Most of my friends know me as the “YouTube Aficionado” because I’m obsessed with funny YouTube videos. I’ve noticed that there has been a recent wave of videos of empowered little girls. The way I look at it, there are two possible conclusions for this increase. Either this young group of girls are avoiding the negative impacts of the media and are already standing up for what they believe in, or (the more likely option) they just haven’t witnessed enough of it yet. Either way, I think we could all benefit by getting in touch with our inner empowered little girl.
Ever since I made my decision to attend Wellesley College, I find myself having to defend it to most of my high school classmates. Many of them know nothing about the school, and when I tell them about it they ignore its academic reputation and amazing alumnae. To them, it is simply a women’s college. And since I’ve decided to go there, they have surmised that I must hate men, am a lesbian or am doomed to life as a crazy cat lady.
It gets tiresome hearing my classmates’ reasons why I shouldn’t go. One boy even told me, “You won’t know how to interact with men past the age of 18.” (Forget the fact that I will have male professors and will interact with some of the …
I’ve always wanted to be in the spotlight, to make it big in the music industry. But at seventeen, I really thought that my music career wasn’t going anywhere. I constantly compared myself to other people and always thought that I was worse. What I didn’t realize was that I was just starting out and had a lot to learn. But that didn’t stop me from deciding to end my career before it started.
It all started when I found myself feeling extremely jealous of a fifteen year old who had taken the part in a play that I had wanted. I had faced a lot of rejection in the past but I thought this particular audition was a sure thing. I didn’t even get a lead role which made …
In 1997, MTV launched a new show called Daria. The show aimed to capture high school through the eyes of a teenage girl, mirroring other popular shows of the decade (My So Called Life, Buffy etc.) which also reflected hormonal, angsty teenage girls as the main protagonists.
The character Daria Morgendorffer, who the show is (obviously) named after, was a character on the popular TV show Beavis and Butthead. Why Beavis and Butthead was popular is beyond me. Every time I’ve tried to watch a segment of this show of gurgling stoners it makes me feel like I’m missing out on the ‘humour.’ Kind of like how I feel watching Two and a Half Men.
Here’s an early appearance of Daria on Beavis and Butthead:
I was at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this past week showing my visiting family all that Cleveland has to offer (that’s all I came up with) and we got to see the Women Who Rock exhibit. One of the women profiled was Chrissie Hynde, and I realized that I’ve never profiled her here, even though she blazed trails for women in rock and grew up about 40 minutes away from where I did. So, without further ado, here’s SWAS: Chrissie Hynde Edition!
A teenage Chrissie Hynde left the United States on a one-way ticket to England where she landed a job as music critic for the NME. She also worked in McLaren’s ‘Sex’ boutique before forming The Pretenders.
The original Pretenders line-up featured Hynde on vocals/guitar, …
I used to have a little tradition of buying a cheesy teen magazine during the first week of summer and lying on the beach reading about the perfect nail polish color, or how to make your skin appear flawless. The primary reason I enjoyed this was because I knew it was pure junk, and that most of it could not be accurate. Yet I recently began to look into how inaccurate these magazines are in portraying how teenage girls are and should be, while also considering the effects on the self-esteem of many readers. Because even I, who laughed at most of the spreads on the glossy pages, felt my happiness with my body disintegrate a bit each time I picked up one of those magazines.
A few weeks ago I attended the Young Women’s Leadership Institute at Barnard College, and I decided that I should focus on body image and the media’s effects on the minds and bodies of young girls. I learned so much from all the girls I talked to at the program, from the classes and workshops I participated in, and from all the research I conducted on the subject. There is just so much to say about the issue of magazines and media and their effects on teenage girls’ perception of themselves. One portion of my group’s project included a video in which we interviewed many girls participating in the Young Women’s Leadership Institute. I hope you watch this video and spread the message!
I know a lot of people – gay and straight – who believe that bisexuality, specifically bisexual men, exist about as much as they believe that unicorns exist. It seems that there are people who believe that only women can be bisexual and that women are more fluid than men when it comes to sexuality. They believe men can’t be bisexual, but are either gay or straight. Hell, a few years ago I didn’t even believe bisexuality was real and now I identify as bi.
I have big problem with this, and I mean a BIG problem. You might ask, “Why? You’re a woman, why should you care about bisexual men?” I care because I think the gender stereotypes and gender roles that trap men are wrong.
A couple of weeks ago, an article on Mookychick highlighted an issue of hacked photos on adult websites. It’s a practice that’s going on for a little while, but it’s starting to trend, and it’s misogynist and tantamount to abuse.
Essentially, a crop of websites are hacking into photos uploaded to social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and Tumblr – websites that most of us use, and many of us upload photos to.
Pictures of women and teenage girls are being hacked into and published entirely without the girls’ knowledge or consent – on adult websites. It appears to be a legal practice, as it largely keeps within the privacy terms and conditions of social network sites.
For teenage girls and women, it’s a nasty catch 22. No …
