Never Did I Think I Would Be Standing on the Street Half-Naked: A recap of About-Face’s most recent and gutsiest action yet

On Saturday, June 15th, 2013, I was with About-Face and supporters as we stood scantily clad in front of Victoria’s Secret on Powell in San Francisco for our latest action, called Operation Real Bodies Real Love. Wearing only our bras and underwear, we were making a statement about what real bodies look like (and how Continue reading

Google, we have a problem

While putting together a PowerPoint for a presentation I recently did at a Conference for Girls and Young Women, I visited Google to search for some images of girls with their friends to help illustrate my points about friendship, bullying, and body image. Imagine my surprise when doing an image search for “girls” on Google showed Continue reading

Where are the women adventurers?

Frodo goes to Mount Doom. Kerouac drives across the United States. Huck Finn rafts down the Mississippi. But where are the girl and women adventurers? Where are the books and movies about female-led quests? As Vanessa Veselka points out in a very dark American Reader article, popular images of women on the road are few, Continue reading

Activist Eve Ensler believes women are more than a sum of their parts

If I say Eve Ensler, you probably think about The Vagina Monologues, the sassy play Ensler created about various women’s experiences—er, having vaginas—and all the A-list actresses that performed this brilliant work worldwide. But when I saw Ensler speak last week in support of her new book, In the Body of the World, she wasn’t talking Continue reading

Don’t let the genre fool you — Game of Thrones is full of feminist surprises

Game of Thrones is hot right now and I’m into it! For those of you who haven’t caught on to the Game of Thrones craze, let me tell you, it is much more than a medieval fantasy/action series. For those that may be surprised to see Game of Thrones being praised by a feminist, I’d Continue reading

Facebook falls flat in fighting gender-based hate speech

I am an avid Facebook user (is anyone reading this not?); it is an integrated part of my everyday life. So when I heard that Facebook had agreed to better control the content on their site and eliminate gender-based hate speech, I was thrilled. Or so I thought. When I learned that they had only Continue reading

Why Jes Baker is totally a fat positive hero

Jes Baker is okay with being fat. Get over it. That’s just the message the 26-year-old Behavioral Health Professional recently sent to Abercrombie & Fitch CEO, Mike Jeffries (anyone else tired of hearing that guy’s name?). But she also sent that message to society itself. Jes has garnered millions of views on her blog, The Militant Continue reading

Who run the (advertising) world? (Beyoncé)

A couple of weeks ago, Beyoncé debuted her new song from a forthcoming album, “Standing on the Sun” in a commercial for H&M. Earlier in the year she launched a new $50 million campaign with Pepsi, including commercials, visual ads, and limited-edition Beyoncé Pepsi cans. Of course, Beyoncé also sang at President Obama’s Inauguration and Continue reading

A relatable disclosure of an eating disorder from NYC powerhouse

It’s not easy to disclose an eating disorder, much less discuss in detail where you feel its origins are and how you coped with addressing it. Doing this as a public figure—and a political one at that—is even more difficult. As someone who researches eating disorders, I have to say, I was both proud of and Continue reading

Braving the princess cliché: Disney misses the mark with Merida’s makeover

Disney/Pixar’s 2012 animated film Brave was groundbreaking, not only for its exceptional graphics, but for its portrayal of an unconventional princess, the independent sharpshooter, Merida. Children and adults of all ages were delighted by Merida and the film has been a huge success—which is why many parents are outraged at Disney’s “makeover” of Merida for Continue reading