By writer Katherine Center.

The slideshow was inspired by Katherine’s new novel “Everyone is Beautiful“; photos and design by Mary Swenson.

My favorite quotes:

Beauty comes from variety, from specificity, from the fact that no person in the world looks exactly like anyone else.

and:

It’s more important to be interesting, to be vivid, and to be adventurous than to sit pretty for pictures.

Bravo Katherine!

Related links:

Katherine Center’s official website.

Katherine Center on Twitter.

"Snow Queen Palace" from the Early Learning Centre

The UK Telegraph recently ran an article about Pink Stinks, an organization founded by my friends Abi and Emma Moore, that “challenges the culture of pink which invades every aspect of girls’ lives.”

Pink Stinks just launched a campaign against Early Learning Centre, asking the toy retailer to stop pinkification and gender-stereotyping of children’s toys.

Some interesting quotes from the Telegraph article:

The campaign has been backed by Ed Mayo, the former government “consumer tsar” and author of Consumer Kids, How Big Business is Grooming our Children for Profit.

He said: “There may be worse things to worry about, but I feel this colour apartheid is one of the things that sets children on two separate railway tracks. One leads to higher pay, and higher status and one doesn’t.”

[...]

“Why on earth do girls need to have a globe in pink?” said Mr Mayo. “Does it ultimately lead to the 15 per cent pay gap suffered by women further down the line?. That’s far too simplistic, but I feel gender roles are becoming polarised far too early on.”

Some fascinating trivia about the color pink and child play:

[B]efore World War II pink was more usually associated with boys, while blue – traditionally the colour of the Virgin Mary – was linked with girls.

Links:

The Telegraph: “Pink toys ‘damaging’ for girls” (full article)

Pink Stinks : The Campaign for Real Role Models (official site)

Follow Pinks Stinks on Twitter

This song would be just about brilliant for the Illusionists docu soundtrack! The Care Bears on Fire is a band from Brooklyn, NY: Sophie (lead vocals, guitarist, 13 years old), Izzy (drummer, 13 years old) and Jena (Bass, 15 years old) are my new heroines! I can’t wait to see what they’ll do next.

Links:

Care Bears On Fire on MySpace
via Feministing

These awful, über-sexist Reebok EasyTone ads were conceived by the ad agency DDB Chicago:

Now, if you go to DDB’s official website you will notice some interesting quotes:

“Values”

(Who We Are > Roots)

Respect for Our World

As influential communicators, DDB is in a position to use creativity as a force for good. As Bill Bernbach so eloquently put it, “All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can vulgarize that society. We can brutalize it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level.”

(emphasis mine)

Interesting. Could you watch the commercials one more time, keeping in mind the above statement? Don’t you notice a huge disconnect?

To complain to DDB for the aforementioned ads you can contact Jeff Swystun, DDB Chief Communications Officer : Jeff.Swystun@ddb.com or address something to him, in 140 characters or less, to his Twitter account: @JeffSwystun

Can a film trailer make you cry?

Apparently, yes.

I totally teared up while watching this:

Finally, a film about an amazing, inspirational woman (who’s not a showgirl or a bimbo), directed by a super talented female filmmaker. Will rush to the movie theater the day this film comes out.

Link: Amelia @ imdb.com

From the Washington Post’s “On Being” video series: an interview of make-up artist Bailey Orenia-Sessoms – who speaks eloquently about race, beauty, and self-esteem.

A terrific quote:

When you have that lack of self-love, you’re more susceptible to accepting society’s “beauty standards” and then you find yourself not liking who you are year to year because every year (fashion) changes.

To watch the full interview, click here.

Scarlett Johansson just wrote an article for the Huffington Post, speaking out about the media’s obsession over celebrities’ weight loss (and gain):

Every time I pass a newsstand, the bold yellow font of tabloid and lifestyle magazines scream out at me: “Look Who’s Lost It!” “They Were Fabby and Now They’re Flabby!” “They Were Flabby and Now They’re Flat!” We’re all aware of the sagas these glossies create: “Look Who’s Still A Sea Cow After Giving Birth to Twins!” Or the equally perverse: “Slammin’ Post Baby Beach Bodies Just Four Days After Crowning!”

According to the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), as many as 10 million females and 1 million males living in the US are fighting a life and death battle with anorexia or bulimia. I’m someone who has always publicly advocated for a healthy body image and the idea that the media would maintain that I have lost an impossible amount of weight by some sort of “crash diet” or miracle workout is ludicrous. I believe it’s reckless and dangerous for these publications to sell the story that these are acceptable ways to looking like a “movie star.” It’s great to get tips on how to lead a healthier lifestyle, but I don’t want some imaginary account of “How She Did It!” I get into and stay in shape by eating a proper diet and maintaining a healthy amount of exercise. The press should be held accountable for the false ideals they sell to their readers regarding body image — that’s the real weight of the issue.

(emphasis mine)

Full article here.

From Slate magazine:

A Banker Bridges the Wealth Gap – A podcast with Jacqueline Novogratz.
[...] Host Daniel Gross interviews Jacqueline Novogratz, founder of the Acumen Fund and author of The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World. Novogratz, who plunged into development work after a brief stint as a banker, started a nonprofit venture fund to provide backing to profit-making firms that address the needs of the global poor. The Blue Sweater is part memoir of the misadventures of an ambitious do-gooder and part subtle polemic about the need to change the way we think about foreign aid.

The podcast page is here.

Ms. Novogratz discusses at length her experience helping out women in the developing world. Her story is incredibly inspiring – I highly recommend you listen to it.

via World Pulse – Global Issues through the Eyes of Women

It’s a tragic paradox. Experts agree that the most effective way to solve global problems is to invest in women, but social initiatives that focus on women actually receive less than 7% of all philanthropic funding worldwide. Fortunately, we are beginning to see the potential to turn this around, and women funders are leading the way.

Read more about what we can do here.

Yesterday, the blog Jezebel discussed a recent segment that ran on ABC’s Good Morning America:

Good Morning America recreated the 1940s experiment in which 63% of African-American children given identical white and black dolls said they’d rather play with the white doll and 44% identified more with the white doll.

The original Jezebel post and the GMA video can be found here.

That made me remember a video that I had watched over a year ago, directed by a young African American girl, who ran the very same experiment and also filmed lots of interviews of fellow African American girls, discussing self image, body image, and discrimination. It was far, far more powerful and emotional than the GMA video. I highly recommmend watching it: