Is this an appropriate activity for a 3-year-old?

Just when I thought parenting skills couldn’t become any more questionable, I come face-to-face with a new activity atrocity: pushing pole dancing for children, adolescents, and teens.

I almost choked on my morning cereal (Don’t worry, it wasn’t Cheerios – I still can’t get behind their marketing mishaps) when I read a June 2011 article from the British tabloid, The Daily Mirror, about a Northamptonshire dance studio offering a “kiddie pole dance” program, where 3-year-olds and up were schooled in the age-appropriate art of climbing and swirling on a stripper pole.

Dubbed “Little Spinners”, the class consisted of teaching girls how to lift and maneuver their bodies around the pole while “holding their legs in a V-shape.” Thankfully, a recent perusal of the studio’s web site shows that this class is no longer being offered.

While this is good news, the implications that there is a market for it are frightening. Comparable courses are being offered to an equally delicate age group: teens and preteens.

The Art of Dance, a Pole Dance and Burlesque School in Plymouth, Devon, England offers an “i-pole Pole Dancing Class” for 12- to 15-year-olds where this “exercise concept” is touted not only as a way to keep fit, but to socialize. While I was unable to find the course description on their actual web site, the school still offers the class, and a recent delve into their Facebook presence revealed a post from a women interested in having her 13-year-old niece attend an adult class with her.

Although the course offerings available for this age group require parental accompaniment for the initial visit and a signed and acknowledged consent and advice sheet, this posturing paperwork seems to only serve as liability padding.

The Internet is replete with indicators that this “activity” is readily available to youngsters. An entrepreneurial teen who taught herself pole dancing at the age of 16 with the assistance of web-purchased poles and DVDs, opened a controversial makeshift studio in her parents’ living room. Her business endeavor has since blossomed into two highly successful dance centers in England.

Many advocates believe this to be a physical regimen innocently on par with gymnastics. The UK has a lauded pole-dancing community complete with accreditation requirements for instructors and studios, as well as an explicit code of conduct. A British company is lobbying for pole dancing to become a test sport for the forthcoming Olympics, with dreams of it becoming an official part of the games by 2016.

The UK typically allows people ages 16 and older to participate in their classes (with parental consent), while the age cutoff in the U.S. is 18. But how young is too young to expose preteens and even teenagers to this “sport” almost inextricably linked to eroticism? Youth are being taught to contort their bodies into provocative poses: to not understand the sexually suggestive nature of these moves is dangerous.

What is showcased as innocent body bending in the comfort of a classroom sends alarming messages if performed in other environments. Many of the instructors and web sites boast such class offerings as ways to aid the development of self-esteem. This puts our youth at great risk and in some cases dangerously close to endorsing pedophilia. Many teens dealing with confusing feelings and the onset of puberty may see that such explicit dancing garners attention from their peers. It encourages the objectification of the body during a tender time of growth and transformation, when mentoring and a focus on overall healthy and body image are crucial.

The teacher is "helping to battle the stigma of pole dancing at an early age."

I’m a huge supporter of the expressive arts and firmly believe in teaching kids to connect with their bodies when they are young. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that this sort of activity aids in the fetishizing of youth and, in its extreme, could support the horrifying epidemic of child pornography.

To actively allow or encourage a child to be instructed on ways that sexually showcase her (or his) body borders on parental negligence. Undoubtedly, it puts a premium on certain body sizes and encourages conformity at a formative age when senses of self are blurry and bodies are burgeoning.

Plain and simple: Teens deserve the right to be raised in environments that support a healthy development of the self. As adults, our culture marginalizes and sexualizes women, which makes fostering and modeling positive body image for our youth all the more crucial.

Participation in such classes primes teens for the possibility of an antagonistic relationship with their bodies. Attempts to pass off pole dancing as physical fitness and “fun” further encourages the objectification of the body and can lead to lasting negative consequences. Does society have an obligation to limit the participation of teens in these adult-centric classes, or should this be a parent’s duty?

Heather is a blogger and yoga enthusiast who is passionate about body image, media literacy, and feminist activism. When not working at her corporate day job, her cultural commentary and other insights can be found at Ms. Mettle.

You know that saying “There’s truth in humor”? Well, it’s never been more accurate than in the hilarious send-up that positions Adobe Photoshop’s technology as a fancy, Euro (“by Adobé”) beauty product.

Fotoshop, by Adobé, isn't real, but then neither are society's standards of beauty.

What’s so great about the spoof (as further detailed in this post by About-Face’s own Jennifer Berger) is how it pokes fun at the conventions regularly found in real beauty ads to show just how absurd they are.

There’s the expensive, flawless (and no doubt Photoshopped) high-quality images that make the product look so perfect they ignite that feeling that you’ve simply got to have it sitting on your medicine cabinet shelf.

Then there’s the heavy use of legitimate- and important-sounding science-y words (“pro pixel intensifying fauxtanical hydro jargon microbead extract” as in the Fotoshop video) that play on our underlying desire to believe that somehow, somewhere a relatively inexpensive cure for aging that doesn’t involve needles and scalpels has been found. And finally, they trot out the ol’ promise of a miracle fix (“Finally, look the way you’ve always dreamed.”).

Ha ha. Whatever. Savvy 21^st century women don’t fall for crap like that anymore. Right?

Um, wrong, actually.

According to a British newspaper, the new Yves Saint Laurent Forever Young Liberator skincare line (which debuted in January 2012) had a waiting list in the UK of 5,000-plus women before its launch.

And how did YSL convince so many women to line—or rather queue—up?

Exhibit A - full of the important-sounding "Glycantif"

Well, let’s see. First they busted out some high-quality, perfected images of the shimmery, luxe-looking bottles that make the product look like something you just have to have.

Then they came up with some of those science-y words like “glycomics” and “glycobiology” and the brand’s new patented ingredient called “Glycantif.”

Now, I don’t know much about chemistry—but then again the average YSL consumer probably doesn’t either. So as real as “glycomics” might be, I think YSL’s tactical usage of these words is more about hoping to impress buyers than actually conveying information that they expect them to use.

And finally, to really get women opening their wallets, YSL claimed that its Forever Young Liberator is “one of the most amazing scientific breakthroughs we have discovered in relation to anti-aging.” In fact, they go so far as to call it the “Holy Grail” of skin care.

So as smug and sassy as the Photoshop send-up that we all love was, sadly, there’s another beauty product manufacturer that’s laughing all the way to the bank—at our expense.

Is Liz Lemon feminist enough?

If you identify yourself as a feminist, you probably already have an opinion on Tina Fey. Around the time 30 Rock debuted, everyone I knew was a huge Tina Fey fan. “She’s so gorgeous and smart and a feminist,” my friends would gush, holding their copies of the Tina Fey issue of Bust. (I am of course talking here about the maybe two other feminists I knew in high school.)

Then, as Tina got more and more exposure, something changed. Friends started making faces at the sound of her name, uncertain of how to feel. People started talking about the problems with 30 Rock’s female characters, especially Liz Lemon’s pretty, brainless assistant, Cerie. Complaints began to rise, particularly from the feminist segment of the population, who, in case you haven’t noticed, kind of expects a lot from its media.

Tina Fey portrays single women in an offensive way, the detractors said. Liz Lemon represents bad feminism. Liz Lemon’s feminism is crippling her career life, and therefore 30 Rock is saying that leftist politics are bad. Tina Fey’s SNL sketches enforce gender stereotypes. In fact, everything she writes is misogynist.

I myself briefly stopped watching 30 Rock in disgust after a particularly offensive rape joke. (Slate reporter Rebecca Traister collected many more such examples in her article “The Tina Fey Backlash”.) Suddenly, everyone was disappointed with Tina Fey. She wasn’t feminist enough. She wasn’t doing things right.

After enough of this talk, I grew to see Tina Fey as someone who never quite lived up to the potential that the feminist community had anticipated. “Oh, Tina Fey,” my friends would sigh (more of them now, because now I was in college and had met more people who were willing to talk to me about gendered slurs and Margaret Atwood). “She’s just really not that progressive.”

Bossypants... feminist salvation?

Imagine my surprise when I picked up Bossypants, Tina’s memoir — really more of a collection of thoughts and memories — and found it to be the most feminist popular book I’ve read in a long time. In it, Tina discusses institutionalized sexism at her job with the Second City improv troupe, and the secret feminist agenda of the infamous Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton sketch.

“You all watched a sketch about feminism,” she says, “and you didn’t even realize it because of all the jokes. It’s like when Jessica Seinfeld puts spinach in kids’ brownies. Suckers!” She continues by saying, “That night’s show was watched by ten million people, so I guess that director at The Second City who said the audience ‘didn’t want to see a sketch with two women’ can go [creatively vulgar phrase that I don’t think I’m allowed to write on this blog].”

Tina’s feminism in Bossypants is explicit and unapologetic. There’s no “I wouldn’t call myself a feminist, but…” hedging. There’s no compromising. In fact, Tina encourages the opposite of compromise, advising women, “Do your thing and don’t care if they like it.” She makes bold claims, not afraid to offend: “I have a suspicion that the definition of ‘crazy’ in show business is a woman who keeps talking even after no one wants to [have sexual relations with] her anymore.”

Make no mistake—this is a radical book. (My personal favorite moment comes when Tina talks about the unsavory habits of some of her co-workers at SNL. She says, “Any time there’s a bad female stand-up somewhere, some [different creatively vulgar phrase] Interblogger will deduce that ‘women aren’t funny.’ Using that same math, I can state: Male comedy writers piss in cups.”)

And yet, I still see what was bothering all those people who were disappointed in Tina Fey and 30 Rock. Tina’s brand of feminism is not the attitude of someone who spent years in Women’s Studies classes. As far as I know, she does not have a background in feminist theory. She probably doesn’t read lots of cool feminist blogs. Her feminism is the attitude of someone who sees what’s happening in her world, and thinks it’s unfair to women. She’s not a gender studies scholar; she’s just pissed off.

The Tina Fey backlash seems to suggest a hostility towards this attitude among the feminist community. It’s understandable. Because so few celebrities are willing to identify as feminists, the ones who do are held up to represent the entire community. So when Tina Fey does or says something that not everyone in the feminist community agrees with, it’s a big deal.

However, Bossypants really made me re-evaluate my stance on this hyper-conscious policing. Do people have the right to criticize anyone, including Tina Fey, for not living up to feminist standards? Um, of course! That’s basically all I do with my life. But do we really want to say that women who don’t spend 100% of their time educating themselves on feminist theory aren’t allowed to be feminists? I don’t know about that.

For me, the most touching part of Bossypants is when Tina talks about her future. “Even if you would never sleep with or even flirt with anyone to get ahead,” she confides, “you are being sexually adjudicated by these LA creeps. … It seems to me that the fastest remedy for this ‘Women Are Crazy’ situation is for more women to become producers and hire diverse women of various ages. That is why I feel obligated to stay in the business and try hard to get to a place where I can create opportunities for others.”

Other people may be more careful about what they say, but Tina is doing real work to forward the cause and help other women. And anyone who’s willing to do that is certainly welcome in my feminist community, gendered jokes or no.

– Magdalena

Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids - a grotesque?

The film Bridesmaids has gotten a lot of attention this past year: a female-friendship focused film written by and starring women is pretty hard to come by. Notably present among the film’s recent Academy Award nominations was the Best Actress in a Supporting Role nod for Melissa McCarthy.

McCarthy is known not only for her role in Bridesmaids, but for her role in the TV series Mike and Molly and The Gilmore Girls (another rare show with a female cast, following a smart and savvy female protagonist, Rory). She’s also been the victim of some serious body-shaming in the media.

But the choice of McCarthy over other actresses seems to have grated the last nerve of Time magazine film critic Mary Pols, to such an extreme that she felt the need to write an entire column outlining the reasons that McCarthy was undeserving of the honor.

Winning an Oscar for a comedic role doesn’t happen too frequently. Pols makes sure to point this out, and also claims that her distaste for McCarthy’s nomination isn’t because her role is a comedic one – being good at comedy can be really hard, she admits, and McCarthy has great timing in that area:

Pols admits that maybe she should just “be grateful” that a woman was recognized for comedic work. If I were McCarthy, my response would be “thanks, but no thanks, I don’t think I need your pitying resignation.”

Pols’ comment that “the Academy’s record on giving the incredible skill set it takes to pull off good comedy its due is sketchy at best” is hard to keep in mind when she claims that McCarthy’s character is “a grotesque,” that is, an over-the-top caricature with a “boxy wardrobe and newsboy cap” that reminded the critic of an old “ambiguously gendered character” named Pat that was popular on Saturday Night Live in the 1990s.

McCarthy’s character was different because she was a “cartoon of aggressive sexuality, wildly, crudely lusty” according to the critic – so the thing that made the difference between McCarthy’s character and the gender ambiguity of Pat was aggressive sexuality, something one generally attributes to men and is clearly a turn-off for Pols.

So, what is this caricature of overweight women that Pols claims McCarthy is playing into? I’m not really sure.

She compares this supposed “caricature” of an overweight woman to the racial caricature that Ken Jeong plays in The Hangover franchise – a character who plays so intently into Asian stereotypes and degrades multiple cultures that I cringed at the ads for the films – saying that McCarthy’s character had “equally offensive shenanigans” but instead of parodying an Asian culture, parodying “an over-the-top plus-sized lady.”

Why is aggressiveness or crudeness being attached to McCarthy being plus-sized, and how is even the parodying of crudeness related to her being plus-sized?

She claims that if you have any doubt about McCarthy using her weight to be the permanent punchline of her character, just check out the credits – you know, after the film, when the cast and crew names are scrolling down the screen – when McCarthy becomes “a joke about the outsized appetites of fat girls.” Because she is, you know, eating a jumbo sandwich.

This moment of the credits is what should look to as evidence of her using her weight as a punchline? I never got that impression, but I guess if you’re giving a plus-sized woman a sandwich, some people will think it automatically becomes a parody if she eats it in a funny way.

Pols claims that Kristen Wiig’s character had a more nuanced development, that we saw other characters grow, and that McCarthy played a stock character who didn’t change at all. But here’s the thing – Wiig was the main character in this film, not a supporting character – someone who was supposed to have a developing character arc. Her role also wasn’t as funny.

But also, McCarthy’s character did seem to evolve, and by the end of the film people actually connected to her. As her character advises Wiig’s character how to change her attitude, she revealed herself to be a woman who had pushed herself through social difficulties and someone who didn’t let anyone get in her way. She can be pushy; some people probably thought she was obnoxious. But a grotesque?

There are plenty of nominees that many people won’t agree with, for a variety of reasons. But it seems the critic was blinded by her apparent disgust at a woman who was acting too masculine – aggressive, “disgusting” and with swagger – for her own taste to see that McCarthy gave this character heart or that she was a character worth understanding.

– Larkin

The weight is over (dramatized)

Excess Baggage, the new Australian counterpart to weight-loss reality show The Biggest Loser, claims to take the higher road by not relying on humiliation and shaming of contestants.

It focuses on overall health vs. mere weight loss, utilizing a psychologist to address mental roadblocks which obstruct a healthy lifestyle, and rallying people off treadmills and into nature.

And for added motivation (read: viewer ratings), each contestant is surprised in the first episode by being paired with a celebrity (i.e.: Keven Federline, Britney Spears’ ex-husband, who subsequently was rushed to hospital during filming as a result of signs of cardiac arrest).

Touted as the “feel-good series of the year,” the creators emphasize health vs. weight loss and use the clever marketing tactic of viewers casting their votes on which contestant will become the “healthiest.”

So, semantically, geographically, and methodologically it’s slightly different than The Biggest Loser, but that’s where the differences end.

I’m certainly not going to argue that obesity isn’t a real health issue and doesn’t need to be addressed, but as soon as obesity is dramatized and sensationalized, we have problems.

I’m also not casting judgment on the contestants. They are courageous to leave the comfort of their daily lives and try to make changes to improve their overall health. It seems many of them have positive motivations to change, such as wanting to live longer so they can care for their children.

Unfortunately, media corporations are banking off real people’s suffering – turning personal lifestyle habits, emotional pain, shame and guilt, into a spectacle for entertainment:

We certainly can’t take the creator’s quotes about “health promotion” at face value when large amounts of money are involved. Indeed, in a bit of a panic, newspaper The Australian has already reported that ratings dropped dramatically from 880,000 to 625,000 between the first and second episodes.

In the second episode, contestants were confronted with their stats (weight, waistline measurements, BMI) showing obvious signs of embarrassment (not unlike The Biggest Loser), which undoubtedly does nothing to increase self-esteem, and could potentially lead contestants and viewers to an increased obsession with obtaining “ideal” numbers. Health isn’t tied up in numbers.

So, thank you Excess Baggage, for your sincere efforts to one-up The Biggest Loser in the name of health, but I’m not buying it.

– Joy

The Strong4Life campaign - fat-shaming?

There is no denying childhood obesity is a growing concern. The CDC reports that one-third of American children and adolescents are overweight or obese. The health ramifications of an unhealthy lifestyle, especially one that begins in childhood, are severe.

Seventy percent of obese minors had at least one risk factor for cardiovascular disease, and obese children and adolescents show greater rates of pre-diabetes, bone and joint problems, and sleep apnea.

The CDC’s findings are shocking, but Georgia’s Strong4Life campaign decided facts weren’t quite shocking enough. Instead, the campaign hopes fat-shaming will pique interest. The print ads feature sullen overweight children and copy that reads, “It’s hard to be a little girl if you’re not,” and “Fat prevention begins at home. And the buffet line,” which sounds more like something a grade-school bully would say than an organization concerned for children’s health.

The tagline of Strong4Life’s television spots? “Stop sugarcoating it, Georgia.”

The ads do work in some cases. Maya Walters, a teen featured in the campaign, attests to the effectiveness. She has made changes to her lifestyle, like using less salt in her food, and no longer feels winded when climbing up stairs.

But are the ads effective on a grand scale? Marsha Davis, a childhood obesity prevention researcher at the University of Georgia’s College of Public Health, doesn’t think so. “We know from communication research that when we highlight a health risk but fail to provide actionable steps people can take to prevent it, the response is often either denial or some other dysfunctional behavior,” Davis says. “We need to fight obesity, not obese people.”

A counter-campaign from Health at Every Size

The opposition doesn’t stop with Davis. Leah Segedie, a fitness blogger at BookieBoo and Mamavation, organized a twitter chat under the hash tag #Ashamed. The goal of the conversation was “to talk about the issue in a way that’s not shameful and gets the word out,” and “petition Strong4Life to take the billboards down,” says Segidie.

Amy Lupold Biar (@ResourcefulMom) joined the conversation, tweeting, “Let’s show kids all the varieties of healthy. Let’s help parents get access to affordable fruits [and] veggies. Let’s change schools!” Cecily (@Ciclyk) quipped, “If shame helped us lose weight, well, we’d all be VERY SKINNY.”

Longtime fat-acceptance activist Marilyn Wann, also unhappy with the negative message the campaign was sending, launched a counter-campaign to stop Strong4Life’s fat-shaming. The counter-campaign features adult men and women in ads similar to those of the original campaign with copy like, “I stand for doing the things we love in the bodies we have.”

The goal of the counter-campaigns is not to deny children the opportunity to eat healthy food and participate in activities. The goal is to stop weight-related harassment.

The Strong4Life campaign uses overweight or obese children as proof of failure on the part of parents, a tactic that hurts everyone, and offers little positive motivation for change. Frankly, children struggling with health issues deserve better than that.

[Editor's note: Regan Chastain has begun a counter-campaign to put up body-positive billboards in Georgia. -Jennifer]

– Cassandra

The tostada... delicious to some, terrifying to Us Weekly.

I’m a big supporter of healthy nutrition habits, but Us Weekly may not agree with me.

I know I feel better and have more energy for the things I love to do when I’m eating a good balance of whole, natural foods. I also don’t argue with the fact that it’s important to know what the food you’re eating offers your body, which can help you make informed decisions about snacks and meals.

But I also love treats! Sometimes a treat comes in the form of a cookie or a piece of cake, and sometimes it comes in the form of something extra salty – and I know that it’s OK to eat these delicious bites.

More importantly, I know that if I treat myself to something, it’s not the end of the world and I’m not going to be punished by the food goddesses for having fried rice for dinner or a cookie sundae for dessert one night.

But I definitely don’t take my food advice from Us Weekly, which devotes considerable page and web site space to the “best diets” that celebrities are on, as well as to the bodies that they deem are best. And most recently, in their January 23, 2012 issue, they took on the task of instructing readers what they should order when they’re eating out (with the help of well-known nutritionist Joy Bauer).

Conceptually, this isn’t a bad idea – helping diners determine what the healthy food options are when they’re scanning menus. But as we know, presentation, wording, and tone make a big difference – and in these respects, Us Weekly is joining the ranks of other media outlets using loaded terminology to tell you that you’re failing or should be a bit embarrassed about your eating habits. They tell us what to order by telling us what mistakes celebrities made when they were eating out.

Example 1: In detailing what Christina Aguilera ate at a Chinese restaurant, Bauer exclaims, “lobster fried rice and taro puff lollipops cost her 1,075 calories!” First of all, I love the exclamation point – really emphasizes how terrifying this is supposed to be for the careful calorie-counter. Second of all, by saying it “cost” Aguilera to eat this, the implication is clear – that lobster fried rice really put her into some kind of debt disaster (where calories are the currency), and she will have to pay for her indulgence (again: we aren’t talking about cash).

Example 2: In ruminating over Jennifer Love Hewitt’s trip to a Mexican eatery, we are told that she really “scarfs enchiladas and tostadas, totaling 1,000 calories.” Talk about a loaded word – does “scarf” make anyone else think of an uncontrollable vacuum cleaner inhaling at warp speed? Somehow I don’t think that’s how Hewitt approached her dinner. But they’re telling us how afraid we should be of losing tight control over our food – it may lead to what we’re supposed to see as a calorie bomb.

Apparently, tempura is a "diet disaster".

Example 3: In what seems to be an effort to publicly shame Khloe Kardashian, it’s detailed that at a Japanese restaurant she ate “shrimp tempura and crab rolls…[which] set her back more than 920 calories.” Get ready to play catch-up in some kind of Kalorie Konquest, I guess? It’s also pointed out that “tempura is a diet disaster!” Apparently, some food choices can actually be deemed calamitous and catastrophic!

I find it interesting that a magazine that frequently takes pains to point out how often and how intensely celebrities work out (and they do, seriously, work out a lot) doesn’t mention here that if you’re burning 500 calories a day with your exercise regimen, you’re going to need to eat more.

Nutrition is incredibly important. Knowing the benefits and drawbacks of what you’re consuming is great – but sending the message that you owe something, that you lack control, or that you’ve committed some kind of atrocious disaster because of your food choices is not the way to get the health messages across.

My best advice? Don’t take advice from gossip mags, but instead work with a nutritionist or doctor who knows your body type, metabolism, lifestyle, and favorite foods, who can help you make the best healthy and tasty (and special treat!) food choices.

– Larkin

The Great Wall of Vagina: Real vaginas come in all shapes and sizes

I’m still trying to scoop my jaw off of my keyboard after viewing this documentary, The Perfect Vagina, in which UK-based writer Lisa Rogers delves into the world of vaginal cosmetic surgery.

Primarily following an adolescent girl and two mothers who are dissatisfied with the shape and size of their vaginas, she documents the frighteningly popular operation known as labiaplasty, a surgical procedure to reduce and/or reshape the labia minora and/or labia majora.

Although the practice of labiaplasty and other surgeries, often lumped under the umbrella of ”vaginal rejuvenation”, are gaining more media hype, they’re certainly not as pronounced as, say, breast augmentation. But this is certainly not a trend to ignore, as more and more women are seeking “designer vaginas.”

While there’s no single culprit for this fascination with vaginal aesthetics, a recent Ms. Magazine article raises the issue that sex education materials don’t show pictures of genitalia, leaving female students to rely on the distorted images of the media to see if their vaginas measure up.

A recent New York Times feature, “Teaching Good Sex,” agrees that sex education materials need to teach young people, among many things, “what real genitals look like.” The images most teens are exposed to come from the porn industry, creating a phenomenon researchers at King’s College London call the “pornification” of modern culture. These images, fully shaved and uniform in shape and size, leave no room for natural and normal variance. And, there’s nothing but trouble when the media is left to dictate what “normal” looks like.

True to form, the porn industry survives by victimizing, devaluing, and reducing women to sexual objects, whilst making them feel abnormal and unattractive — the perfect setup for a new wave of cosmetic extremism to “fix” the manufactured problem.

Sheesh. What’s left? Images of “sexy” internal organs? Surgical procedures for liver-enhancement to win back that firmly toned pre-binge-drinking shape?

It might be difficult to imagine why anyone would go to such an extreme measure as labiaplasty, but as with other forms of cosmetic surgery that don’t treat actual physical discomfort, the hope for improved self-esteem and the allure of of sex appeal seem to be the driving factors which lead some women to fork out an estimated cost of $3,500-$8,000 USD.

Even more alarming are the rates at which the procedure is increasing. Although current data isn’t readily available, in 2009, The British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology revealed that there had been an almost 70% increase in the number of women having labiaplasty from the previous year.

Thankfully, more people are beginning to speak out about this issue. A Brighton-based sculptor created the Great Wall of Vagina, an installation to visually represent the diversity in vaginal shape and size; the European Women’s Lobby hosted a “Muff March Against Labiaplasty” in the UK; and there’s a petition at SignOn.org to monitor and evaluate female genital cosmetic procedures, given that “surgeons are not required to explain real genital diversity or report actual surgical consequences.”

For some women, as noted in the film, exposure to “real” images of female genetalia is enough to remind them that the ideal is simply a false construction. But what about the women and young girls who aren’t exposed to images of diversity, who aren’t told to think for themselves and stand up against any person or industry that tells them they fall short of the beauty standard?

Let’s take this as a reminder that our work is never done — that we must remain vigilant to empower our next generation of girls to resist harmful media messages that affect their self-esteem and body image.

– Joy

Does Jay-Z have the power to change language in the larger hip-hop scene?

The birth of Jay-Z’s daughter has not inspired him to alter the degrading language frequently used in his music. Yet.

I must admit, I don’t keep up with celebrity gossip. In fact, I was shocked to hear that Beyoncé had given birth, as it was only recently I heard she was pregnant. Then my co-worker played for me Jay-Z’s new song, “Glory,” inspired by the birth of his and Beyoncé’s daughter, Blue Ivy Carter.

I couldn’t help but think about all of the Jay-Z songs with typically degrading language and the offensive use of the word “bitch.” I immediately said to my co-worker, “I wonder if he’s going to reconsider the type of language he uses now that he has a daughter.” A few days later, I came across the article on Bust Magazine reporting that he had been inspired to drop the word “bitch” from his vocabulary.

Unfortunately, it turns out the poem that claimed, “Before I got in the game, made a change, and got rich/I didn’t think hard about using the word bitch/I rapped, I flipped it, I sold it, I lived it/Now with my daughter in this world I curse those that give it,” was wrongly attributed to the rapper. The Guardian reports that the poem was actually written by a blogger named Renee Gardner.

While those of us who were elated to read about the initial news of Jay-Z dropping the word from his music are let down by the news being false, I think it’s important to consider the larger conversation here.

How did it make us feel to imagine a world where a leading man in the rap scene takes such a stand against a word that has constantly been used to undermine and degrade women everywhere? Personally, I felt proud and happy about what I thought was Jay-Z’s decision, but still remained skeptical.

Dear Jay-Z, respect women in your life by respecting all women, even in your lyrics.

Before I knew the truth of the wrongly attributed poem, I asked myself, why did it take Jay-Z having a daughter to realize these things? Why doesn’t having a loving, supportive mother inspire him in that direction? Why doesn’t his love and respect for Beyoncé inspire thinking about respect for women in general? What about all of the other women in his life he considers important to him?

This definitely has a place in a larger conversation about language in our culture, and the way it can be used to demean and marginalize people. I think Jay-Z needs to be confronted about the false attribution of this poem to him. He must be questioned about whether or not he is willing to take such a stand.

While Jay-Z is only one man, he is a respected man in a position of power and leadership in his circle, and his actions can inspire others to follow. And having more men on our side in the pursuit of a safer world for women and girls is key to our success.

Stacey Jean Speer is currently earning her Bachelor of Arts degree in Women and Gender Studies at San Francisco State University and planning to graduate in May 2012. She enjoys utilizing the tools she gains as a student of Women and Gender Studies to critique pop culture and media from a feminist perspective.

This clip rates high in the shock-value department, but the benefits highlighted in it are not those one would typically associate with a household vacuum cleaner. Herein lies the ad’s motive. No one truly believes that if they pick up this LG at the store that its usage will encourage a svelte shape. The real danger of it lies in its irrelevance.

At first, I was confused by the ad’s intention and dumbfounded at its choice of subject matter. My initial reaction was how ridiculous the comparison was. Who really believes that you could buy a product that would suck away excess flesh?

I thought the marketing tactic was questionable and that the geniuses holed up at LG would have been more successful if they showed every dust particle being systematically vanquished from a filthy home. I thought the selling point was misplaced and would be better suited selling a new fitness regimen, supplement or weight-loss cocktail… but, a household appliance?

Then I spoke with others and found out that this particular clip had in fact circulated virally. One friend had received this as an e-mail forward accompanied by the sender’s flip comment, “I wish I had one of these.” Perhaps, because the correlation feels so wacky and extraneous and people still find the riff on the fashion industry so comical, a bigger problem is revealed.

The model's fat is literally sucked away

These effects, motives, and approaches of Photoshopping and passing off altered images as realistic body types is so embedded in our culture that we find these exaggerations fodder for laughter instead of an exploitation of a sad reality.

I then realized that the embellishment of this product’s superior suction properties is in using its uncorrelated subject matter to work for it. Its aim is to encourage a cheap chuckle and hope that the sniggering at its shock value would push the product inadvertently. In my mini-poll of those I asked to view the commercial and give me honest feedback, I was met with several “have a sense of humor” responses that further support my point.

Instead of turning a critical eye to the media, specifically this company and its marketing angle, we see pieces such as this as bits of comical fodder, ripe for electronic sharing. One person gets a small giggle out of it and promptly forwards it to a handful of others and a seemingly harmless commercial continues to circulate.

The real danger is in the enjoyment of its ridiculousness. It is the Trojan Horse of themes. Society is informed enough to know that the portrayal is tongue-in-cheek and we know that no such product exists, yet we still derive humor out of watching it. Beneath it, we are still buying into the stereotype that thin is acceptable and desirable and other body weights must be demonized, contained and “sucked” away.

Innocent enjoyment can often keep us complicit with a culture that presents doctored images to our youth, passing them off as role “models” (pun intended!). Yes, this particular clip is exaggerated, but there is a very real and large problem in our world in terms of Photoshopped perfection, idealizing models and celebrities at unhealthy weights, and pushing a one-size-fits all standard of beauty.

The fact that it seems innocent and benign is the cause for concern: It is the unexamined media that can be the most dangerous. Do you think that this clip is humorous, or does it reinforce damaging stereotypes? Is the fact that the initial reaction to this commercial is to find the comparison comical, a symptom of the larger problem in society?

– Heather