Tag Archives: adolescence

October 5, 2012 · 6:06 pm

I’ve Never Started a Petition Before

Until today, I had never started a petition. I wasn’t that kid in high school who went lunch table to lunch table advocating for new textbooks, or better candy in the snack machines, or cheaper prom tickets. I preferred to write my feelings (and sometimes rant my feelings) and then to think that my part in the struggle was done because I’d said my piece.

Yesterday, someone sent me a Facebook page called “12 Year Old Sluts,” (trigger warning) in which the moderators (two adult men) post and repost pictures of teenaged girls (and sometimes younger) in provocative poses for their commentariat to rip to shreds. They profess to be teaching these girls “a lesson” about not being “slutty” on the internet. The comments at best are guffaws and jokes about the girls being ugly (a lot of “I’d rather fuck a cow/tractor/dog than her”.) At worst, they are threatening (“I’d tap that…with a truck full of explosives,” “She needs a hug, around the neck…with a rope”). Many of the comments are from other girls.

I reported the page to Facebook as a violation of their community standards (which include bans on violence, threats, bullying, and harassment). They responded: “Thanks for your recent report of a potential violation on Facebook. After reviewing your report, we were not able to confirm that the specific page you reported violates Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.”

I can’t remember the last time I was this blindingly angry. Writing a post didn’t seem to be enough. Ranting on Facebook didn’t seem to be enough. Tweeting my rage didn’t seem to be enough. This page’s sole purpose is to promote the harassment of women and girls, to limit the ways in which they can express themselves, to shame them into behaving a certain way, and to tear them down if they don’t. The men who created this page think they are doing someone a favor by shredding a girl’s self-esteem so she “learns a lesson.” All they do is perpetuate a cycle where women are valued strictly for how much men like to look at them.

I started a change.org petition to get Facebook to remove this page. It is currently filed under “Controversial Humor.” Here’s the full text of my letter:

Related Post: On Daniel Tosh and rape jokes.

Related Post: Anita Sarkeesian gets harassed for attempting to research violence in video games

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July 1, 2012 · 2:15 pm

Sunday Scraps 64

1. WEIGHT: Super stellar essay from my recent Jezebel favorite, Lindy West, on the intricacies of talking to pre-teens about fitness, nutrition, weight, and body image.

2. ART: Ahhh, this short comic by Chelsea Martin, “Heavy-handed Acne”  is just so beautiful and poignant and I love it (via The Rumpus).

3. PRIDE: Buzzfeed collected 32 images from Pride that will probably make you cry… in the good way.

4. WORDS: Basic but superbly addictive word game from Shy Gypsy. Make word associations across the map to keep the game branching out (i.e. Cow and Horse share the word Cowboy).

5. TECH: Fabulous, fascinating interview with Genevieve Bell, the director of interaction and experience research at Intel,  about the contents of our cars and the life cycle of technology (Slate).

6. CAREER: The unbeatable Jessica Hagy (of This Is Indexed) has contributed a series of her trademark line graphs, on the subject of finding a career path, to Forbes.

Related Post: Sunday 63 (Cabrini-Green, Merkel vs. Rae Jepsen, Anne Friedman, school lunches)

Related Post: Sunday 62 (Is this racist? Authors in bikinis, Sandberg, grammar points)

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Filed under Art, Body Image, Books, Gender, Media

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August 31, 2011 · 12:53 pm

But How Old Is She Really?

This is Thylane Loubry Blondeau and she’s been causing quite the controversy. She’s a French child model and she’s 10.

This is Haley Clauson, she was fifteen when this photo shoot took place. It’s now on Urban Outfitter t-shirts.

I can’t find this model’s name, but she’s 18. This is for Roger David’s clothing line New Love Club.

The Roger David ad was banned this week  because it “‘inappropriately depicted a young girl in a sexualised manner”. Um… yeah. It does. And so do those others. And so do most advertisements these days.

This Roger David debacle would suggest that the actual age of the model isn’t the issue, because she’s legal. It’s the intention of making her look younger that crosses a seemingly arbitrary line. So here’s my question, where is that line exactly? How is the fifteen-year-old with her legs splayed okay, but the eighteen-year-old with “Slave” tattooed on her shoulder not? What about the 10 year old making pouty-face?

I know I’m getting prudish in my old age because I huff and puff at Gossip Girl billboards. When a Victoria’s Secret writhe-a-thon comes on before 9pm a big part of me wants to hurl popcorn at the TV and shriek “What about the chiiiiildren?” I don’t mind sexy ads. In fact, I totally dig sexy ads. I just don’t like them in front of less-discerning audiences, like ones who don’t know what “Photoshop” means and can’t spell “misogyny.” I also don’t like them when the perceived sexiness is about girlhood instead of womanhood.

Roger David’s PR people said this in response to the ban: “The relevant audience for this advertisement is young men. Roger David strongly believes that young men would relate to this image, and would not see it as shocking or exploitative.” Hey Roger David PR guy, do you not see that it’s a problem when young men (or women) see images of woman intentionally aged-down in sexulized contexts? Yes, she’s actually 18, but when you start seeing an 18-year-old who looks 14 as “sexy” it warps your standards of what, and how old, real-world sexiness looks like.

I don’t necessarily have an answer. At the very least, sexualized images used for advertising should adhere to age laws we use to regulate who can dance in a strip club. What’s qualifies as a sexualized image? See Potter Stewart.

Related Post: Here’s the wrong answer (one of them anyway) about why teenage girls dress “like prostitutes.”

Related Post: Oy. Let’s hope these Tangent models are 18.

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July 21, 2011 · 12:50 pm

How to Ace an Interview

It’s something new and different. Hoorah! While I adore writing for The Good Men Project (and will happily continue to do so), it was a nice little diversion this week to put my mind to something other than sex, gender and relationships.

This week, I wrote for a nifty online magazine called Persephone, a “daily blog for clever, bookish women.” The range of content is obscenely delightful, from posts about Harry Potter trivia, to academic women and the “baby gap,” recaps of the many-years-canceled West Wing, to play-by-plays of the Jillian Michaels “shredding” diet.

My contribution is called “How to Ace an Interview.” In retrospect, I wish I had called it “How to Ace an Interview: Talk about Pubic Hair and Be a Pain in the Ass.” Here it is, in case you’re curious:

Related Post: Tips from the pros: Mika Brzezinski and Sheryl Sandberg.

Related Post: This was reposted on Jezebel.

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May 5, 2011 · 12:26 pm

Guest Post: “Something as Simple as My Wardrobe”

Looking for an outlet during MCAT season, Kudret decided to emulate some of her favorite style bloggers and snap a daily photo to inspire fashion creativity and jump start her brain. Four months later, she’s reflecting on the origins of the project and the personal and cultural journey she has already taken:

I know that I’m not ugly. Far from it. But growing up South Asian in American society, not fitting into white norms of beauty, I think that my perception of self is severely dysmorphic.

I moved to Pakistan when I was 6 years old. When I moved back to the US, at the age of 11, I was in the middle of full-blown puberty. I probably had a distorted accent due to my dramatic transcontinental moves, and still showed the lesions from a full-body outbreak of reptilian Psoriasis. My hair had decided to change its nature, going from straight to wavy overnight. Puberty had only highlighted the problem that most South Asian women have, with my upper-lip hair and unibrow growing darker and thicker by the day. My teeth fell out, but never grew in properly, and I had an adorably unevenly spaced smile.

This project was a way of cheering on that 11-year-old girl, and telling her that she is beautiful. She was never a “not” and she is so much more than just merely “hot”.  The simple act of photographing myself in the morning, and putting myself out there, made me take the time to invest in the external. It would be cliche to follow that with, as I focused more on my appearance, I began to feel inner beauty too. But like most cliches, there is a degree of truth in that sentiment.

This project has fueled some interesting debates about morality and modesty, and how modesty is a fluid concept. My older family members see a young girl who has grown into a confident woman, but I see this project as a way to reconcile my bicultural identities in something as simple as my wardrobe. It’s a way to exist more comfortably in this body, in this skin and with these looks, undictated by magazines or TV shows.

Kudret at 11, 14 and 17 (Photos: Courtesy of Kudret)

Related Post: Guest post from Amanda on bridal boot camp and wedding pressure.

Related Post: Guest post from Matty, thoughts on penis size.

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