Being critical towards media messages is vital, but at some point, we need to actually produce new material for when (not if) the sexist TV shows, movies, and commercials finally dissolve. This is the rocking attitude behind Camp Reel Stories. Camp Reel Stories is a media camp for teenage girls located in Oakland, California, where… Continue Reading →
All bi-myself: bi-erasure in the media
About a month ago, I came across this article at Huffington Post. Disregard the actual article for a moment and check out the slideshow at the bottom: “Celebrity LGBT Families.” I clicked through the pictures and was surprised to find that the final two were about bisexual women. As a bisexual woman myself, who is… Continue Reading →
App Camp For Girls: building confidence and iPhone apps
App Camp for Girls is redefining the common image of a software developer. Step aside, guys. The new faces of software development are middle school girls. And the future will look a lot less typical. Summer camp here is less crafts and s’mores, more design interfaces and Xcode. Instructed and mentored by successful female designers… Continue Reading →
Can we stop trying to define “real beauty?”
By now, we’re probably all familiar with Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign – in which the company showcases and celebrates “real bodies and real curves,” aiming to expand the definition of beauty and boost women’s self-esteem. Just take this picture on the left, for example – the familiar lineup of thin, lithe models is contrasted against… Continue Reading →
Narcissism in numbers: what our sizes say about us
I’ve felt that all-too-familiar terror of walking into a store and wondering what size I’m going to be this time around, or worse, if anything will fit at all. There’s a bit of buzz right now in the media around “vanity sizing” or “size inflation.” Vanity sizing refers to the trend of clothing measurements getting… Continue Reading →
Women of summer: a look at the summer movie lineup (present, past, and future)
Summer is always a time for big blockbuster movies. Summer 2013 has the typical action movies and the typical lack of women. Women go to movies just as much as men, yet we don’t have as many characters we can relate to. The Present: It’s no secret that this summer the movie theater screens are… Continue Reading →
Fund this Kickstarter project! Slut: A Documentary Film
“i love u also i want u to let me squeeze ur boobs.” Another quote from Emily Lindin’s The UnSlut Project reels us in. We covered this project in early May, but just to bring you up to speed: Emily was the sixth grade “slut.” She kept a diary at that time, and decided to… Continue Reading →
ESPN The Magazine: Are the women playing or just posing?
A short paragraph about the physiological wonder of the human body opens ESPN The Magazine’s 2013 body issue. In this paragraph, the magazine calls all bodies spectacular specimens, especially the athletic bodies profiled in the following 36 pages. However, the images of male (10 portrayed) and female (11 pictured) athletes tell a different story. Per… Continue Reading →
The BodyCon competition encourages advertisements that subvert the “ideal” body
The Butterfly Foundation in Sydney, Australia, a charity that supports people with eating disorders and negative body image, has created a new video competition that aims to expose the media’s representation of beauty. “The Body Con” is a competition encouraging entrants to “create a 30 second advertisement that confronts the belief that being in control… Continue Reading →