Part 2: Myth versus reality In my last post, I laid out how girls* are still objectified, judged, and put in boxes by our toxic media culture. We looked at the reasons that social media encourages girls to judge themselves and each other harshly. All of this points to an urgent need for media education… Continue Reading →
The first time I saw “Killing Us Softly,” Dr. Jean Kilbourne’s take-down of the toxic, dehumanizing culture that surrounds women in advertising, it was 1996. I was a naïve sophomore at the University of Michigan who had been raised, above all, to be pretty – with Victoria’s Secret catalog pages and Self magazine workouts pinned… Continue Reading →
Today, more than ever, sex is rampant in marketing, bolstered by the notion that “Sex Sells”, but a new study reveals that this may not in fact be the case. Since the beginning of modern advertising, sexual themes and imagery have been used to sell products. Some of the earliest sexual ads were created by tobacco companies in the late 1800s…. Continue Reading →
Let’s talk about MTV’s Teen Wolf. As a feminist and lover of pretty much all things pop-culture related, I feel like I can easily take in a television show or film and inadvertently “grade” it on how well it measures up in its representation of women and other minority groups. Such a habit comes from being… Continue Reading →
What do you do if you find yourself loving a TV show that promotes values you don’t support? Such is the case for me with TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress. The gist of the show is women come to Kleinfeld Bridal in New York City with a variety of friends and relatives (their “entourage”)… Continue Reading →
My gym is doing some renovations. To make sure we’re all aware that the gym will be temporarily under construction, they’ve posted signs throughout the facility that list the planned renovations and depict a smiling woman in a hard hat. They posted one of these signs in the women’s locker room, and on that particular… Continue Reading →
I know what you’re thinking: The About-Face blog is so utterly fabulous, it must be written exclusively by mythical blogging creatures and media-literacy gods. Not true! Though it may seem like mere mortals are incapable of writing the glorious content we publish two times a week on our site, I’m here to tell you that our… Continue Reading →
Are they blowing up your newsfeeds these days, too? Those two-minute vignettes that string together hilarious rhymes while perpetuating horrible stereotypes of girls and women? Yeah, those. So far, there’s Snow White vs. Elsa (with 28 million+ views) and, more recently, Cinderella vs. Belle. [media url=”youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeZXQf77hhk/A&W=415″] Despite their sassy tone (and Sarah Michelle Gellar’s funny… Continue Reading →
1. Pledge to only read books written by women this year. Check out this list of books by transgender authors. 2. Blog. See something sexist? Have something you want to get off your chest? Write about it! I started a feminist Tumblr that focuses on sharing media and stories that support feminism, empower women, and… Continue Reading →
