Just vote. Sign your name. It’s simple.
September 2, 2012
In light of my last few posts – if you want to start making that change, sign the following petition to Cleo Magazine – strongly urging them to stop altering the images of women they use.
Following a US teenager’s successful petition calling on 17 Magazine to publish one unaltered photo spread per month, Melbourne woman Jessica Barlow has created a petition calling on Australian Cleo Magazine to do the same.
The petition reads:
Reality is beautiful. Stop using Photoshop to alter appearances.
In high school, not a day would go by without hearing another girl complain about her weight or appearance. I saw girls get severely bullied and excluded because they didn’t live up to the beauty ideals of women in magazines.And it made me want to doctor my own appearance even more.
My friends and I looked up to the models in Cleo magazine. It was one of the most popular among my classmates. But what I think many of us didn’t know is that Cleo was altering the images of women to make them skinny and blemish free.
The altered pictures make readers question their weight, appearance and self-worth. I know this much first hand. They teach us that to be “pretty” you have to be thin and have perfect skin. Studies now show that these damaging images can lead to eating disorders, dieting and depression.
Distorting and editing the appearances of models in magazines is distorting the mental health of girls who read magazines that engage in these practices.
Public pressure is building across the world for magazines to stop altering images of girls. In the US a teenager convinced Seventeen Magazine to publish one unaltered spread a month after thousands joined her petition. I think Cleo should do the same for their readers.
I want Cleo to stop selling images that hurt girls and break our self-esteem. Let us see real faces and real shapes in at least one photo spread a month — and always put a warning symbol on any image that has been altered.
It’s time to put an end to the digitally enhanced, unrealistic beauty we see in the pages of magazines. Please sign my petition to Cleo Magazine editors calling on them to give us images of real girls in their magazines.
PLEASE sign. It’s quick and it’s the first step in having a voice:
You can also tell them what you think, by writing a rational, intelligent comment on their Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/CLEOAustralia?filter=2
Lastly, you can check out the following page:
https://www.facebook.com/#!/events/440832622636296/445479898838235/?notif_t=plan_mall_activity
Let’s do this thing!
Deep Breath and sign against covers like the following cartoon:
x
DON’T buy into it. Yep – it’s a Shout Out. #4.
September 2, 2012
I’ve had an epiphany – a bit of an ‘a-ha’ moment. Well, it wasn’t so much that I didn’t know it before, but more that I was hit with a simple and succinct realisation.
It’s the simplicity of it that is both liberating and equally terrifying – because regardless of its clarity – we are trapped.
You know all the famous modern icons? – I can’t believe what we call them ‘icons’ for – icons like Kim Kardashian?
We’re paying them.
In turn, they spend the money we give them on ‘perfecting’ themselves:
On make-up – THEY DON’T PAY FOR.
On clothes – THEY DON’T PAY FOR.
On ‘procedures’ – THEY DON’T PAY FOR.
Cars – Technology – ‘Gift Bags’ – EVERYTHING!…they don’t pay.
We do.
And then we worship them for creating the image we can never have (as I wrote in my penultimate post Why it’s worse now) and buy more beauty products, clothes, ‘procedures’ to try to replicate it. In turn, we keep fattening their pay packets, as the beauty industry uses them over and over again – making them icons.
THIS IS PURE INSANITY!
This vicious cycle is not only never-ending – its predatory qualities and hunger appear to be insatiable.
OK, here comes a Shout Out.
We are intelligent beings, ladies – VERY intelligent:
Question #87: So why are we doing it to ourselves? WHY?
And we are doing it from both sides – one side (the majority of us) perpetuate it by BUYING into this mono; limiting; ‘hot’ look, while on the other side, we also have the women who agree to represent us so poorly and participate in our exploitation that way.
It’s a trap.
As a fly is digested slowly in the Venus Fly Trap, so are we.
I don’t know about you, but that’s why this clarity is a tad terrifying to me – because its EFFECTS are devastating. Statistics are showing girls and women spiralling into a world of depression and worse. I even know many mothers who loathe their bodies after growing a human being in them – instead of wearing their shape with a pure sense of pride – of the miracles their bodies are.
But, as I said in response to a comment from the above-mentioned post, EVERYTHING IS TAUGHT. Everything.
So it’s time. Regardless of what’s happened in the past – the only way to move forward is to say, “OK, yes, we used to do it like that or accept things as they are – but not any more.
Do not pay any attention to women like Lara Bingle, who so graciously had the following picture of herself taken (which has also been photoshopped to an inch of its life):
…because as I’ve said to my students at school – ANYONE CAN DO THAT! Anyone can have sex. Anyone can take their clothes off. It’s not a difficult thing to do…and yet we end up rewarding women for doing just that??
The challenging and hard thing is NOT doing it the easy way – through shortcuts – as there’s always a price to pay…
…and ain’t we paying for it now!
The irony being that the money from our pockets, provides the funding for more.
I repeat: Why are we doing it to ourselves?
Deep Breath everyone – it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
x
Happy Fathers’ Day!
September 2, 2012
It’s Fathers’ Day today in Australia – I’m not sure about whether it’s the same in other nations – but I want to give a huge and heartfelt ‘Woooo Hoooo!’ to all the great men – especially dads – who are fighting the good fight.
Men who simply want a better world for both their daughters AND sons.
Men who will guide and nurture, but most importantly model the fantastic virtues that men carry.
As I’ve always said – in this world that is thirsty for balance – we NEED men to be true men of character and sit side by side with the qualities women bring to the table – and raise our children.
So a toast to you all today!
I hope you all have a wonderful Fathers’ Day – full of love, family…and not too many pairs of socks and ties! Hahaha!
Love, Paula
x
Why it’s worse now.
September 2, 2012
I was cooking and my 9 year old daughter was keeping me company, chatting. It was great.
Yesterday, when I let her play on the computer, which is normally some sort of simple game, I went in to find her doing a ‘make-over’ on some cartoon girl. I told her to get off it. She didn’t make a fuss. Bless her.
So we were chatting about that tonight. I said that, in a way, that game was training her to become a girl who grooms herself in a particular way. I said that there was nothing wrong with wearing makeup when she’s older, but that girls and women nowadays were spending A LOT of money to look a particular way.
I said to her that when I was younger, I loved going through women’s magazines but that ‘back then’ the images were of the women as they were. Don’t get me wrong, we were being sold a particular image – thin, glamorous, in the latest looks…thin – BUT they were fairly real. No airbrushing…lots of make-up – but no airbrushing.
Throughout these modern times – since mid-last century – women have always been sold a look; in line with the fashion of the time. And we have always jumped on that wagon, hoping to mirror that look and belong. That’s cool. We are the fairer sex and we like to groom ourselves.
But it’s worse now.
Why? Because the looks and bodies we’re trying to mirror – are altered and unattainable ones.
Simple, isn’t it?
The logic of it is striking and obvious – and yet…
…here we are ladies – watching women on our screens, posters, ads – depicting the shangri-las of looks – that we can’t have because they are simply. not. real.
Question #85: Why is the unaltered image above, not considered beautiful?
Because there are some rolls…like the ones we all have? Because she has a tummy…like most women?
God forbid we represent the general female population in our media!
Now look at the women around you – your friends – your family.
Do you think they’re all ugly?
They must be if they’re not thin, ‘hot’ and sexy…with no wrinkles etc. etc. etc.
But the majority of women DO NOT fit that tiny mould and I’m also pretty sure that you don’t think any such thing about the women in your life. So, if we think the ordinary and remarkable women around us are beautiful:
Question #86: Why are we being passive and tolerate what the media is doing to the representation of women?
And we are being passive.
Just look at what’s been done to the images of the women below – for magazines that women buy:
Even Barbie – or any doll for that matter (Bratz, anyone?) – sells a look to girls from a young age.
It’s up to us to change this. Noone else can do it – certainly not men. That would be as futile as women changing men’s perspectives.
It’s up to us.
Deep Breath.
x
Just Sayin’ – #9
August 25, 2012
As much as the hype over The Shire seems to be abating (I’m not sure what their ratings are like at the moment), it seems ludicrous that the types of people who media feel we need to ‘follow’ are people like this:
Shire star charged over gay attack
When producers of TV shows like The Shire sink to the lowest sludge at the bottom of the bucket to create ‘entertainment’, I just wonder one thing:
Question #83: Who are the bigger fools? Those who create the show or those who watch it?
Why is a man who has urinated on another in a homophobic attack, given the platform and reverence (by some) that TV affords them?
WHY?
As always, though, we do have a choice as to whom we give our prized attention. Let The Shire sink into its own excrement.
…Just sayin’.
Deep Breath.
x
The Seven Deadly Sins.
August 5, 2012
Question #79: Is our media, and in turn reality, teaching our kids that the only way to ‘succeed’, is by feeding our Deadly Sins?
I look around and I feel surrounded – like I’m in the middle of an old-fashioned, cowboy-style ambush.
* Greed * Lust * Wrath * Sloth * Gluttony * Envy * Pride – transgressions that I read are ‘fatal to spiritual progress’.
They’re everywhere.
WHY?
Yes, they’ve always been around. Of course. The Deadly Sins weren’t written a few years ago in a boardroom – they’re ancient.
I’ve always seen them as a warning – that to indulge in them would lead to chaos. Hell on Earth.
I don’t think we’re quite there yet.
But…
There is one society that is yielding to them more than others…and it’s our capitalist one.
While the majority of the planet wallows in poverty/war/despair of some sort (due to their rulers participating in some Deadly tastes of their own) – we basically live in a luxury that’s unfathomable and unattainable to them.
You’d think we’d be satisfied, wouldn’t you? And yet…according to studies, we are the most affluent we’ve ever been in history – but the most depressed.
Doesn’t this ring any alarm bells?
Our predominant drive? To make money.
Am I saying we shouldn’t? Absolutely not! I could always do with a little more – couldn’t we all? It IS the world we live in – we need it to survive here.
But at what price?
Our society’s hunger for more of everything and the latest of that, is giving me the uneasy feeling that we are starting to flirt with danger.
Not including the majority of ‘have-nots’ equally inhabiting this planet – we are spoilt. And we are few, in comparison to the big picture.
Yet we consume at a pace that is starting to become insatiable and is being bred into this generation of children and young adults.
So as the ‘line to cross’ has to move further behind to get an ‘edge’ on consumption – how is it done today?
By tapping into the taboo, the naughty, the violent, the lazy, the greedy, the depraved…then market it and SELL!
So, yes, I’m starting to feel boxed in by our media and how it’s becoming the teat from which our society suckles – predominantly a pornographic one.
The frustrating part is that I know that there are many, many of you who can see how things are travelling down a soul-less path, as I do; who are doing the very best they can with their children and share my frustration…
…but we’re obviously not enough. We are in the minority.
I can only look at the evidence before my eyes:
1. What I’m seeing in my daily life through (predominantly, but not exclusive to) TV and its ads, Internet, Magazines etc. etc. etc.
2. The choices our youth are making through their behaviour and appearance. Choices that make me question: Where are their parents in this equation?
Today I saw something that chilled me: A book being sold by Amazon (but has since been removed) giving a world guide to sex laws called,
Age of Consent: A Sex Tourists’ Guide
It claims:
“In some countries it is even illegal to have sex outside of marriage, with severe consequences if you are caught doing so! On the flip side, there are many countries on this planet where the age of consent is as low as 12 or 13…whilst one country has no age limit whatsoever! Before travelling, whether you are going as a backpacker, for business purposes, or as a sex tourist, you need to invest in this comprehensive guide to the age of consent laws in every country in the world! It will keep your fun legal!…This $3.49 will keep you out of jail, possibly the most important few dollars that any red blooded testosterone pumped traveller will spend.”
This utterly sickens me – because what I keep questioning is how did something as disgusting as this get printed in the first place? HOW?
Money.
Now, I won’t bore you with a list of how consumption is dancing with the Seven Deadly Sins – but it feels like we’re going down a slippery slope and picking up speed.
There is too much evidence.
How do we slow down this beast/machine, that’s bearing down on us?
Simple. Don’t buy into it!
Those Sins are in all of us – we all feel them at one stage or another…I know I ceratinly have…
Question #80: So why are we allowing them to take over?
The images throughout the post, are of the Seven Deadly Sins from a 2008 ImageFX competition. They uniquely connected with me – I can easily see how these are very present in our lives. The curious thing, however, is that when I looked for images on the Net – they predominantly featured women only. Interesting.
Deep Breath.
x
Just look at this image…
July 20, 2012
Lily Munroe – a friend I have made through this blog (and has a like-minded blog herself: freedomfrompornculture) – found the following, A-MAZ-ING image, after reading my last post:
Question #76: Do you think this is what’s happening?
I do…
and I’m finding myself getting a little alarmed.
Deep Breath.
x
Don’t make them right!
July 20, 2012
In lieu of the recent discussion about ‘quality’ television, it made me question what we’re becoming as an audience.
The general response, by the people who defend shows like, The Shire or Jersey Shore etc. etc. etc. is, “It’s so bad, it’s good!” or “It’s just for a laugh!”
But when pushed for an articulate explanation as to what it is they ‘like’ about it or how it’s funny…there is only the sounds of crickets.
That’s because there is nothing they can say about the tripe they’re watching – in fact, some of them explain with an, “I dunno, it just is.”
Yet they’re popping up everywhere. Why? Because it’s what the creators and producers think we want.
Is it?
Well, the tragic part is that it does appear to be what the masses want. I’m sure there will be many people glued to their seats, watching the next gripping and exciting installment of their favourite show of ‘tacky and fickle’.
Are they in the majority?
We appear like a nation of dumb and mindless, when these sort of shows are afforded our attention…and they gain ratings.
Question #75: Is there no sense of pride – knowing that we appear so easy to dupe?
This INFURIATES me because thanks to this perception, a lot of us are being held to ransom, as the choices of what to watch – for entertainment – are so limited.
Worse still, people are making money off it. Your attention = money.
We need to be more frugal with who gets our attention because at the moment, it appears that when a ‘carrot’ with big boobs is dangled – we follow – like children behind the Pied Piper.
Or we say nothing.
A few years ago, when I was on an excursion with students, I noticed that there was a new energy drink in the shops, called Pussy.
I talked to the students in my year group about seeing this drink. I told them of how I imagined the guy who thought it up – thinking about how he would get rich – he himself imagining guys saying to each other, “I’m going to drink some Pussy!” *HawHawHaw/SnortSnort*
I said to them, “Don’t make him right! Do not give him a cent!”
I urge you to think the same way about what’s being dished out and sold to us as being ‘popular’. Step back and take a look at the core of what’s being sold.
In these sorts of shows, the message that keeps hammering us over the head – on BIG screen TVs across the country – is that young women are not worth our attention, if they don’t have a certain type of vanity attached to their behaviour. This can manifest itself in a spectrum of ways – through clothes, make-up, plastic surgery, conversations, ACTIONS! – and the guys?…well, I didn’t see much about them in the first episode of The Shire – it mainly focused on those girls – and I don’t intend to watch anymore to find out either. My brain cells are still recovering from the first encounter.
So, what sort of audience member are you?
Don’t you want – DESERVE – something better?
Deep Breath
x
The Shire
July 17, 2012
I will be brief as most of Australia has heard of nothing else but this all day.
Last night The Shire aired its first episode.
I literally have no words to explain the levels of ‘wrong’.
Many people from the area are incensed that it’s not an accurate depiction of ‘how it is’ there and then I have a colleague at work who knows which high school one of the girls went to…and it wasn’t in ‘The Shire.’
Oh well, big deal. So the creators are deceiving us – what’s new?
I only have one MAAAAJOR problem with this show and that is how young women are being portrayed.
One of the ‘duo’ (pictured below) did NOTHING but talk about spray-tans, big lips, being thin and botox – with her sidekick. She also convinces her friend to get botox in her forehead…which we see get done. The response? “Is that it? That didn’t even hurt!”
It was like an ad.
By the way, the breasts she’s so subtly pushing out in the image below, were pretty much ‘in your face’ throughout the episode.
Many people in the public were responding to the show by saying how terrible it is that these girls are being judged for how they look. In general, I tend to agree. There are many women who embody similar attributes and attitudes and many more who don’t and we should all be accepted as we are…BUT…
…how can one NOT judge these women about their looks, when the producers not only picked THREE of the main female characters to appear obsessed with their fake appearances – it was, in fact, ALL they talked about. What else are we going to discuss about them – their witty banter?
We have entered a sad time of ‘entertainment’ when such ineffectual people are being glamorised on the screen, for our children to absorb. And they ARE absorbing everything they see.
Question #74: Aren’t we sick of it yet?
What do our daughters have to look up to, when nowadays women have to look hyper-sexualised and self obsessed to become ‘famous’?
Where’s the balance of the other 95% of wonderful women out there to model for our children?
This show, besides all that, is manufactured tripe and should really be boycotted. Don’t you want money and sponsorship spent on something better to put on the telly?
Deep Breath.
x
Ready, Fire, Aim!
July 16, 2012
I have taken a very deep breath and after my off-loading in the last post, I found the second wind I needed from all the wonderful support and great conversations – both online and with friends and family around me.
I still feel the same way as I did in that last post – but now it’s from a clearer and calmer position – and much less overwhelmed as I did a few days ago.
Let’s get to it.
Ready, Fire, Aim!
I heard these words at a professional development day at my school recently – the words of James Nottingham, an educator from the UK.
Our principal said these words – this formula – as a way to inspire positive change in what we do as teachers and I think they’re awesome.
The idea is that we fire – to just do – see how it goes and then readjust our aim. Otherwise we just keep sitting in the same situations waiting for the perfect solution to manifest itself, without trying it out first.
Nothing effective in that.
How are we supposed to get things right, if we’re not willing to try something different? Again, I can hear the voice of Dr Phil making its way through the haze, imploring us to think…”How’s that working for ya?”
I hear MANY women and mothers complain about the state of certain affairs – in everything, mind you, not just in this feminist realm – but that’s all they do…talk about it to each other.
Well, I’m here to say that we can all make small change in one of two ways (or both!):
- Raise your voice and/or
- Choose who gets the benefit of your money.
Just Fire!
To a lot of you, the story I’m about to tell, may not raise any eyebrows and may put your ‘care factor’ at zero. But I care and I think it’s the subtleties like the following, that most people just accept – and we really shouldn’t.
When lines are tentatively crossed, the perpetrators will see what the reaction is – but when there is no reaction or opposition (which seems to be the way of things) – they just draw another line further along and cross it again.
On Saturday night – at 6.30pm – the wonderful, The Sound of Music was on TV and, although I had seen in a gazillion times throughout my youth, I thought it’d be lovely for the girls to immerse themselves in its legendary and geeky glow. How can we forget Liesl going, “Weeeeeeeeeeee!” after her first kiss! It was also cool to see that they already knew some of the songs, even though they hadn’t seen it before…
…and then the commercial break.
We have a new series that’s about to start in Australia called, The Shire – looking at life on the southern beaches of Sydney – through the eyes of a select few, young (of course) adults. It looks like an attempt to do a tacky, Australian version of, Jersey Shore. For anyone from overseas, these are the sort of shorts we’re seeing in the lead up to its inception – Click here – along with the classy promo shot at the end.
So, now you’re starting to see the full picture – one moment we’re all singing along to,”Doe, a deer, a female deer…”and I’m telling my girls that their aunt has pictures of the actual glass gazebo, where Liesl and Rolf sing and dance – and the next we’re assaulted with the image of a blond, heavily made-up girl, referring to herself as a princess, saying:
“I’m so preeeety.”
Worse still there are two girls with little clothing on, in another version of the ad, describing how they don’t like the natural look – with one of them saying:
“I love looking fake – if you weren’t born with it, buy it.”
Well, as far as I know, NOONE is born ‘with it’ – ‘it’ is manufactured – but thank you for getting in my daughters’ ears with this crap.
If there were a visual of me desperately trying to find the remote and change the channel, you’d have a right laugh. But it was what I had to do – because the brain takes an imprint of everything it sees and I simply don’t want my girls seeing this same image of women, over and over again.
And it’s everywhere. It’s exhausting. Even ‘my choice’ not to watch the show is taken from me because (at least here in Australia), the ads are practically half the episode…a slight exaggeration, but you get the drift.
Simply, what’s been made painfully clear to me, is that my kids literally CANNOT watch anything on TV because these ads were not age appropriate – a family movie coupled with ads of spoilt, fake, over-made up and fickle young adults. It really pissed me off.
So now I fire.
- I am complaining to Channel 10. What will come of it? I don’t exactly know, but I do know that when there are enough complaints, the Advertising Standards Board will investigate the issue it’s being presented with.
- I will boycott this show.
Question #73: Can you imagine the effect if everyone did one or both of the above?
People power.
I know that speaking up is not for everyone – but there are always ways to show you’re not happy…especially through your wallet.
If you don’t buy it – there isn’t a product to sell. If noone’s watching, investors will lose money and hopefully learn that they’ll have to back a different kind of show next time.
Simple really.
So if you don’t like a situation – whatever it is – just Fire! Aim later.
Deep Breath
x
PS Just look at the difference…
Questions for Us 