If you’re a female athlete like me, you know the drill when it comes to wanting people to take you seriously (For everyone else: people tend to not take us seriously). That’s why, when the U.S. women’s national soccer team won the World Cup this summer, I was over the moon about the amount of… Continue Reading →
The false empowerment of naked dresses
In May 2015, I wrote a blog for About-Face about Taylor Swift’s recently-released video for “Bad Blood.” In the post, I argued that the scantily clad women in the video were “devalued from being strong warriors to being traditionally sexy females with bodies that exist to be objectified.” I posted it to my personal social media pages, and… Continue Reading →
“She’s so beautiful!”: The sexist comment that nobody else noticed
Recently, I was sitting in a room full of people, listening as recent graduates of a medical residency program were congratulated while their photos were shown on a screen in front of the room. When one woman’s photograph came up on the screen, the presenter read the following note from the woman’s family: “To our daughter,… Continue Reading →
Media proves what we’ve known all along: It’s easy to be trans!
(EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article contains extreme instances of sarcasm and satire.) Trans awareness is on the rise, especially now that a member of the Kardashian clan has publicly come out to the world as transgender. This heightened exposure of transgender individuals brings attention to the trans community, and since mainstream media is known to portray topics so… Continue Reading →
The case of the working woman’s fashion crisis
Last month, I started my first paid, full-time job. At the beginning, I was anxiously guessing the expectation for women’s fashion at work: what I should wear, how my hair should look, if I needed to wear makeup. I started to feel like no matter what I did to primp and prepare, I never looked as… Continue Reading →
Holland’s Next Top Model just made a huge mistake
Recently, I was working on a part of my PhD thesis wherein I had to describe why my research about body image is important for the broader public. Piece of cake. But my supervisor wasn’t pleased with the final product: “You need to make it crystal clear that body image is a hot topic in… Continue Reading →
Why Lauren Conrad is more powerful than anyone probably ever thought
I don’t know much about Lauren Conrad. Just that she was on MTV’s The Hills (or Laguna Beach? Or The OC? Or all three?) and that she now has some lifestyle blog (because who doesn’t?) that covers “primping, dining, decorating, crafting, reading and fashion.” Ms. Conrad is on my radar these days, however, because she… Continue Reading →
Just “Bad Blood,” or bad body image?
[media url=”youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcIy9NiNbmo/A&W=415″] Nude bodices, come-hither poses, and full body scans of a barely clothed body: Taylor Swift’s latest video, “Bad Blood,” is the culmination of her sexual evolution, which we began to see with the release of her album 1989 in 2014. Sexual, or at least sensual, lyrics trickle through the album (“his hands are… Continue Reading →
The haircut: A body image trial
Having just completed an incredibly challenging year abroad, I decided I needed a change. Something radical. So why not chop off all of my hair? It would the perfect symbol of growth, accomplishment, and moving on, I thought. Which was totally valid. But I’m glad I didn’t go through with it. See, what I was… Continue Reading →