an opportunity for an organization to share with its stakeholders the financial health of the organization, to make any changes to the by-laws or other corporate documents of the organization, to give a report on how well the organization is fulfilling its mission, to honor retiring board members and other stakeholders who have helped the organization fulfill its mission, to elect the new board and to share a vision going forward into the new year. In the not for profit world, organizations are usually required by their by-laws to conduct this annual business meeting.
In the past, for many Girl Scout Councils, the annual meeting was an opportunity for volunteers who are troop leaders to come together to share stories, to elect the new board and to have an annual awards event. The “business” of the annual meeting may have taken a back seat to operational issues.
To reach more girls with the leadership message of Girl Scouts, we have to address the business of Girl Scouting. Some of our evaluations of the annual meeting; reflected this change: “This was the best meeting I have attended so far. I am pleased to see us in a “power” spot in the city.” As many as 3 delegates to one scored this annual meeting better than any they had ever attended. So we are changing this 100 year old organization into a more dynamic, vibrant, successful and nimble one, moving at the speed and the courage of girls.
Yet, it strikes me as odd that some of the volunteers who have been troop leaders for years seem particularly risk averse. They get upset when talking about changes and making shifts. They often say, “but it’s all about the girls.” I wonder, what girls are they talking about?
Some of the comments left on evaluations of our annual meeting were of this vein. In speaking about a long time supporter and donor to the Girl Scouts who received a well-deserved award, some of the comments were similar to this one submitted: “What service unit are they from? What troop number, how many girls are in their troop? What a joke! Thank God us regular folks love the Girls – because to us Girl Scouts is about them! The Girls!”
This comment referred to our discussion on the importance of reaching more girls with Girl Scouts: “Why are girls referred to as market shares? They are GIRLS!” Others were like this comment about the year-end financial report that lists where all of our money was spent: “I would like to see what areas the money is being spent – not necessarily a budget.”
All the girls I know are continually changing and re-inventing themselves. The speed of their transformational shifts astound me as a mother, friend, aunt, neighbor and acquaintance. I try not to be too shocked when I see a girl sporting a new way of being than she was a mere few weeks earlier. I support her changes; I revel in her marvelous ability to land on her feet, to adapt, to be nimble.
If only some of the folks who say, “It’s all about the girls” were really in touch with the girls and their ever-transforming needs, they might see the great changes being made in Girl Scouts today a whole lot differently!
At our recent annual meeting, held at an historic hotel in Oklahoma City, we hosted almost 200 Girl Scout delegates from all over our 39 counties in central and western Oklahoma. For those of you not in Girl Scouts, we take the democratic process very seriously. Delegates are elected in Service Units across the Council’s territory to represent their area at the annual meeting.
Annual meetings are an opportunity for an organization to share with its stakeholders the financial health of the organization, to make any changes to the by-laws or other corporate documents of the organization, to give a report on how well the organization is fulfilling its mission, to honor retiring board members and other stakeholders who have helped the organization fulfill its mission, to elect the new board and to share a vision going forward into the new year. In the not for profit world, organizations are usually required by their by-laws to conduct this annual business meeting.
In the past, for many Girl Scout Councils, the annual meeting was an opportunity for volunteers who are troop leaders to come together to share stories, to elect the new board and to have an annual awards event. The “business” of the annual meeting may have taken a back seat to operational issues.
To reach more girls with the leadership message of Girl Scouts, we have to address the business of Girl Scouting. Some of our evaluations of the annual meeting; reflected this change: “This was the best meeting I have attended so far. I am pleased to see us in a “power” spot in the city.” As many as 3 delegates to one scored this annual meeting better than any they had ever attended. So we are changing this 100 year old organization into a more dynamic, vibrant, successful and nimble one, moving at the speed and the courage of girls.
Yet, it strikes me as odd that some of the volunteers who have been troop leaders for years seem particularly risk averse. They get upset when talking about changes and making shifts. They often say, “but it’s all about the girls.” I wonder, what girls are they talking about?
Some of the comments left on evaluations of our annual meeting were of this vein. In speaking about a long time supporter and donor to the Girl Scouts who received a well-deserved award, some of the comments were similar to this one submitted: “What service unit are they from? What troop number, how many girls are in their troop? What a joke! Thank God us regular folks love the Girls – because to us Girl Scouts is about them! The Girls!”
This comment referred to our discussion on the importance of reaching more girls with Girl Scouts: “Why are girls referred to as market shares? They are GIRLS!” Others were like this comment about the year-end financial report that lists where all of our money was spent: “I would like to see what areas the money is being spent – not necessarily a budget.”
All the girls I know are continually changing and re-inventing themselves. The speed of their transformational shifts astound me as a mother, friend, aunt, neighbor and acquaintance. I try not to be too shocked when I see a girl sporting a new way of being than she was a mere few weeks earlier. I support her changes; I revel in her marvelous ability to land on her feet, to adapt, to be nimble.
If only some of the folks who say, “It’s all about the girls” were really in touch with the girls and their ever-transforming needs, they might see the great changes being made in Girl Scouts today a whole lot differently!
No Judgment, Just Prayer
It was 4am when I drove up to the shelter to pick her up. Four in the morning, not unlike the countless numbers of times her husband would wake her in the night to abuse her and not unlike the last time when she awoke to the sound of the gun being cocked and felt the cold metal on her face. How she managed to talk him out of killing her that night, I can only guess because she never said, she just cried for the first week I saw her in the shelter.
She’d been there a month and sometimes she smiled now, especially with her two toddlers who also seemed to be feeling the cloud of abuse lifting, even in the close and crowded conditions of the battered women’s shelter. Then her demeanor seemed to change, she was so quiet all the time, my heart hurt for her through her shyness. Something was wrong and finally she told me, she was pregnant. The last year had been a blur of rape and abuse by her husband, who was stationed at the local military base. He had seen his father abuse his mother all his young life, culminating in his shooting her in front of him, his young son.
This morning we were heading to Wichita, a decision she agonized over for many days. She got in the car and we headed down the Kansas Turnpike. She sobbed quietly in the dark. In my early twenties, I could not comprehend all that she was going through. I could not even imagine the hell in which she had been living.
Dr. Tiller’s office was on Kellogg. We had to arrive early and the process would take most of the day. I knew this was a very, very sad day for her. I was only a witness to her pain, trying to keep her grounded in the world so that there might be a tomorrow for her and her young boys.
My religious upbringing included the idea that only God could judge us – no man could cast judgment on another (lest he be judged). At the kitchen table of my New York born and bred black Irish grandmother I learned a mixture of love, spirituality and common sense. She lit candles in church for the “poor souls in purgatory.” She loved the God she worshipped and I think believed that her praying for those who made mistakes was what we were meant to do. No judgment, just prayer.
Scott Roeder judged another and took his life. Now I struggle to not judge his actions as he had judged another. George Tiller was in church. His family, his God, his pastor, did not judge him.
At the end of a very long day we drove back to Manhattan while she sobbed sometime uncontrollably and I had to pull over and hold her, to the battered women’s shelter. When we got in the door she hugged her sons so tightly, their lives, just beginning again.
She’d been there a month and sometimes she smiled now, especially with her two toddlers who also seemed to be feeling the cloud of abuse lifting, even in the close and crowded conditions of the battered women’s shelter. Then her demeanor seemed to change, she was so quiet all the time, my heart hurt for her through her shyness. Something was wrong and finally she told me, she was pregnant. The last year had been a blur of rape and abuse by her husband, who was stationed at the local military base. He had seen his father abuse his mother all his young life, culminating in his shooting her in front of him, his young son.
This morning we were heading to Wichita, a decision she agonized over for many days. She got in the car and we headed down the Kansas Turnpike. She sobbed quietly in the dark. In my early twenties, I could not comprehend all that she was going through. I could not even imagine the hell in which she had been living.
Dr. Tiller’s office was on Kellogg. We had to arrive early and the process would take most of the day. I knew this was a very, very sad day for her. I was only a witness to her pain, trying to keep her grounded in the world so that there might be a tomorrow for her and her young boys.
My religious upbringing included the idea that only God could judge us – no man could cast judgment on another (lest he be judged). At the kitchen table of my New York born and bred black Irish grandmother I learned a mixture of love, spirituality and common sense. She lit candles in church for the “poor souls in purgatory.” She loved the God she worshipped and I think believed that her praying for those who made mistakes was what we were meant to do. No judgment, just prayer.
Scott Roeder judged another and took his life. Now I struggle to not judge his actions as he had judged another. George Tiller was in church. His family, his God, his pastor, did not judge him.
At the end of a very long day we drove back to Manhattan while she sobbed sometime uncontrollably and I had to pull over and hold her, to the battered women’s shelter. When we got in the door she hugged her sons so tightly, their lives, just beginning again.
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