By Sesali B. • @BadFatBlackGirl • 10 years ago

Seventeen Magazine then and now

Earlier today Bitch media posted this side-by-side image of Seventeen magazine in 1973 and in 2010. As you can see, the 1973 cover features a young Navajo woman with windblown hair, happily looking off camera, engaged in something going on around her. The 2010 spread — with the title “Navajo” — includes  a white woman in a “tribal” print sweater surrounded by more incorrectly-appropriated items. 

And this is what you can count on now on the the cover of Seventeen.

seventeen magazines 2013

What sticks out more than the overwhelming amount of white women and neon colors are the headlines. The magazine that offers one-dimensional and Eurocentric beauty advice marketed to teens used to be a little more robust. It went from profiling Native American women, telling the stories of single mothers, and offering up summer job ideas to helping you look cute, in a Taylor Swift kind of way.

*sigh*

Avatar Image Sesali wishes she was old enough to remember this Seventeen cover with the Fresh Prince on it.

Feministing's resident "sexpert", Sesali is a published writer and professional shit talker. She is a queer Black girl, fat girl, and trainer. She was the former Training Director at the United States Student Association and later a member of the Youth Organizing team at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She received her bachelors in Women's and Gender Studies from Depaul University in 2012 and is currently pursuing a master's in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta. A self identified "trap" feminist, and trained with a reproductive justice background, her interests include the intersections of feminism and: pop culture, youth culture, social media, hip hop, girlhood, sexuality, race, gender, and Beyonce. Sesali joined the team in 2010 as one of the winners of our So You Think You Can Blog contest.

is Feministing's resident sexpert and cynic.

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