Tag Archive for "Girls"

Posts Tagged Girls

The Best and Worst of the Golden Globes

Last night everyone in the world (read: everyone I follow on Twitter) watched the Golden Globes, which promised to be an important event for women in entertainment with Amy Poehler and Tina Fey hosting and a bunch of talented ladies nominated. In case you had better things to do than watch (read a book, take a nap, feed your cat), we’ve compiled the best and worst moments from the night—from a feminist perspective, of course.

The Top Feminist Moments:

5. Lena Dunham wins stuff. I get that this is a controversial call, and I’m pretty ambivalent about Dunham. I absolutely agree that she is no progressive feminist leader; the “Girls” creator/director/writer/star has some serious thinking to do about ...

By Sesali B. • 11 years ago

Quick Hit: 10 things I want my daughter to know before she turns 10

I usually shy away from lists like this out of fear that they are extremely heteronormative, fat-shaming, sexist, etc. But this one… This one was beautiful and perfect. Not only did it remind me of the things I’d like to share with my daughter one day, but it made me think of things I wish my mom shared with me.

I’m particularly fond of numbers 1, 6 & 9.

“1. It is not your job to keep the people you love happy. Not me, not Daddy, not your brother, not your friends. I promise, it’s not. The hard truth is that you can’t, anyway.”

“6. Reading is essential. It is the central leisure-time joy of my life, as you know. I am immensely ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 11 years ago

Swedish toy company reverses genders in new catalogue

Top Toy, one of the largest toy companies in Sweden, is flipping the gender script in its Christmas catalogue. This year, girls are shown playing with toy guns, while boys are playing with dollhouses. The company was called out a few years ago by a watchdog group for its stereotypical advertising, and decided it needed to adapt to Sweden’s progressive attitudes about gender.

Here’s hoping someday American toy companies heed the call of girls like Riley and quit with the ridiculously gendered marketing too.

By Maya Dusenbery • 11 years ago

Justice Sotomayor gives Sesame Street some career advice

Crushing the dreams of countless little girls (and boys) around America, Justice Sonia Sotomayor broke the news to the viewers of Sesame Street that being a princess is not a career. Sorry, kids, the truth hurts sometimes. She suggests Abby become a teacher, lawyer, doctor, engineer, or scientist instead. “A career is something that you train for and prepare for and plan on doing for a long time.”

Love it. Transcript here.

By Samhita • 11 years ago

Does Lena Dunham’s “casual racism” matter?

Twitter was abuzz over the weekend because of some rather unfortunate tweets sent out by–lady of the moment–Lena Dunham. Dunham instagram’ed a picture of herself with a shawl over her head, writing, “I had a real goth/fundamentalist attitude when I woke up from my nap.”

Arturo Garcia posted the offending tweet and image.

The goth community is outraged.

(Just kidding).

The tweet and pic are not obviously racist to most people, but should be annoying. It’s more like casual racism–or when someone reinforces something that’s inherently racist and rather than question it, they just goes with the flow. The most concrete offense is that she is conflating fundamentalism with veiling. Many women don headscarves who aren’t fundamentalist. And there are people that ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 11 years ago

Feminist Fuck Yeah: In response to 8th grader’s petition, Seventeen magazine agrees not to digitally alter images

A serious Tuesday Feminist Fuck Yeah for Julia Bluhm and activists at SPARK. A couple months ago, the 8th grader launched a campaign calling on Seventeen magazine to feature one photoshop-free image per issue. Now 84,000 signatures later, the magazine seems to be hearing the message. Via Change:

After over 84,000 people signed Julia’s petition and she and her fellow SPARK Summit activists hand-delivered the petitions to the executive editor of Seventeen, the magazine has made a commitment to not alter the body size or face shape of the girls and models in the magazine and to feature a diverse range of beauty in its pages.

Teenage SPARK activists are now turning their sights on Teen Vogue–so you should probably ...

By Vanessa • 11 years ago

80% of 10-year-old girls in the U.S. say they’ve been on a diet

Tell me there’s not something seriously fucking wrong with this fact.

This is just one of many that have compelled Miss Representation, SPARK, Endangered Bodies and other organizations to host a 3-day long challenge to encourage the public to push women’s and girl’s magazines to take accountability for their direct impact on the epidemic of shame, self-loathing and starvation among young women in the U.S. And things aren’t getting better.

Their ask? A pledge by these magazines to use at least one unphotoshopped image in each of their issues. This is a larger follow-up campaign to 14-year-old Julia Bluhm’s quest you may have heard about, where she asked for this very thing of Seventeen magazine; while she ...

Tell me there’s not something seriously fucking wrong with this fact.

This is just one of many that have compelled Miss Representation, SPARK, Endangered Bodies and other organizations to host a 3-day long challenge ...

By Eesha Pandit • 12 years ago

Girls (Not the HBO show)

Okay. I am not embroiled in the controversy around HBO’s new show, Girls. I haven’t watched it, to be frank. I saw that it was yet ANOTHER show about rich, white women in NYC and just decided against it. Commentary about the show is all over the internet, and we’ve discussed it here, too.

This post is actually not about the show at all. Psych.

Instead, I’d like highlight some OTHER girls, and their fierce work in the world. It’s my own little counter to the HBO sanctioned worldview that whitewashes life and is anchored in economic privilege. Here are some of my favorite things that girls are up to in the world, please add yours in the comments.

Okay. I am not embroiled in the controversy around HBO’s new show, Girls. I haven’t watched it, to be frank. I saw that it was yet ANOTHER show about rich, white women in NYC and just ...