As much as my generation seems to support Facebook, I believe that underneath all that tagging and friending, there’s a deep-seated resentment that we’ve had to grow up in a world where it’s the norm to share your relationship status with strangers.
I’ve blogged before about the issues I think Facebook creates for teenage girls, and I’ve heard a lot more of my peers agreeing with me about the perils and annoyances of Facebook. My Facebook blog last year received more comments than any other piece I’ve posted, and it seems that many others share my attitude about Facebook: I wish that Facebook didn’t exist, yet I still have a Facebook for several reasons.
I hope to debunk the myth that all teenagers are drinking the facebook Kool-Aid and pose the question: will…
Saturday Vids: Teen Social Entrepreneurship and Nika Water
I came across this video a couple of weeks ago when I was procrastinating on Facebook. I’m Facebook friends with Nina Church — we were actually BFF’s in pre-school before her family moved to California — and saw that she posted this video of her and her brother’s TED talk. It turns out that she’s a teen advocate for social entrepreneurship (as is explained in the video) and that her family runs the company Nika water, which sells bottled water and donates the profits towards providing clean water in impoverished countries. It’s a great company and their video is really inspiring, so definitely check it out!
When I was fourteen, my dad told me that the most important thing I would ever learn was how to be alone. Granted, he said this as he took away my cell phone, Facebook and cut off all ties I had to the outside world. I was crushed to say the least. At the time, high-school-freshman-me felt like my dad was completely overreacting to the fact that I had made out with a boy, especially since he was my boyfriend. That meant something, right? And my friends had all kissed boys, so I didn’t understand why it wasn’t okay that I had, too.
However, the time spent on my virtual desert island, as sucky as it was, really allowed me time to think. During this…
Observations in Target: Mass Marketing and Young Females
“Mom, look! That’s Rocky and CeCe, from ‘Shake it Up‘! Can I pleeeeease get one of their clothes?” She stands on her tiptoes to reach the highest shelf and points to a t-shirt with an attached pinstriped vest that is almost identical to the one CeCe is wearing in the poster above the rack of clothes. “I like that one!”
My post-elementary school years have contained very little Disney Channel, which I consumed vigorously as a child. But after spending a week with a seven-year-old, I was fully informed on how Disney is functioning today. I know every person says this about the shows they watched when they were kids, but I truly believe that the shows were much better then, especially for girls. Or maybe it’s just that now I’m…
Slut Shaming In High School: Wait Until We’re All On The Same Page
why does it have to be one or the other?
I honestly dislike judgmental people, but I am not going to lie – I have definitely judged people in my life. Hey, I’m not perfect and we all do it to some extent. What really bothers me is when people start to judge each other on how sexually advanced someone is. Prudes are judged for being very conservative (stereotypically) but I think girls that are more involved with guys are judged way harsher. I think slut shaming is stupid and pointless, especially in high school. I am only a sophomore but what I have observed is that girls are called sluts just for making out with boys that aren’t their boyfriends or if things go a little farther than just kissing.…
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…
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 make…
Let’s Talk About Sex: Emergency Contraception (EC) Edition
Today, my lovely FBomb friends, is a wonderful day. Why is that? You may perplexedly ponder. I don’t recall hearing talk of it being International Free Cupcake Day and I’m pretty sure Ryan Gosling isn’t going to spontaneously show up on my doorstop “Hey Girl” -ing me…is he? IS HE?!?!
NO! HE’S NOT! BUT THIS IS EVEN BETTER! IT’S BACK UP YOUR BIRTH CONTROL NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION!
Yay!
So here’s the thing about birth control: there’s no excuse not to use it and everybody should. Especially teens. Especially, especially feminist teens. I don’t think most kids in our generation even comprehend how much fighting the awesome women who came before us did to secure us the right to even have birth control, and beyond that, the social revolution that made it possible…
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