Free from ‘toxic chemicals.’ Not free from toxic messages Last week, 15 girls aged 14-16, and involved with Fusion Mornington Peninsula’s Real Girls program, took on Australian make-up and skincare brand Frank Body over its lip and cheek ‘Send Nudes’ product. Fusion Mornington Peninsula June 7 at 5:50pm Dear Frank Body, I am speaking on […]
Empowering boys to change Recently I addressed Year 10 girls and boys at a school in NSW. During question time at the end of my presentation, one of the young women read out a Facebook post by a male peer, filled with disparaging descriptions of the girls in his class. The girls were clearly […]
Opinion: Our kids exposed to an adult world Melinda Tankard Reist The Courier-Mail is to be commended for its series on the hypersexualisation of our young people — especially the impacts on children by allowing them to be exposed to porn even before their first kiss. What has been documented here in the Generation Sext […]
Are you a good feminist? Bad feminist? Is it really about you? Laura McNally Today the downturn of women’s rights is smacking us upside the face. Femicide is reaching such epidemic proportions that nations like Brazil are introducing special legislation against it. Australia’s rate of sexual violence has jumped 20% in a year, statistics […]
Profound experiences with W.A students on my last roadtrip. Last month I spoke 27 times in three and a half weeks in the ACT, Queensland, Western Australia and New South Wales. I spoke on the objectification of women and sexualisation of girls in media and popular culture, the sexual world of the 21st century adolescent, […]
Sexting, Shame and Suicide: a shocking story of sexual assault in the digital age This essay was published last September but I’ve only just come across it. I keep thinking of Audrie and her body defaced and graffitied, the images shared and consumed. Her waking in horror to discover the markings all over her body […]
The dark side of a selfie On Monday morning ABC Radio Australia’s Phil Kafcaloudes hosted a discussion on the ‘selfie’ phenomena with Olympia Nelson, Naziah Ali from Fiji, and me. You can listen to the program here.
Pouty self portraits have turned boy-girl relations into a cut-throat sexual rat race. If social media only caused narcissism, it wouldn’t be the worst thing. Instagram and Facebook are social networks that not only breed narcissistic tendencies but transform relations into a sexual rat race. On these ubiquitous portals, the popularity of girls is hotly […]
My last two reviews (‘Excellent advice on helping a friend with an eating disorder and dealing with stalking’, ‘Pressures to sext and give oral sex’) have been almost entirely positive. That’s pretty unusual. The May issue makes this a trifecta. Whenever I pick up the latest issue of teen girl mags, I hope to find […]
Historically debates about children and pornography have tended to play out in two directions. Either children are discussed as being the victims used in illegal child pornography, or alternatively they are constructed as the damaged consumers of adult pornography which they inadvertently or deliberately access. Both the “exploited victim” and “damaged consumer” approaches have produced […]
The brutalisation of girls In the past couple of weeks I’ve met or heard from young girls whose experiences give further disturbing insight into just how bad things are for girls right now. A 12-year-old girl approached me after I addressed the question ‘Are girls being treeated as sex objects?’ before an audience in Sydney’s […]
