Boys like to Cook Too.

  

 "When Pope saw her little brother, Gavyn, trying to cook a tortilla on top of a light bulb in a lamp, she decided he needed an oven of his own. ("I honestly do not know where he got that idea," she says of the lightbulb-cooking.) But the Easy-Bake, she says, is too cutesy. “Boys are not featured in packaging or promotional materials,” she says in her petition. “And the oven comes in gender-specific hues: purple and pink. I feel that this sends a clear message: women cook, men work ... I want my brother to know that it's not ‘wrong’ for him to want to be a chef.”"

More Here

Underrepresentation on Screens

Mother Jones  has created some helpful visualizations of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media's new report (PDF) detailing the stereotypes, barriers, and straight-up exploitation that still define how badly women and girls are treated on screen.

A Devastating Account of what Women in Games have to Deal with in 2012

Over the past 24 hours or so, a number of women working in the game industry (and some male colleagues) have taken to Twitter to share their stories via the hashtag #1reasonwhy.

An overview at Kotaku

How many female characters do you see?

The Geena Davis Institute on Gender Media Research is still out there working to ensure that a balanced representation of female and male characters are depicted in children's media.

"The more hours of television a girl watches, the fewer options she thinks she has in life. So, we're clearly not showing enough opportunities for girls, showing female characters doing and achieving things and being in leadership positions."

Swedish Toy Catalogs are the Best.

Swedish Toy Catalogs have been mixing up traditional gender roles in their imagery:

"With the new gender thinking, there is nothing that is right or wrong. It's not a boy or a girl thing, it's a toy for children," Top Toy director of sales Jan Nyberg told TT news agency.

Top Toy has produced catalogues in Denmark and Sweden for both Toys R Us and BR. Though the catalogues' page layouts are the same in both countries, the gender of the pictured kids is reversed in the Swedish edition. 

I know it would cost me way more than I can afford to buy all my Christmas toys from Sweden and send them here... but I'm tempted.

Doha Tribeca and TEDx Teusaquillo

Hey Everyone,

I'm hoping I'll get you all some meaty analysis and ranting this holiday season, but as you may well know I've been on a bit of a World Tour of talking about things. I just returned from the Doha Tribeca Film Festival where I spoke about Transmedia Storytelling and McCarren Park, and even more interestingly more than a dozen female directors and producers showed some really incredible work.

 

TEDxTeusaquillo from TEDxTeusaquillo on Vimeo.

While there are more than enough things you should be looking at in there, especially this movie, I'm diving into my next presentation, my very own TEDx talk at TEDx Teusaquillo in Bogotá, Colombia on December 11.

The theme is Imaginadores and I'll be speaking about how imagination and creative collaboration have given me not only opportunities in the creative arts, but how those creative communities taught me how to be a functioning adult. I hope to be able to do the topic justice and am really excited about the incredible lineup of speakers who will be presenting with me on the day.

How 'Twilight' Made the Movie Business Respect Girl Power

"It's actually remarkable what the 'Twilight' franchise was able to do for girl power," Jeff Bock, a box office analyst with Exhibitor Relations, told TheWrap. "Before this people didn't know if girls could carry a franchise like 'Star Wars' or 'Harry Potter.' It really did change the paradigm and perceptions about what people will go see."

Read the Full Story at The Wrap