Girls, castles, etc.

"While watching children's entertainment with her young daughter, Geena Davis was astounded by the dearth of female characters. Fueled to take action, she commissioned the largest research project on gender in film and television ever undertaken, conducted by Dr. Stacy Smith at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. The research confirmed the disparity she observed: in family films, there is only one female character for every three male characters. In group scenes, only 17% of the characters are female. The repetitive viewing patterns of children ensure that these negative stereotypes are ingrained and imprinted over and over."

-- http://www.seejane.org/about/

"There was a third child. He was really smart. He asked if he could knock her building down. She, beneficent ruler of all pre-circle-time castle construction, said yes… but only after she was done building it and said it was OK. They worked out a plan together and eventually he started building things with her and they would both knock the thing down with unadulterated joy. You can’t make this stuff up."

--http://oddlyclad.tumblr.com/post/51530117283/the-problem-with-boys-will-be-boys

from http://apocketful.com/

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"Collaboration can bring greater rewards than competition."

--http://apocketful.com/2013/05/15/strudelshow/

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"We can’t close ourselves off from other people’s weird methods or we lose the opportunity to learn from something outside our own box."

--http://apocketful.com/2013/04/13/building-castles-in-the-sand/