Feminism | Posted by Elizabeth M on 10/26/2012
Female Bodies and Positive Rhetoric
I recently came across a great article over at Healthy Is The New Skinny. I love it not just because it celebrates Christina Hendricks as one of the few contemporary celebrities who has healthy amounts of flesh on their bones as standard (not just ‘for a role’ or because they’re in some sort of emotional meltdown….can’t blame the latter really), but, in contrast, because it also succinctly exemplifies the quagmire of public discourse around female bodies. The article is cited from NY Daily News, but it popped up in my newsfeed from Healthy is the New Skinny, which is a “multi-platform movement to bring a message of health, joy and responsibility to the beauty and the fashion industries.” I was happy to come across this blog and I think their efforts and outlook …
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Pop-Culture | Posted by Chloe H on 07/25/2012
Celebrating Our Bodies
Don’t you hate it when you see another girl and she looks perfect? You know, the way you want to look but can never seem to pull off. She has the perfect outfit, or the perfect face, perfect hair, perfect body. Usually, when we get this feeling we are standing in front of a billboard with the picture of an actress, or we are looking at a fashion magazine and we see a model in an ad campaign or an editorial. You get that twisty feeling in your stomach, and maybe you feel a little jealous. Maybe you think, “Why can’t I look like her?” But guess what? That girl that you’re staring at, whether she’s an image, a mirage or maybe even a real girl — she has felt …
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Pop-Culture | Posted by Gina S on 07/18/2012
The Headline Project
As a little project, I recently decided to compile the gender presentation as depicted in the headlines on various popular ‘news’ websites over 3 days. Having rolled my eyes so strenuously as to pop several blood vessels at the ridiculous scandals I’m subjected to each time I checked my email, I decided to monitor sites like AOL, Yahoo, and MSN News to dissect how they depict famous women.
Day 1
AOL’s headlines regarding famous women:
“Brittany Spears flaunts assets”
“See what (Kate Middleton’s sister) Pippa’s wearing at Wimbledon”
“Who’s the British beauty showing off her armpits?” (No, I’m not kidding…)
“Miley Cyrus wears daring LBD”
“Megan shows off baby bump in bikini” – (Translation: “show off” = wearing a biking while pregnant and famous).
MSN messenger news:
“Katy …
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Pop-Culture | Posted by Melissa King on 07/14/2012
Saturday Vids: My Body…Finally
I love to see women who are comfortable and confident in their skin despite being a different size or shape than what our society markets as the ideal. I love seeing a woman who doesn’t lose her confidence or her great smile just because she has a blemish.
I don’t think we see enough of real women’s bodies (shapes, sizes, blemishes) in a positive context. Even amongst friends, we often hide what we think are our imperfections. I think that if we were exposed to more of what is real and natural, we would all be more comfortable and confident with ourselves
The women who participated in this project are women in my life who I find beautiful and who I knew would want to speak out on this topic. …
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Feminism, Pop-Culture | Posted by Grace on 06/25/2012
Perfectly Normal
I don’t have a diagnosed eating disorder and that makes me sad. That might sound like a strange thing to say, but what I mean is that I think it’s wrong that my daily obsession with counting calories, my attempts to drink copious amounts of green tea because it supposedly speeds up your metabolism, and my complete inability to forget about my weight is pretty much considered normal. Wikipedia informs me that “Eating disorders refer to a group of conditions defined by abnormal eating habits that may involve either insufficient or excessive food intake to the detriment of an individual’s physical and mental health.”
I don’t fit into this category because I never fell ill, no one ever commented that my weight was unhealthy, and no one worried, …
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Articles | Posted by Julie Z on 06/6/2012
An Interview with Michael Kimmel
Michael Kimmel is among the leading researchers and writers on men and masculinity in the world today. The author or editor of more than twenty volumes, his books include Changing Men: New Directions in Research on Men and Masculinity (1987), Men Confront Pornography (1990), The Politics of Manhood (1996), The Gender of Desire (2005), The History of Men (2005) and more recently Guyland (2008) and The Guy’s Guide to Feminism (2011).
I hadn’t really thought much about the difficulties guys face in our culture before I read Guyland by Michael Kimmel. I had focused so much energy on figuring out the societal pressures placed on girls that Kimmel’s account of what it means to grow up and be male was completely eye-opening. It confirmed to me just how much men …
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Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 04/11/2012
Why The Media Assault on Ashley Judd Is Larger Than A “Puffy Face”
A couple days ago, I, like millions of other college students across the country, logged on to Facebook as a pathetic attempt at procrastination. I expected to flip through some of my friends’ newly posted pictures, maybe like somebody’s status– the usual – but instead was faced with something extraordinary. My newsfeed was inundated with links to an article written by Ashley Judd—the kind of article that, as a young feminist, I have been waiting to read for a very long time.
In response to a swell of criticism regarding her “puffy” appearance, or what feminist blog Jezebel has cleverly titled “Judd-puff-maggedon 2012,” Judd recently penned an article for The Daily Beast, calling out the media for what she saw as “pointedly nasty, gendered, and misogynistic” commentary …
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Feminism | Posted by Gina S on 04/2/2012
The Flip Side of the Coin, or Just Because I’m Skinny Doesn’t Mean I Have An Eating Disorder
It’s a common presumption in our society that if you’re female, tall and skinny, you have it all. You are the perfect woman: you have the attributes of a high fashion model, and you should be extremely self-confident because you have it made. The truth, however, is much different.
When I was younger, I was bullied for five years because of my height and weight. “Oh they’re just jealous because you’re tall and skinny,” my well-meaning family members would say. “They just want to be like you.” But they didn’t want to be like me, because I was miserable beyond belief and the bullying was making me pick out tiny little things about myself that I hated. One by one, I listed off all the many things I hated about …
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