school

Last week, I looked at how Malinda Lo and Marie Lu, adult Asian-American authors, wrote race and gender into their worlds. In this post, let's look at how a NYC Asian high school student writes race and gender in his dystopia.

Fifteen-year-old Isamu Fukui wrote Truancy while attending Stuyvesant High School, one of New York City's most competitive and demanding public high schools. In many ways, the book reads as a critique of the public school system.

Studies on hard-wired sex differences suggest that even Barbie, whose careers have ranged from astronaut to computer engineer, struggles in the science. Why? Because she's a woman.

Yet according to a recent CBC radio story on the "man brain/ woman brain" debate, some psychologists believe that these "studies" lead to unhealthy stereotyping and self-fulfilling prophesies.

Well, it's time to go back to school again. And you know how I know? Because of television commercials, which give me all the information I need on what it takes to be a cool kid these days. (Hint: channel your favorite High School Musical Version of Glee character, then press fast forward.)

Here's something I learned today: Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female physician in the U.S., gave a series of lectures in 1859 that emphasized the importance of physical activity in the lives of girls-going so far as to define the first law of life as the law of exercise. Blackwell argued that a society that neglects that activity of girls-or, as the case may be, provides obstacles to it-denies girls "both happiness and life well lived."

It's 150 years later, and still, the freedom of American girls and women to live active, strong, healthy lives is still not on par with their male counterparts. Luckily, we have another strong voice that is taking on Blackwell's legacy by taking the physicality of females seriously -- and without body-size hate.