"Stacy's Mom" is the family-friendly national anthem of our broadly female-objectifying mainstream everything. Products like this both reflect and create culture.
Helping my clients learn to accept who they are -- and who they aren't -- is essential, and it is so liberating for them when they finally do.
According to the scientists behind the study, the result is due not to intentional marginalization, but to "subconscious cultural influences." Are we supposed to be relieved that this discrimination isn't deliberate?
Society dictates that a male athlete can do a crazy hilarious victory dance again and again after scoring a touchdown, and it is fine, but woe to the girl who openly displays too much pride in her accomplishments.
Not acknowledging anger and powerlessness or trivializing it only makes things worse. I'd suggest we'd have a lot less girls to "fix" if we acknowledged this.
You want more male teachers and educational environments that meet the needs of all types of students? I want fair pay, more female leaders and workplace and political environments that do the same thing.
The Teen Mentors have learned to talk openly about the process of accepting oneself and one's body. They feel supported as they ask questions that every girl faces when she builds her identity: "Am I pretty enough?"
With kids feeling this insecure about their bodies at such a young age, it is more important than ever to provide them with a support system where they can learn to accept who they are and not build on their insecurities, but rather, face them.
Even though I'm not normally one for saccharine self-affirmations and cheesy platitudes, I want to use the comments section of this post to flip the script and ask you all to say something positive about yourselves.
I'm constantly on the search for the tools in life that will help me get it right with my children more than I get it wrong. I have gained insight and a few tips that help me strive for what I crave: balance.
You're not ugly. Not in the least, so don't make those videos. Take them down if they are up. You don't need people to tell you how beautiful you are on there. You don't need to put yourself in the position to be judged that way.
What girls say to each other on Facebook matters more than the possible threat of cyberbullying. It reflects what we teach kids about what's important and has real consequences.
That so many have -- and in the process downloaded and trafficked in illegal child pornography -- speaks volumes about how society thinks about Black girls. For that reason alone, Amber Cole is my daughter.
Our daughter has grown to become a determined, strong-minded, opinionated, confident, ultra-cute little girl. She is a fighter, and undoubtedly, she has needed every ounce of fight within her to make it this far.
Despite girls playing sports, boys wearing pink and the million other modern ways our old gender stereotypes have been proven false, every so often a ...
My daughters are facing a lifetime of advertisements that will make them feel inadequate. But I didn't expect my girls to encounter them before they lost all of their baby teeth.
How do we western women, so often raised by unempowered mothers, make a necessary shift in our thinking and our actions in order to gift our daughters with a full inheritance of feminine power?
What makes smart girls more vulnerable and less confident when they should be the most confident kids in the room?
We need to encourage our older teenage girls to see our younger girls for what they themselves once were -- on the precipice between self-acceptance and self-loathing, needing the encouragement of the older girls they so admire and respect.
Everyone has an opportunity to make a difference in a girl's self-esteem, and we should all commit ourselves to helping girls build a positive relationship with beauty so that they can reach their full potential.
There's something lost and something gained in every generation. I'd take autonomy and freedom of expression any day.
