Blog: Her Next Chapter Blog

Defining Masculinity as the Absence of Femininity: A Preschool Teacher’s Story

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By Christie Angleton— Gender performance is something I think about a lot. As a preschool teacher and PhD student – not to mention as a mom – I have a research interest in the ways kids navigate and express gender in their lives. In my experience, girls tend to have an easier time of it when they bend, or even break, gender stereotypes. My own daughter prefers Darth Vader to Disney Princesses, and no one ever bats an eye over her preferences. For the boys in my class, however, singing songs from Frozen or sporting a Princess Leia shirt tends to ruffle feathers. Read more…

Would You Like to Guest Blog for Her Next Chapter?

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Do you have a piece of writing you’d like to contribute to Her Next Chapter? I’m looking for guest bloggers to appear from time to time on the Her Next Chapter blog. All accepted posts will be shared on Facebook and tweeted. I’m excited about opening up this opportunity for members of this community to share their voices with each other!

Please read below for submission guidelines. Read more…

GIVEAWAY for “Girls, Uninterrupted: Steps for Building Stronger Girls in a Challenging World”

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I’d like to introduce my friend and colleague from across the pond, Tanith Carey. Tanith is an award-winning journalist and author who lives in London with her husband and two daughters. Tanith writes for a variety of publications across the world, including The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The New Statesman and The Huffington Post, among others. She has also written seven books. Tanith’s Amazon best-selling book, Girls, Uninterrupted, published in March 2015, looks at the steps parents can take to build stronger girls in a challenging world.

I asked Tanith for a blog post to accompany a giveaway on the Her Next Chapter Facebook page for one signed copy of her new book, and here it is. Read more…

Lori’s Book Launch at Jabberwocky Bookshop

Here is a short promotional video created from the talk my daughter Charlotte and I gave at our book launch at Jabberwocky Bookshop in Newburyport, MA, on October 19, 2014. The talk–and this video–are focused on girl empowerment through mother-daughter book clubs, as was appropriate for the book launch. I am available as a speaker for schools, libraries, bookstores, and other community organizations on this topic and others, including the effects of marketing and media on children, and the individual topics within Her Next Chapter. Those include gender stereotypes; sexism; sexualization of girls; beauty and body image issues; girl bullying: healthy relationships and avoiding abuse; LGBT & gender nonconforming girls; female leadership; and global human rights issues for girls and women. Please contact me for details, fees, and to discuss a presentation that would meet your needs and those of your audience!

Please Support SheHeroes as They Seek Funds to Launch a New Web Series for Girls!

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Given the recent debacle that we discussed at length on the Her Next Chapter Facebook page about the Barbie book (where she wants to be a computer engineer but needs boys to help her code and deal with viruses,) don’t we want better for our girls? I’m going to tell you about a way that you can help subvert these kinds of messages about girls.

Physicist and astronaut Sally Ride once said: “Young girls need to see role models in whatever careers they may choose, just so they can picture themselves doing those jobs someday. You can’t be what you can’t see.” This is precisely the philosophy of SheHeroes, a non-profit organization focused on inspiring and empowering girls, ages 8-14, to pursue non-traditional careers. Originally founded by three women from MIT, SheHeroes has an all-female team that produces web videos profiling women who are powerful leaders in their respective fields. Read more…

Blogging It Forward

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When Lisa Kaplin invited me to participate in a blog hop a few weeks ago, I had no idea what that was, but soon understood how it worked and was game to give it a try. Everyone, I’m pleased to introduce you to Lisa! Here’s her entry in the blog hop: http://smartwomeninspiredlives.com/writing-well/

Here are my thoughts on why I write and the process I use to write:

A lot of my writer friends talk about how they’ve wanted to write professionally since they were children, but that isn’t exactly true for me. I did win some writing awards and was a student that teachers encouraged to pursue writing, but I frankly never took it seriously because I did not think I could make a go of it and support myself with writing. It’s not that I didn’t believe in myself—I actually did. I just never thought of writing as a career goal. Read more…

GIVEAWAY for Bullied: What Every Parent, Teacher, and Kid Needs to Know About Ending the Cycle of Fear

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Once upon a time, bullying took place on playgrounds, on school buses, and in hallways. At the end of the day, both the bullies and the bullied went home. There is no such “home” anymore—at least in terms of a safe retreat—because social media bullies can attack their victims online at any hour of the day. Bullies today seem to have so much more power than when I was a girl. My generation’s bullying was akin to BB guns, but the Internet is more like an AK-47. Cyberbullies who squeeze the trigger feel very powerful, and they are often quite disconnected from the consequences of their actions. And of course not all bullying is cyberbullying, which gets the most media attention. Kids peck at each other like baby chicks do, and if you’ve never personally witnessed that, then you might think it’s not so bad, but chicks will peck another chick to death. Read more…

GIVEAWAY: The Good Mother Myth

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Motherhood did not arrive easily. As one of the early IVF pioneers in the 80’s, I fought tooth and nail for it. It took many years, many surgeries, many assisted reproductive technologies, and a whole lot of grit. In 1991 my daughter Charlotte was born, and she was a miracle, as all of our children are. But the truth is that I always felt I had tempted fate—in getting pregnant at all, in delivering a healthy baby after a high-risk pregnancy and difficult labor, and in almost losing her shortly after she was born…but bringing her home  from the NICU a few days later with her doctors’ blessings. Read more…

Picture Books Featuring Girls — For Children Under Six

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Happy Mother’s Day to the Her Next Chapter Facebook community!

Charlotte and I have a gift for you all, and a gift for girls all over the world. Recently I asked you all for recommendations of books for girls under 6 that feature strong female protagonists, and I was amazed at how many suggestions you all made. You really are a village to one another, and have as much to learn from each other as from me…and in the case of books for younger girls, even more so! So I thank you for the wonderful recommendations. Charlotte compiled them all, and I give them back to you in this blog post, which will be a living document on my blog on my website at www.motherdaughterbookclubs.com. If anyone has more books to add, let me know and I’ll add them. Read more…

The Amazing Impact of Mother-Daughter Book Clubs

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One of the most fulfilling and most memorable undertakings of my parenting journey was the formation of a mother-daughter book club, a collaboration with my then-eight-year-old daughter and four other mother-daughter pairs that would last for six years. We all discussed the need to counteract stereotyped and sexualized girl culture with positive messages about who girls and women really are and what they can do.Read more…

5 must-see movies for tween girls

The recent success of Brave and Frozen demonstrates that movies starring girls can not only succeed, but can also dominate at the box office. For much too long, the common belief among producers has been that female protagonists doom a movies to commercial failure because boys won’t go see it. But, good news! This idea is fast becoming urban legend! After watching many children’s movies to curate recommendations for mother-daughter book clubs, I discovered that many great movies starring girls have been there all along. Here are five of the best. Read more…

Eight Favorite Books Starring Interesting, Exciting, Daring, Adventurous Girls!

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Google is full of lists recommending girl-empowering books. Favorite female protagonists from the classics, like Pippi Longstocking, to more recent heroines, like Katniss Everdeen, abound on these lists, but I wanted to make my own after reading so many children’s and YA books to curate for recommendations in my book Her Next Chapter.  Here are a few of my favorites, and why I liked them. These all come with original discussion guides in my book, so if you’ve got a mother-daughter book club and any of these pique your interest, you’ll be all set! Or, read these books with your daughters at home and be a book club of two! Read more…

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