Well said, Icorman. If you think that little girls can look slutty, no matter what they where, then I'd say you're the one with the problem. One day, I'd like women and girls to enjoy wearing clothes without having our morality come into question- you know, like men and boys do. And I'll go a step further- all those people, even Broadsheeter feminists, who love to say how tomboyish they were and how their daughters wouldn't be caught dead wearing Bonne Bell- it's time you examined your deep seated misogyny. Girls don't become tainted by wanting to imitate women. And remember that some sub-cultures makeup is a bigger deal- respect that when you start thinking of little girls as looking like cheap whores. There might even be a little classism and racism mixed in with your womanly self hatred.

As another poster observed, many of these studies that Anonymous posters recite with so much authority and so little citation, the conclusions are so full of holes and baseless assumptions that they are meaningless. Girls like dolls and makeup, thus they like 'empathy' toys. Boys like trucks, thus they like 'thing' toys (?????). This usually translates, roughly, to girls and women are more touchy feely and frankly dumber; boys and men are better at math and are active and curious. And they wonder why we roll our eyes. If there's something women are purported to be better at, it has to be contorted into something that is all about nurture and child care, as if love and taking care of people cancels out invention and innovation and risk taking.

Barbie has cars, trucks, fishing poles, and motorcycles. Girls play with these. Boys play with dolls, but they call them by other names. As another poster pointed out- make up itself is a tool, and design is a big part of it. Cooking is chemistry. Basket weaving can be art. Women and girls have come at it all differently probably since we've all been around, inventing and innovating and creating in anonimity.

The genders have their own, widely overlapping cultures. Fine. But don't wonder why us feminists grow weary of crazy gender conclusions that always pigeohole everything girls are interested in as non- spatial, non-active, incurious and uncompetitive just because its pink or involves talking.

Most inventors are anonymous. The name of whoever invented the oven is lost to pre-history. Who invented string? Who invented the diaper? Who invented the tortilla?

The male chef phenomenon is the perfect example of how female creativity has not been valued or recognized historically. Un-or low paid, unknown female cooks, mothers and wives and servants never became famous chefs although it was probably women who developed most national cuisines. Thankfully, that's changing as the world realizes that a woman can actually be a great cook and make good money at it too. Art is another area where sexism is obvious: if you were a male genius apprenticed to a famous painter and later succesful you went down in history. Female geniuses had to be content with weaving, sewing, perhaps more practical expressions of artistry. Yet a certain kind of man STILL loves to claim that women lack some sort of spatial awareness, creativity, or passion. Whatever- they have a lot of ways of saying it. At least they've more or less stopped saying it about education itself. The point: women's and girl's 'spatial awareness' and love of 'thing toys' has been right under people's noses all along. They just dismiss it because it's 'pink'.

I'm not buying it that women spend 80% of all consumer dollars but if they do, it's probably because of grocery shopping, laundry, diaper and household expenses. Recently in TIME magazine, there was an article on how there is a widespread perception that women spend more on themselves than men, when actually men outspend women by far. In all the purchase categories listed (groceries weren't) women only outspent men in personal care products. Men spend WAY more on electronics, cars and in more in every other category.

Put that in your pipe and smke it. And men probably spend way more on tobacco and liquor too.

I have a daughter in elementary school and I can report that ten year old bodies vary crazily- some are obviously in the middle of puberty, others are very childlike still. But a 10 year old is a ten year old, worthy and deserving of collective adult protection no matter how she dresses or acts. In any case, a man who opportunistically grabs sex from even an ersatz 16 year old in the park is a menace and should be locked up. It's not too much for society to ask a man to care enough about the person on the other end of his penis that he might ask himself if sex with her would be at least ethical and safe, if not legal.

75% of Americans DID read a book last year. I am no historian, but I'm guessing that doesn't represent any overall drop in reading, since most of us are also doing a TON of reading on-line. I read about 4 books a month, and run with a bookish tribe, but I've thought in my travels that educated Americans are a very well read crowd compared to many other nationalities.

Also this went by without comment: women read almost twice as many books as men do.