[cempaka]

As a parent of two young children confronting many of the same issues and questions I really appreciate your comment. One part I might quibble with is that I'm not sure the messages girls are getting will really prove all that much more helpful in the long run. As an example, for the longest time, Taylor Swift's music would just go in one ear and out the other for me, as it always just seemed like the most straightforward, bland, inoffensive pop. I finally took a closer look when my kids started getting interested after hearing about her on the playground. I was amazed at how consistently she strikes this tone of affected victimhood -- this sort of self-contradictory pose of "I'm so over you I wrote a whole song about it."

Also, it's much more disproportionately girls who are rejecting their assigned gender in early adolescence. I think I agree with the common take that this is often a rejection of pornified culture and the premature and hyper-sexualization of young girls, but there also seems to be something hollow and missing in the ostensibly more well meaning "girl power" role models.