Blogs Etc From The Last Few Days

Here's a brief round-up of some of the most interesting blogs/online news posts I've come across relating to gender equality and gender based violence. 

Firstly If Peanut Was A Girl is a thoughtful parents discussion of raising a child in a world that demands to gender them even before birth. I must follow up on the book recommendation of "Ronia: The Robber's Daughter", and I'm partial to this post having been frequently refered to as Pippi Longstockings as a child. It's also worth checking out A Mighty Girl if you're looking for resources that paint a less gender stereotype picture. 

Then I stumbled across this article in Time about a recent study by scientists at Harvard. They've found that women who experience childhood abuse (before the age of 12) are much more likely than average to have a child with an autistic spectrum disorder. I find it interesting that this is tangible evidence that experiences of abuse have lifelong effects on survivors - and, in a way, effects on others a long time after. 

Thirdly *Trigger Warning* this op-ed in the New York Times by Emily Yellin. She tells how her own story that parallels what happened in Steubenville recently. Her touching account of how it took time for her to come to terms with what happen, along with a host of unhelpful responses, is a call for action for greater education on these issues amongst teenagers. Why should any high-schooler be able to say they didn't know rape was wrong?

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