Stop telling us our whole value is in how we look: 14 year old Miriam’s plea
We are tricked into thinking that women on magazine covers and on TV naturally look like this in real life…we need to fight back! By Miriam Nassif Name is Miriam Nassif and I am 14 years-old so I completely understand what it like to be a teenage girl growing up in our modern day world […]
Rejection, pain, bullying, heartbreak: former Dolly model search entrant speaks out
‘I was never as happy or as sure of myself after that. It was just too big of a let-down, because it wasn’t a rejection from a high school bully, it was a rejection from ‘the experts’, from people with professional opinion, and it was a closing of doors in my face from a glamorous […]
Dolly brings back its model search. But why? Mtr on Mamamia
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Dolly revives model search: but at what cost?
Sunday Herald Sun, March 25, 2012 This month at Melbourne Westfield Fountain Gate, Elodie Russell beat 500 other teens to be named Victorian state finalist in the new Dolly Model Search. The Geelong student and 500 other girls competed in the model search resurrected after 10 years. Elodie is 14. But girls as young as […]
“They are mining bodies”: Susie Orbach tells UN Status of Women Commission
I’m very pleased to be speaking here today on this historic occasion. It has been customary for the west to bemoan and critique the appalling forms of violence practiced against girls and women in the rest of the world – FGM, rape as a tactic of war, forced marriage. In this focus what has been […]
On International Women’s Day Girls Ask the Big Questions: Am I Pretty Enough?
Here’s a column I wrote for the Sunday Herald Sun published last Sunday. Looks like this could be the first of a regular gig. At the end of the week marking International Women’s Day (March 8), a trending YouTube phenomenon lets us know that we haven’t come a long way at all. Girls as young […]
Girlfriend’s ‘Reality Check’ has become a farce
Girlfriend magazine seems to have forgotten what its ‘Self Respect REALITY CHECK’ was intended for. A recap – it was designed to be an upfront disclosure about the use of digital enhancement, airbrushing or other alterations to an image. But it seems to have become a farce. On the cover below an image of […]
MPs speak against the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood
Amanda Rishworth moves Notice of Motion in House of Representatives Earlier this month Federal Member for Kingston (S.A), Amanda Rishworth, moved a Private Members Motion acknowledging the findings of the UK Government’s review Letting the Children be Children on the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood. It is heartening for those of us involved in this […]
How Thinspiration Sites Hurt Us: recovering eating disorder teen speaks out
As a young woman in recovery, seeing others succumb to such behaviours is triggering, distressing and saddening Rebekah McAlinden Three years ago, if you had logged onto my computer and looked at my recent history, you would have discovered I frequently trawled through pro-eating disordered websites. There are communities of males and females of varying […]
Sexed up tween advertising shows fashion needs to grow up
‘Corporate paedophilia’ is a worrying global trend on the rise. For those who might have missed it, Witchery has just launched a new clothing range for eight- to 14-year-old girls called “8fourteen”. In a brilliant stroke of imagination, the launch occurred on Valentine’s Day – because, of course, girls from the age of eight need […]
Children obsessed with body image issues: UK study
Dr Michael Carr-Gregg and MTR discuss on Sunrise A UK survey, commissioned by UK charity YWCA Central, has found half of all girls and a third of boys are obsessed with body image. According to a report in the Daily Mail this week, children are willing to take extreme measures to get a perfect body or […]
Maggie is fat and its all her fault: new diet book for children puts them in danger
Because children don’t already feel bad about themselves enough, there’s a new book just about to be released titled Maggie Goes On a Diet. I asked Collective Shout colleague, psychotherapist and managing director of BodyMatters Australasia Lydia Jade Turner, for her views. Written by self-proclaimed “obesity expert” Paul M. Kramer, Maggie Goes On a Diet […]