Archive for March, 2009
Whitney, An America's Next Top Model Winner
It’s absolutely appalling that 25% of young women questioned in an Oxygen TV poll reported that they would rather be awarded first prize on America’s Next Top Model than be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize! A total of 50% said they would happily marry an ugly man if he was rich!
I thought this was incredible too, speaking to female competition: “More that 25 percent said they’d make their best friend fat for life if it meant they could be thin.”
What is going on with our female population? Is anyone paying attention? Where are our priorities?
Where have the parents, teachers, and mentors that should be influencing and encouraging
Doris Lessing, Nobel Prize in Literature 2007
young females gone? Has the media completely overpowered them? Young women are constantly being bombarded with frivolous ideals and goals that are only short term. Beauty is fine, but the type of beauty that is being promoted won’t last. Eventually we all get older despite that wrinkle cream.
What will happen to girls with this mindset when they hit 40 and realize that their first prize on America’s Next Top Model does not qualify as job experience? It would be very sad if one day they wake up and realize they are unhappy in their marriage since they only married for money, but they can’t escape… they are entirely dependent. Will they turn to plastic surgery? Become alcoholics? Commit suicide?
No! Something needs to be done now to prevent this absurd youth consciousness. I am asking for your help. What ideas do you have? How can you reach out to young women in your community to turn this around? And asking you to cast your vote in the comments: America’s Next Top Model or Nobel Prize, which do you choose?
-Jaimie
March 31st, 2009
online casinoBenefit Cosmetics Storefront, Fillmore Street, San Francisco
I wore a beautiful smile all afternoon on Friday thanks to Benefit Cosmetics, and I didn’t even get a makeover! I was swiftly walking down Fillmore Street in San Francisco in search of food when I noticed a storefront window that read, “Laughter is the best cosmetic… so grin and wear it.”
The sign gave me an instant self-esteem boost and put a smile on my face, especially considering that I hadn’t had the time to put make up on that morning. I was surprised, considering that it’s advertising a cosmetics company, but this somewhat counter-advertising worked! Here I am writing about it, after all, and the shop’s little pick-me-up actually made me want to go inside.
Unlike most beauty ads that make us women self-conscious, then tell you that they can fix whatever blemish they just helped you discover you have, this little ditty on the window at Benefit Cosmetics is accomplishing the same goal, but by attracting consumers in a positive way. Benefit Cosmetics is helping women feel good about themselves as they already are, and reinforcing the very healthy mindset that true beauty lies within–all this while still making sales!
So if this type of advertising works and reinforces healthy psychology, then why do we continue to put up with being berated in most advertising? What can we do to get advertisers to shift toward creating more ads like this one?
~Jaimie
March 17th, 2009
"(Lucky magazine) preferred her over this model, so we went ahead and pieced together a new girl." (click image to watch the video on NYTimes.com)
Jesse Epstein, the filmmaker who made the terrific short documentary “Wet Dreams and False Images,” is back with a video op-ed on the NYTimes.com. In it, she asks whether American magazine editors should be required by law to disclose how much they have retouched images in their magazines. Well, should they?
This guy retouches photos and tells about it in the video.
So why does it even matter whether magazines are showing retouched, fake women?
Here’s why: When the female body is edited beyond recognition (or created) by a photo retoucher, and women and girls see that as the ideal, chaos (and oh, self-harm) ensues for those women and girls. Examples:
- cosmetic surgery carrying huge health risks (including death)
- over-exercise (or “exercise bulimia”)
- unhealthy, risky dieting
- disordered eating behaviors (that may or may not mean a person has an eating disorder)
- eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia (which, by the way, can cause death)
- general, all-consuming obsession with appearance that takes our attention away from truly important parts of our lives
Know what I’m saying? Check out the video and let us know what you think. – Jennifer
March 13th, 2009
Drowning Barbie
This year Barbie is having her 50th birthday, and while Mattel is rolling in profits, praise, and some continued criticism, I plan on remembering my own Barbie the last time I saw her-drowning in a pool when I was 10. OK, I know that sounds awful and violent, but seriously, when I was 10 years old I threw a pool party with my girlfriends that we called the “No Barbie Party.” It was that age when we decided that we were too old to be playing with dolls, though I’m sure some of us continued to dress her up in the secrecy of our own rooms. We celebrated and signified our coming of age and growing out of dolls with a ritual that involved taking all of our Barbies and drowning them in my pool.
So while Barbie is celebrating her birthday and women are wishing they could look like that at 50 (or any age), I have my own critiques, criticism and nostalgia about this unrealistic doll that in many ways served as a quasi-role model in my life once upon a time.
1950s versus 2006 Barbie
The Barbie doll has undergone many transformations over the years, mostly so she more closely resembles the ideal female in our society, and the fact that she has become an oversexualized, shopaholic, anorexic gold-digger worries me. What message are we sending about our ideals and values with this type of “idealized” image? What message are we subliminally sending to the young girls of today that look up to Barbie the way I once did?
Barbie dolls are made with unrealistic body proportions-oversized breasts, nonexistent waistlines, permanently pointed feet for their high heels, and yet lacking genitalia below the belt (all except for her younger sister, Skipper, who somehow still managed to maintain some girlhood innocence). I don’t remember consciously paying attention to Barbie’s body type when I was a kid (although, I did notice there were no private parts!), I just wanted her clothes, the lavish dresses, her pink convertible, and her mansion. It was my younger brother who liked to undress her and look at her plastic boobs. So while I managed to escape any potential body image problems, looking back, I can’t help but wonder what effect this naked image of the female body had on my brother-or men in general.
I recently asked some male friends what they thought and all their answers were along the lines of I wish I could find a woman that looked like that… if only she could be real. I was shocked!! There was no room for reason in their imaginary fantasy. Despite explaining that if Barbie were blown up to life-sized proportions she wouldn’t be able to walk, stand, or probably even sit up, the crude remarks thrown back in response were that a woman like that wouldn’t even have to stand up… I’ll leave you to ponder that one.
Some people think that the Barbie doll is a harmless toy, but in an era when girls are becoming sexualized too young, women and teenagers are diagnosed with eating disorders in increasing numbers, and plastic surgery has become a norm, it is naive to think that Barbie does not, at the very least, reflect these problem. I only hope that when people are rushing out to buy the 50th anniversary version of Barbie for their niece or daughter they understand that they’re not just purchasing a doll, they are buying a symbol and sending a message. Is this a message that any of us really want to send? You will have to decide.
Olivia's favorite shirt. You can get it from our web site!
– Jaimie
March 11th, 2009
I recently found myself disembarking the Macy’s escalator and walking into the world of hip young adults. Once my ears adjusted to the blaring music of Miley Cyrus, my eyes had time to focus on the image standing right before me. Here it is.
Yes, this was at Macy's in Torrance, CA
Four anorexic-looking mannequins, all in “skinny” jeans, and in between them hung six cards, each with one of the following letters imprinted on it: S-K-I-N-N-Y.
Really, Macy’s!?! Really? This is getting kind of old already. I have become accustomed to the waif-thin mannequins sporting bodies that the majority of human beings cannot attain without the help of anorexia. But to focus your display on the word “skinny” is taking the assault on women’s image to a new level.
I know, I get it: Skinny jeans, hence the S-K-I-N-N-Y. I get it. But with the addition of the word “skinny” to the size 2 mannequins, they are communicating to the “non-skinnies” that these pants are not for them. Mainstream advertising is once again reminding the world that to be skinny is glamorous and should be what everyone strives for.
What really infuriated me about this display was the effect it might have on the hundreds of girls who have walked and will walk past the display. Girls who have not been supplied with a proper self-esteem and/or the tools to refuse this image. It made me think of what I would have done if I had a teenage daughter with me at the time. My initial thought was that I would have turned around and left immediately, so that she would never have to experience the image. But wouldn’t it be better if I, in fact, pointed out the display and discussed it? Absolutely.
I encourage anyone who reads this to try and do the same. If you are ever in the company of a young girl — a cousin, niece, sister or daughter — communicate about the images of women around you. Only then, by spreading the idea that these images are unacceptable, can we finally begin to bring some change to advertising.
I will never be S-K-I-N-N-Y. I will always want, in the famous words of Spinal Tap, to keep some “cushion for the pushin’.'” After all, I want the body of a woman, not that of a pre-pubescent boy.
This display was in the young women’s section of the Macy’s at the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, CA. Stop on by and tell a manager what you think, write a letter, or pick up the phone and give a call.
Macy’s Del Amo Fashion Center
21600 Hawthorne Blvd.
Torrance, CA 90503
phone: 310/370-8511
– T.S.
March 6th, 2009
You gotta love young women who stand up for what they believe in. Here’s About-Face’s latest fun action.
Read more about our Take Action group here.
-J.B.
March 6th, 2009
