While I don't agree with everything she says, this article speaks beautifully about beauty standards tearing women apart.
An interesting news piece that makes me think about the responsibility of the media in regards to protecting (or promoting?) the sexualization of minors (albeit this is an extreme case involving a child prostitute).
And yes yes yes to everything said here about why shutting down the sale of adult services on Craigslist is important and wonderful and necessary.
Happy weekend!
Much love,
The Sheriff
I read "Eat the Damn Cake" and was pretty intrigued. You said you don't agree with everything it says - so what do you agree with in the article, and how much affect do you think the media actually has on young women? I mean, why is it that some girls are completely affected and others see media beauty standards as irrelevant?
ReplyDelete-Rachael C.
It's sort of petty, but I don't really like her characterization that eating disorders are all about beauty standards. Obviously, I agree that it's a piece of it, but they're mental illnesses, not just fixations, and to me, that's part of why certain girls cannot let it go while others disregard it completely. I think a large chunk of it also has to do with how you were taught to think about your body--did you see your mom criticizing her stomach when you were a toddler, or did she tell you her belly was great because you lived there once?
ReplyDeleteMedia plays a major part in how we see and judge ourselves, and small studies are now pointing to the fact that videos from Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty might help protect girls from being vulnerable to the effects of seeing absurdly thin models (http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2010/08/video-protects-girls-from-negative.html).
--The Sheriff
I'm really torn about the Craigslist shutdown - and I intern at one of the organizations that has fought hard for it. Last year The Advocates for Human Rights turned down $25,000 from Craigslist on the basis of their opposition to the adult services section.
ReplyDeleteMy problem is that I think shutting down the Craigslist section shows a complete misunderstanding for the way in which internet operates. It's like bulldozing a brick wall where people post flyers promoting the sale of children who are trafficked and prostituted - those flyers are simply going to spread out elsewhere. Craigslist, in addition to being a platform that enabled the continued crimes, was a very central location used by police in CATCHING those who were responsible for trafficking.
And beyond that, I think this is a red herring that excuses officials from taking meaningful action. Like rewriting state laws so that children who are prostituted are not identified as responsible parties, ditto for women trafficked from other countries. For the most part, American law implicates women who are prostituted with criminal charges, regardless of whether they are involved by coercion or circumstance. The people like Attorney General Blumenthal could make real difference in those ways, whereas I doubt the Craigslist shut down with have very far-reaching impact.
So I'm just sort of curious why you come down so strongly in favor of the shutdown. The linked article doesn't seem to say very much about how it will actually help women or children. And while we can do more than one thing at once, I find that a lot of the players in this shutdown are not pursuing other online forums or legal status change for survivors of trafficking.
I also have found approaches to this to reflect in large part the divide between 2nd and 3rd wave feminists. Which is just an interesting aside.
~Kelly
Okay not to go on much longer, but this is something I have thought about. Here is one of the links that made me wonder about the wisdom of the shutdown:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.slate.com/id/2219167/