Dr. Rebecca Hains

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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…

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Ponies, 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…

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“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…

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Pretty 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…

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My 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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