Feminism | Posted by Emma E on 08/1/2011
Why I’m Rejoining Social Justice
Oh, I’ve always been into social justice. Don’t be fooled by the title. What I mean is the social justice club at my high school.
I’m going into ninth grade at the end of the summer, and I was in social justice club for a few months in grade eight. It pissed me off, because we never DISCUSSED anything. We were always do, do, do. Go collect teddy bears for homeless children. Go collect batteries. Go decorate a corner of the lobby with “go green” messages. Which is all great, but we never really discussed the roots of social justice. The closest we came to that was when we invited the proprietor of a local battered women’s shelter to talk to the club, which was one of the most informative …
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Feminism | Posted by Natalia K on 07/29/2011
Life Lesson #1: Love Yourself First
Whether we like it or not, we all have to go through a long list of “firsts” in life: first kiss, first date, first “serious” relationship, first time you have sex, and the first serious breakup (which is never, ever, an easy thing to go through), to name a few. But being a feminist definitely made it easier for me to make a dreaded and life-altering first decision.
I had my first serious boyfriend right at the end of high school when I was 18. I was young, naive, sheltered, and completely confused about what I wanted in life. He was an amazing first boyfriend, though. He respected me, we were very compatible, and most importantly, he was always supportive of all the changes I went through (the best boyfriend …
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Feminism | Posted by Izzi S on 07/28/2011
A Lifetime of Leg Hating
I can remember the exact moment I became self conscious of my body. I was 12 and walking home from school when a boy I knew pointed at me, laughed, and said “Look how fat your legs are!”
I looked down at them and for the first time in my life I felt that my body was inadequate.
That moment has stayed with me forever, because that comment sparked a huge complex I had about my legs, something which still bothers me today. For years I only wore trousers and when I finally began wearing skirts and dresses, I always made sure I had tights or leggings on underneath, even in the Summer.
In fact, this Summer is the first since I was 12 that I have gone completely bare …
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Feminism | Posted by Charlotte on 07/26/2011
Dreamboy
In my eyes, he was perfect in every way. Dreamboy was smart, interesting, had beautiful brown eyes, a charming smile. He was genuinely more interested in girls’ personality than their breasts or butts. I thought Dreamboy was a perfect gentleman, and I loved him more than I’d loved anyone.
Dreamboy had, in his words, “exponentially more” experience than I did. He was a ladykiller, but was friends with many of the girls he’d had relations with. I respected that; he didn’t just “bump and dump” but rather actually took the time to get to know the girls and to keep knowing them after they’d hooked up. Dreamboy was different than any of the other guys I’d known in high school.
Then I told him that I’d hooked up (just kissing!) …
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Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 07/11/2011
In Defense of Female Friends
People always ask me if being a teen feminist in high school made it difficult for me socially. I always respond that it didn’t really matter. Sure, I got the annoying comments from guys and girls in my school alike, who largely had no idea what the hell I was always going on about. But of all things (and there are a lot, I’m weird for a variety of reasons) what really made things difficult for me socially in high school was the fact that I chose to be a part of a really close group of all-female friends.
In high school, I had (still have) a group of best friends and everybody else thought we were the weirdest and most unapproachable group of people ever. There were rumors that we were …
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Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 06/14/2011
#YASaves
I have been an avid fan of Young Adult fiction since the third grade. I vividly remember standing in the library check out line with the rest of my class during “Library Time” eagerly digging into my Judy Blume while my classmates palmed their Judy Moody books. I think that moment can also be pointed to as the precursor to my reading Anna Karenina in eighth grade when my classmates were reading…well, they weren’t reading. But that’s a self-indulgent admittedly pretentious digression.
I think it’s this deeply ingrained love of YA that caused the low grade rage I felt when reading the recent Wall Street Journal article by Meghan Cox Gurdon. It’s worth reading (in that it’s a piece of crap but will make the rest of this post …
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Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 06/10/2011
Seventeen’s Pretty Amazing Contest Is Pretty Amazing
I’ll be honest: I have my issues with Seventeen Magazine. It’s not just that most of the magazine revolves around a traditional and restrictive definition of beauty and their idea of “health” still revolves around dieting and working out in order to achieve your “best body ever.” My biggest problem is what the magazine overall promotes as being important to its readership of teen girls. Are we really just obsessed with how to impress the guy we like and what celebrities are up to? (No, hence, the FBomb exists). And even when “real” issues are brought up – like eating disorders or sex – they’re non-committedly grazed over (Again, oh hey, FBomb).
That being said, I think Seventeen has been making some really great improvements lately. As a …
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Feminism | Posted by Alexa S on 06/8/2011
Breaking My Rules
For over a year not very long ago, I had a plethora of very strange rules for myself to follow. I could only eat certain things at certain times. I had numbers that dictated my actions, numbers of calories and daily intake percentages and pounds. It was a suffocating process; luckily, I never followed my regulations enough for it to impact my health. Still, it affected my mind quite a bit.
Perhaps more damaging to my self-esteem was my body image. Unlike the majority of the population, especially teenagers, I really don’t enjoy food very much. This made any disordered eating-type behaviors extremely easy for me.
Most of my friends are exceptionally thin, as in magazine-ad thin. Most of them are athletic and/or naturally thin; as far as I know, …
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