Dear readers of my blog, I started writing this blog a year ago. In this time I’ve written about issues affecting women and girls, from body image, to eating disorders, to harmful cultural and media messages, to the objectification of women and sexualisation of girls in the media and popular culture. I’ve written about the […]
Girls’ Mag Watch: More Stereotyped and Limiting Messages for Girls This is the second installment of my review of magazines for girls and young women, published by Generation Next. For many girls, the magazines they read are their lifestyle bibles. How should they look, dress, act and relate? What’s important in life? Who should they look up […]
The disease destroys the lives of too many girls: don’t mock it on a t.shirt [Trigger warning for eating disorder sufferers] A number of my young women friends are very ill with Anorexia Nervosa. Three have come close to death a number of times. I want them to stay alive. They want to live too. Some […]
The backlash against corporate exploitation of women “Women are frequently positioned very differently to men in media. Often shown as passive, vulnerable, scantily clad, headless, and sometimes dead…” Today a guest post from eating disorder prevention specialist and member of Collective Shout’s core team, Lydia Turner. It’s reprinted from the Fierce, Freethinking Fatties blog. In recent […]
Girls’ mag wrap September-October issues For many girls, the magazines they read are their lifestyle bibles. How should they look, dress, act and relate? What’s important in life? Who should they look up to? My analysis of the September and October issues of Girlfriend, Dolly, Girlpower, Totalgirl, Disney Girl and Little Angel shows that girls […]
“I won’t be buying Lovable underwear again” Melissa is another to write to Lovable to complain about its current Jennifer Hawkins ad campaign. What she has written is so important that I’m reprinting it from the Collective Shout website, where she posted her letter yesterday. How much more evidence does Lovable need that its current […]
Mainstream media takes up the issue The Lovable/Jen Hawkins/body image issue has now gone well beyond these humble blog pages. I spent a significant part of yesterday being interviewed on the subject. Susie O’Brien gave it a good run both as a news piece and a comment piece spread across two pages in the Herald Sun. […]
Damaging the things I hold dear Yesterday, Sydney man David Ould wrote to Australian underwear company Lovable. He’d read my post on Lovable’s contradictory behaviour and felt he had to do something. It’s good to know there are men who care about the impact of unrealistic sexualised representations of women on the women they love. […]
Dear Lovable, Yesterday I wrote about your ad campaign featuring Jennifer Hawkins. I hope you read the piece. If you missed it, and you’re on the home page, scroll down a little and you’ll find it (it’s got lots of pictures of Jennifer Hawkins looking thin and sexy in bra and knickers and there’s a […]
More double standards and mixed messages for Body Image Awareness Week According to its website, Australian underwear brand Lovable says it is “dedicated to changing the culture surrounding eating disorders and body image”. It does this “by using happy, healthy models in our campaigns and promotional activities and by continuing to design intimates that are […]
GF’s ‘reality check’ needs a reality check Revolution: a: a sudden, radical, or complete change b: a fundamental change in political organization; especially: the overthrow or renunciation of one government or ruler and the substitution of another by the governed c: activity or movement designed to effect fundamental changes in the socioeconomic situation d: a […]
And not insist on airbrushing disclosure for her own photo shoots? Recently I have had cause to ask Sarah Murdoch a few questions. They were picked up in the media the past couple of days, by NineMSN and the SMH. Sarah is co-host and executive producer of Australia’s Next Top Model. She also sits on the Government […]
