Hard Out Here

Lily Allen recently came out with a song called "Hard Out Here" and I am obsessed. It is about the struggles and pressures celebrities face every day. 

Lily Allen is bigger than the "Average" celebrity, but by no means fat. She starts the video by getting plastic surgery with her manager yelling at her, as well as a music video of half naked girls dancing around. 

The song basically mocks celebrities and how they are so caught up in their lifestyle. Her manager is criticizing her for her weight and she explains how she just had 2 kids.. So of course she doesn't have the same body she had when she was younger. 

This song got so much attention, and some of it was negative! I think because she mocks so many celebrities, and points out the hard truth that other celebrities ignore. 

In her video she makes words out of balloons which is blatantly mocking Robin Thicks "Blurred Lines" which completely objectifies women. I love Lily Allen even more after this song, she made such good points and finally stood up for what most women don't. 

Using rape to justify behavior? Not ok.

Scandal is a newer show on ABC. Its about a woman who is a "fixer" of problems in the political community. She had an affair with the president, and there have been points of the show where they focus on the president wife and somewhat present her in a way that she is the one we should hate after all of this. 

In last weeks episode, there was a series of flashbacks on the president and his wife's journey to becoming president. We saw the Mellie, the wife was raped by the presidents father. I guess it was to "justify" her behavior and help us understand why she is the way she is. 

At first, I felt sympathetic for her. Having to be married to a man who's father sexually assaulted her, and not ever feel like she could tell her husband. Thats horrible and heart wrenching. It did help me "understand" why she was such a nasty character about everything, not just the affair her husband had. 

But... after surfing through Cosmo I found an article that made a really strong point. Yes- the episode does point out that we shouldn't jump to judge people because we don't know their past, but it's also claiming that being sexually assaulted justifies a women being "tough" and being able to stand up for herself. Thats not okay.The article pointed out how this has happened on multiple shows. 

I mean sure, it's great that these women are able to be strong after everything that has happened to them, but why is it that so many "strong" and "tough" women on TV are sexually assaulted? 

(On a side note, the show posted a warning before an episode where a male character was going to be tortured, but not before the episode where Mellie was going to be raped.) (And yes, it showed no skin, but we watched her get raped.) 

OTH and Anorexia

An episode of One Tree Hill was on the other day. Yes, its a bit cheesy, but it has given some great messages throughout the series. The episode that was on today was showing how different each characters lives had become in the last four years. 

Brooke Davis- who was the "popular girl" and kind of a bitch through high school now had her own clothing line. She was walking through her office looking at their plan for the next months magazine and there was a picture of a size zero girl on the cover. The first thing Brooke said about it was that they needed to change it immediately because "anorexia is a disease not a fashion statement." 

This really made an impact on me because its true. So many girls feel the pressures to look as small as the girls on the fashion magazines because thats what they're shown over and over again. 

As the show goes on I remember Brooke getting a lot of beef for this because she was standing up for what she believed in. Time and time again this happens. It's a shame that there is controversy over something that isn't even that big of a deal. 

It's a pretty well known fact that time changes things. People, our environment, laws, etc. Ideas change and grow to adapt to certain situations. However, one change throughout time has had an insidious effect on people, specifically girls. 

In the 1960's, Time magazine had a woman on the front who would now be considered "plus sized," saying that it was a good thing to have your thighs touching, or to have more "curves." Somewhere along the way, this idea got lost in a flurry of "pro-ana" (pro anorexia) and "pro-mia" (pro bulimia) blog posts, pictures, and mindsets. Thinspiration suddenly became popular, encouraging girls to choose between a snack or a thigh gap, a sweet or hip bones sticking out. This media is most prominent on the social networking site Tumblr, but it's making its way across the board. 

Girls (also boys, but less so) are constantly being barraged by this type of positivity about eating disorders or disordered eating,  and are often falling victim to it. Up to 20 million women and 10 million men will be diagnosed with an eating disorder. There is an innate pressure to be thin these days, to have your hipbones and collarbones sticking out and to have a thigh gap (which is only possible in girls with certain body shapes). 

Sure, people change with the times, but this change in the ideal body type is causing deaths all across the nation. Perhaps it's time for a new change, that promotes self-love and body acceptance, instead of constantly feeling the need to change. 

"The Evil Demon Seductress"

I couldn't think of anything to write about so I looked up the Feminine Frequency YouTube channel. I watched one called "The Evil Demon Seductress" and since Halloween is around the corner I thought it was perfect. 
The video was explaining how movies constantly portray women to be sexual, manipulative, and evil. Whenever there is a female villain in a movie, she gets her way be seducing the man and then violently kills him. 
A great example of this is "Jennifer's' Body". The whole movie is about a girl who is supposed to be the hottest, sluttiest girl in school, played by Megan Fox. She is constantly seducing guys, (and even a girl), getting them to be alone with her, thinking they're going to have sex with her, then proceeds to kill them. 
Movies like this continue to portray women in negative ways. There is already the stereotype that women are "moody" and "manipulative" and this not only intensifies those thoughts, but confirms them. 
No matter what the movie, if the woman is the villain, she doesn't come across as someone who is confident in herself without using her sexuality to show it. (I'm sure there may be one, but for the most part..) 


Because of the movie influences on sexual behavior, we also have the sexy halloween costumes. So many young girls are dressing half naked to go door to door to strangers homes to get candy. Doesn't that just sound like something bad waiting to happen!? I mean Halloween to me is all about being creepy and bloody.. not sexy and skimpy. But girls have learned from movies, tv, etc. that in order to get a guy you have to be sexy. 

Sabrina the Teenage Witch!

So recently I started watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch again. It was my absolute favorite show when I was younger, and to find it on Hulu made me happier than ever. 

Typically in an episode of the show Sabrina will come across an "average teenage" problem, try to fix it with a spell, it will end up backfiring, and she will realize that you can't get everything you want. 

I was watching an episode today that was about Sabrina and her "mortal" boyfriend being nominated for prom king and queen. It caught my eye in a different way because usually in the show she does not cared about her appearance, but in this episode it was all about that. 

She bought a new dress for the dance, and it was a size to small so naturally she found a "weight loss" spell that was going to help her get to the perfect size. After drinking the potion, she was to the weight she wanted to be to fit into the dress perfectly. The salesman then tells her that she needs to lose more weight and puts a spell on her mirror to make her see herself differently. 

To me, this showed how people that do suffer from eating disorders actually feel when looking in the mirror. They feel like they look so fat even though they are getting to an unhealthy small weight. In the episode, her cat says "you've dieted to the point of disappearance," and I think thats the shows way of portraying that the more this affects you, it'll get to a point where you are so unhealthy you could die. 

Watching the show now I think I better understand the messages given. I know when I was younger I loved watching the obstacles and I loved that in the end she realized that she couldn't use magic to get her way because lets face it, thats exactly how the real world is. 


I was just really impressed with this episode in particular because in the end she realizes that she was already in good shape and it was silly to even consider dieting because she was nominated for being someone who didn't conform to what everyone else was doing and for being "down to earth." Even though the show isn't on TV any more, it was a good show that was always giving good messages to teens and adolescents. 

Are women in the work force finally being taken seriously?

Marissa Mayer, the CEO of Yahoo is known as one of the most powerful businesswomen in 2012. She started as an employee of Google, moving her way up through the company and has made a really strong impact in the business world for women. 

Its not often that women are looked at to be leaders in a business related job, so when they are its kind of a big deal. She has made very strategic moves for Yahoo thus far such as buying and taking over tumblr.

Marissa Mayer recently decided to pose for Vogue. My first thoughts when reading this were good. I thought maybe she will show that women can be looked at in the same sense as men, and not sexualize the idea of a woman in power.

Nope.

I mean yea, she is fully clothed, and her outfit is very put together. But looking at the pose, would a male CEO ever pose like this? No. Never. And that is what is so frustrating! We finally have a strong woman in a powerful place, but because of media pressures she poses for vogue in an obviously feminine matter. This is an example of why women will never be taken seriously. Men will look at this and think, "damn shes hot" and won't give her the same respect they would give her if she was a man. 

I mean she probably isn't facing any kind of discrimination in her office. People probably aren't looking at her like she doesn't know what shes doing. But the way she is portraying women will forever stick to her. 

My dad, a CEO of his own company was even discouraged by this. He is all about women having equal rights in the work force, and she was someone he looked up to. He respected her decisions in the work force and agreed with everything she did, then for her to do that he says he lost respect. 

Maybe one day women will finally realize that they don't have to be sexy in order to get a guy to listen to them. Or maybe women will realize that by sexualizing themselves, men will continue to not care about you or anything you have to say and be worried about their bodies more so than the work they are accomplishing? Who knows.