oh, jeeze. i guess i lied.

"By the logic presented here, any movie of any type in which a woman is portrayed as being a housewife should be expunged."

no. i never said this, and i do not agree. my point was made in comment # 6, re: "earning". you're putting words in my mouth to make yourself look smart.

however, i will admit to having learned my lesson. never again will i attempt to bring up feminist issues on boingboing! god forbid! clearly this is the wrong place for my craaaaazy theories!

i don't really care to continue this, the smartest flamewar evar, much longer.

all i want to say is, i'm grateful that i am legally allowed to work places my grandmother was not 50 years ago, and i hope that in 50 years, my granddaughter will be making as much money as her male coworkers.

stepping out....*now*. cheers, all.

ne2d,

i fully agree with you. who doesn't hope that in the future we will only continue to get more and more progressive?

however, i don't buy the argument that just because feminism (or civil rights, or human rights, or what have you) is going to advance in the future, acknowledging how much it has advanced since the past is somehow censorship. i don't ever believe that literature from the past should be erased. but i do believe that it should be taken in context with current ideas.

if i disagree with something held to be true in the past (and i disagree with a hell of a lot of historical mindsets--and several current, for that matter) i'm going to point it out. i'm not going to censor it just because i don't like it, but i am going to bring attention to it.

oh yes, ne2d. that's exactly what i meant. clearly, i am that rare breed of boingboing reader who condones book burning. *eyeroll* if you want to flame me for pointing out a gross 1960's mindset(on topic, no less!), go right ahead. just know that you're way off base.

amendment: i'm not saying i wouldn't read scarry to a child. i certainly would, because i love him overall, and i would use the original ones too. i'm not a fan of censorship, and i hope that if and when i ever have kids i'll be intelligent and flexible enough to have those exact conversations with them. i am saying, though, that there's more to it than just "pretty stewardess".

sure, it would be possible to have that conversation. however, the implication that husbands (or money earners, if you prefer) can grant or withhold things depending on how satisfactory they consider the housework done is not something i want to teach any young child.

coincidentally, the company i work for just got a richard scarry license, and i am currently at work and (procrastinating on, obviously) working on some designs featuring his work.

while it is definitely sad to lose things like "jumping gentleman", and while i LOVED scarry when i was a kid, some of the antiquated values make me want to throw up a little. lines such as "Grocer Cat bought a new dress for Mommy. She earned it by taking such good care of the house" aren't exactly the kind of thing i would want to teach my kids to value...

i agree with xeni. when do you ever hear that? the forgiveness is far more remarkable, i think. thanks for reporting on this, it's amazing to hear that not everyone in the world immediately thinks of lawsuits and revenge.

i've seen him speak, and afterwards he had a q&a session. not a signing per se, but he does interact with his audience (at least, he did in my case). highly recommended, especially if you've read his books.

or the arrow in the fed ex logo, or the "31" in the new baskin robbins logo...this kind of stuff is genius.