Teen Focused Website

As I was searching Google for websites I tried different keywords phrases: how should my body look?, teen fashion, how do I get a guy to like me?  The last phrase brought about the most results.  Interestingly I first went to a bizarre website with more quizzes like the ones we discussed earlier in the semester.  After some digging I found this website http://www.girlslife.com/.  It appears to be a bevy of all kinds of topics from "how to get fit while you babysit", "10 weird boob qs", and "diy sugar high", and the list goes on.  This was an interesting website as it does not intially appear as "bad" as some of the others, with a "safe" look, but clearly some of the topics are just as destructive.

Girl Power Play Rationale

Ann Cooper

Meredith Tweed

WST 4022

October 25, 2012

Girl Power Play Rationale

            Girl Power Play, created as a part of the UCF Day for the Young Women Leaders Program (YWLP), has four main objectives: facilitate activities that will demonstrate the diverse and often overlooked ways in which our bodies perform; reveal how leadership is enacted through the body and its many functions; experience how bodies work and lead in different ways to do different things, and when they work together to complete common goals, community is created; feel and utilize the strength and power of our bodies, however they emerge and manifest.  These four objectives, of which are important in changing the discourse about the body, will be accomplished through activities such as the Human Pyramid and the Blindfold Challenge.

            “Big” and “strong” are just not used to describe little girls in our society.  Already, at birth, the molding of a girl into an object of beauty—and nothing else—begins (Cabell, 162).  Gender norms and the conversations around them begin at very young ages for both boys and girls as Cabell discussed in “Broken Up Over Gender Bias”.  By guiding the girls in activities that will give them a different view of their body and how it functions, works, and performs we can begin to re-address the term “strong”.  Through strength and leadership activities they themselves will learn ways to change the dialogue surrounding them.

            At the same time that it is important to address societies, and possibly the girls, views on being “strong” we can work to reach goals that Torres set out for herself: my mind had to be convinced that my body could do the impossible (222).  Though we are not implying that things are “impossible” for the girls of the YWLP, we are asking them to think outside the box and look at what more their body can do.  By becoming less focused on the way their body looks and more concerned with what it can do (Torres, 222) the girls again can change the dominate discourse involving the body as only something to be discussed in terms of looks. 

            The UCF Day lesson plan, Girl Power Play, may only be a small part of their day, week, or even year.  The goal of the plan is to send them away with a message; to help them see a different perspective than the one portrayed in the main-stream media.  As many of the readings have suggested, and in particular “Broken Up Over Gender Bias” girls are given the idea that they can’t be “strong” from an early age.  The girls will see that they can be strong and with that strength they will be able to form relationships of teamwork and leadership with their peers and their bodies.  By meeting our objectives we will aid the girls in understanding their bodies and what they can do (Torres, 221).

Work Cited

Matilsky, Sarabeth.  “Broken Up Over Gender Bias.”  blue jean: What Young Women are Thinking, Saying, and Doing.  Ed.  Sherry S. Handel.  Rochester, NY:  blue jean press,  2001.  160-166.  Print.

Torres, Allison.  “At Home in My Body.”  Body Outlaws: Rewriting the Rules of Beauty and Body Image.  Ed.  Ophira Edut.  Emeryville, CA:  Seal Press,  2003.  219-224.  Print.

Gloria Steinem Legislative Lunch

Ann Cooper

October 22, 2012

WST4022

Meredith Tweed

Gloria Steinem Legislative Lunch

            Gloria Steinem is seen by many as the leader of the feminist movement in America.  A journalist, author, social and political activist, teacher, and a woman she has been able to use her voice to speak for those whose voices are not heard.  After attending the universities legislative lunch my biggest take away was an answer to a question posed by an audience member: “We can find our feminist identity in our own way.” 

            As a young female with a desire to understand and help other females I enrolled in the Women’s Studies program to give myself a broader view of the plight of the female.  I felt it was important for me to be able to think outside the box and gain a different perspective other than my own.  Interestingly, in a program that it is set to reach all women and not just middle class white women, I did not know where I fit.  Should I be ashamed of the opportunities that I’d been given?  Do I have the right to have an opinion on other’s issues and troubles?  Am I a feminist?

            A year and a half of wondering was answered simply and succinctly by Ms. Steinem.  Of course I am.  I may not “look” like the stereotypical feminist, but that’s good because feminism to me means fighting stereotypes; what does a feminist look like anyways?  I may not have, or always comprehend, the “answers”, but that’s okay because I’m not there to provide the answers but to ask the questions.  Isn’t that what it’s about, asking the questions?

            Arriving on Friday I was appreciative of the opportunity to hear from Ms. Steinem and curious as to what she would share.  I left with a surprisingly new perspective.  I’ve been trying to figure out how to fit myself into a “box” and struggling.  Instead, I can now spend that energy working on creating my own feminist identity.

           

Service Learning 10/6

I am really getting excited about what we are doing for our girls on UCF days and in particular on the Body Workshop day.  While it took us awhile to get things going I think that we really are on a role now!

I am personally excited and proud of the ideas that we have created for the Body Workshop day.  The flow of our day really is going to focus on giving the girls a different way to talk about their body, a different dialogue.  Obviously, as young girls we/they are taught to focus on the aesthetics of the body, what it looks like, what size it is, and most importantly what problems it has.  The essence of the BODY PROJECT.  For the workshop we are going to direct the girls, through a fun project, to talk about the way that their bodies actually work, what they do, how they connect to the world with them and through them. 

Our text, mainly the Body Project, discusses the different courses that different eras have taken to "deal" with and "teach" young girls about their bodies.  Most of the conversations ended in either there being a need to buy something, the limitations of what the female body can/should do, but mainly the need to fix them.  We are really trying to focus on the endless amounts of things that the body can do and allows us to do.

Service Learning 9/29

I am very excited that our service learning project has FINALLY gotten on track.  We had a great meeting yesterday, at which I feel we got quite a bit accomplished.  I have also found that some of my experience in retail management is coming handy with managing our meeting agendas and the accountability process we have estabilished.  This weekend I am going to work on coming up with some concrete ideas, based on previous brainstorming, for our Body Workshop day. 

This project is really working to help me look at the different things we are reading and how they can be applied to the everyday lay person (girl).  I also feel that this is going to be extremely beneficial for me in my future career goals.

Discussion of Thursday's Readings

In class we have discussed several different aspects of society’s idea of how to “handle” the female body.  Throughout history the female body has been looked at or “handled” by pretending nothing’s really happening, by medicalizing it and giving the job of “looking after” it to medical doctors and the pharmaceutical industry, by commercializing and building the consumption of products, and disguising much of this in health.  I feel that there is a huge miss (obviously!) in disguising the body project in health. 

            The body is obviously about health, but magazines, marketing, and society have been using the term health rather freely.  Our readings from Thursday’s class, mainly Leonard Sax’s “Why are so many girls cutting themselves?” and “Unwanted” by Sicangu Lakota reiterated my feelings that there is a huge “miss” in our medicalization and misuse of health in terms of young girls’ bodies.

            Now, and very much in the past, the mental health system has missed the idea that girls and boys simply are different and should be treated differently when it comes to issues of mental health, especially when it comes to the body.  Sax (2010) discusses how many girls are either cutting themselves or partaking in some other form of Non-Suicidal Self Injury (NSSI).  The write-up also, mentions a major issue with the DSM-V’s criteria for the diagnosis does not address the gender differences of self-injury (Sax, 2010).  I have also done quite a bit of reading from a source that Sax cites, Susan Nolen-Hoeksema.  Much of her research is on adolescent girls and how we as a society are often teaching them to not actively deal, which is how we teach our boys, with their problems, but to spend much of their time talking and thinking about their feelings.  As a side effect of this girls are turning to their body and taking out their problems on it (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2006).  The girls mentioned Sax’s articles do not “show” as out of control or depressed, but instead are actually very good at presenting themselves as very much together (Sax, 2010).

            While Sax (2010) seems to be discussing the girl who on the outside has it all together, is pretty, and “meeting the gender-specific societal expectations”; Lakota (2002) is a girl of color with a different story that ends the same.  Her inner-turmoil has caused her to take it out on her body.  She spends so much time thinking about cutting and even suicide that she also falls through the cracks.  Unfortunately and probably because she does not meet the grouping that Sax describes her treatment by the system and the mental health system was not what the girl described in Sax’s article would receive.

            To bring it back to what I set out to say, I feel that the mental “health” and medical systems are letting girls down.  They are not treated or seen for their specific needs.  There is a serious need to understand why we are showing or telling our girls to hold their feelings in or to only deal with their issues by only talking about emotions.  We need to empower them to use their bodies, voices, and minds to actively handle the problems.  We need to work harder to understand why girls are turning to “hurting” their bodies to release the pain. 

Additional References

Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (2006). Eating, drinking, overthinking: The toxic triangle of food alcohol, and depression—and how women can break free.  New York, NY:  Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

Service Learning 9/19--LOVE YOUR BODY

I really wanted to share this website on my blog.  I found it while doing research for some activities that we can do with the girls.  I really think it's important to remember who our audience is.  This is about the girls, and we really need to focus on making this about them and not get lost in our "own" needs.  Anyways, that was a little bit of a rant. 

http://loveyourbody.nowfoundation.org/whatyoucando.html

Every day, in so many ways, the beauty industry (and the media in general) tell women and girls that being admired, envied and desired based on their looks is a primary function of true womanhood. The beauty template women are expected to follow is extremely narrow, unrealistic and frequently hazardous to their health. The Love Your Body campaign challenges the message that a woman's value is best measured through her willingness and ability to embody current beauty standards. (taken from the above website)

This is a great campaign that is for EVERYONE!!  I very much like their poster contest and feel that it would be a great project to share with the girls.