Fifteen-year-old Halley started crying. Through her tears, she confessed to me, “I was so obsessed about if I looked good enough and how many Likes I had, that I made it my whole life. I would come out of my room after scrolling through Instagram and TikTok, angry at the world because I was depressed… Continue Reading →
Why teach media literacy to teen girls? (part 2)
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 →
Why teach media literacy to teen girls? (part 1)
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 →