Posts tagged ‘Miss Representation’
The Representation Project: Rewrite the Story
Teaching our children Media Literacy Tools is an important cause to me. Studies show that American youth today consume more than eleven hours of media a day, and what they see in that media is an overwhelming norm of objectified or hypersexualized women. This misrepresentation has long-term effects. For example, after reading a beauty magazine for only three minutes, 75% of teenage girls feel depressed, guilty, and shameful. With Miss Representation Curriculum 2.0 – designed to engage and activate young people in new ways – The Representation Project hopes to create a real pattern interruption to change behavior and expand what is possible for young women and girls. Check out their website to find out how you can help be part of the solution. Or click here to donate today and give the gift of media literacy curriculum, discussion guides, and educational tools to students, parents, coaches, caregivers, and mentors.
Dads Matter. Men Matter.
Today we celebrate the dads in the world. I love this video because it illustrates just how important a man is in a woman’s life! Happy Father’s Day!!!
Shopping For The Holidays
My friends at MissRepresentation.org have been diligently working to challenge the media to portray women and girls in a positive light, to show them expressing important ideas and opinions, instead of being hyper-sexualized and objectified.
I stand with MissRepresentation.org, ToGetHerThere.org, SeeJane.org, and many others, who believe in that inspiring future. With MissRep’s recent victory in persuading Spirit Halloween to remove unnecessarily sexualized language describing children’s costumes from their website, worldwide film screenings reaching thousands of viewers, and recent power plays on Black Friday to avoid sexiest products, I’d say progress is being made.
To that end, with December upon us, it’s essential that we continue to stay aware of the media we are consuming and sharing with our friends and family. We hold the purse strings. We vote with our dollars. We can send the biggest message of all by NOT buying. Millions of movies, books, music, magazines and video games will be given as gifts over the next few weeks. We must be conscious of the way our women and girls, our sisters, cousins, mothers and friends, are represented in every THING we buy and make sure to support products that inspire and empower the gender.
A Mighty Girl.com has lists of girl-positive gifts in almost every category of media — check it out! #MediaWeLike on Pinterest highlights media recommended by the MissRep community for people of all ages. Lastly, of course, MissRepresentation itself is currently available on DVD and can be a great way to talk about media awareness with the ones you love because Media Literacy is an important human issue.
So as you shop this holiday season, keep in mind the old character building adage what I say and how I say it, tells others the kind of person I am. Before you buy ask yourself this question, “Does this gift acrately reflect the kind of notions, ideas and values I want to perpetuate in the collective consciousness of life?” If so, then give freely and with an open heart. If not, then thank you for being honest, and maybe you can find something else that better reflects who you are and the kind of world you’d rather live in. We are the change. Happy shopping.
What Limbaugh, Brown and Modern Family Have in Common
Gather for a Cause
I can’t express to you in mere words what a visceral response I had to just the trailer for Miss Representation. This award-winning film is eye-opening and maddening about just how much power the media has in shaping our young people’s perceptions of the world in which they live. If you disagree, watch the trailer. It’s not just TV, movies and music anymore. It’s magazines, video games, online media, social networking, and all that comes along with that. 10 hours and 45 minutes a DAY of consumed media. Much of it is damaging our girl’s self-esteem and confidence, creating body-image disorders, and a sense of uselessness, and a climate for our boys that breeds a false bravado and total lack of respect for women because they are taught to believe it is okay to treat women like sex objects.
In this week’s video not only do I urge you to watch the trailer, but I share some ease ideas to keep the “conversation” going. It’s such an important conversation…watch the trailer and the video blog and let’s chat. What do you think? Please leave a comment.
Movie Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFh5F8cFb3g&feature=share
Friends in on the conversation:
queen of connection | Shelby L. Phillips 