Dr. Rebecca Hains
Author, professor and speaker | Children's media culture, media literacy, and media criticism
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School suspends teen boy for carrying purse. Why???
For several weeks, an eighth-grade boy outside of Kansas City has been expressing his individuality by carrying a floral-print Vera Bradley purse. But yesterday, his assistant principal demanded he remove it. The boy refused, and he was immediately suspended from…
Read MorePonies, petitions, and girl power: This week’s roundup
Last week, I kept busy working on the My Little Pony petition, asking Hasbro to stop promoting superficial stereotypes of girls. Change.org invited me to contribute a guest post to their web site about the petition. It’s called “I Won’t…
Read More“Chess for Girls,” or how Saturday Night Live predicted the future.
Saturday Night Live’s fake commercial, “Chess for Girls” [transcript], was hilarious in 1997–but today, it strikes awfully close to home. An ultra-pink chess set that’s “not too hard, just pretty and fun”–with prancing ponies and a long-haired queen in a…
Read MorePretty Princess Problems: The Case of Princess Celestia
My family and I were shopping for a child’s birthday present this weekend when we came upon the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic section at a local Target store. As I’ve discussed previously, MLP:FIM is an unusually good children’s…
Read MoreMy Little Pony: Even better than The Powerpuff Girls
A children’s television cartoon that appeals to boys and girls, men and women, is a rarity. The Powerpuff Girls exemplified this. In 1998, it stunned the television industry by crossing demographic barriers. The combination of extreme cuteness and extreme strength…
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Dr. Rebecca Hains 
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