By Maya Brown

Maya Brown is a sophomore at Waterville Senior High School in Waterville Maine. She enjoys music, technology, photography, and anything related to theater. She has been a part of the Girls Advisory Board at Hardy Girls Healthy Women for three years, and a part of Hardy Girls since the beginning (10 years ago). She believes in empowering girls and women to speak out against the media and thinks that all girls should know how beautiful they really are. Maya is a part of her school’s GSA, school newspaper, and has co-founded a theater program called Act Out at her local elementary school. She’s excited to help SPARK this movement!

 We see them everywhere. New Year’s resolutions to lose weight, stop eating like a normal person, or (occasionally) talk to that cute boy. Well, I think for once those companies that tell us to get a fresh start by buying their clothes or joining their gym to meet that weight loss goal should make their own New Year’s resolutions.  Here are a few suggestions:

Teen Magazines: I don’t want to hear about how to seduce that hot guy, or how to lose weight all the time. How about you resolve to stop doing “Bikini Watches” and telling us who wore what outfit better and, instead, give us real articles on girls and women making positive change. I don’t need to know how I should do my make-up for every occasion.  I’d rather know how I can get involved in cool volunteer programs or summer camps. I’ll even cut you some slack here.  Go ahead and put in some fashion tips and celebrity gossip, but could you try and balance it out a little bit this year? Girls everywhere will thank you.

Movies: This one is simple. How about you resolve to make one half of all characters female, instead of a measly one fourth.  Resolve to have less catfights, less drama, and more women saving the day. From Pixar to Warner Brothers, you could all do a lot better. Women make up half the population, and we promise that our guy friends, husbands, and sons will still watch interesting movies with female leads just as we’ve watched male dominated movies for as long as we can remember. Resolve to put girls and women in a more favorable light and show what we’re really made of.

Music: What happened to the great girl bands of the 80’s?  Can you resolve to bring back some of that wild and creative grrrl power?  Women musicians, shake things up a little bit; work some feminism back into those love songs.  Men, stop demeaning women in your music lyrics (Yes, I’m talking to you Eminem. Don’t think if you say it fast no one will understand it) and videos (Kanye, are you listening?  We can do without the dead women hanging around). If your music is good, you don’t have to get attention by seeing how many people you can offend at one time.

Clothing: Companies, stop sexualizing women to make money. I promise we will still buy your clothes even if we don’t see half-naked models in every advertisement.  I know it’s hard to give up your ways, so why don’t you start by showing us one real girl for every two skinny models. Show us girls and women who look like we do and maybe we’ll be more likely to buy your clothes. Along the same line, make clothes that fit us, not just the size triple zeros out there. More specifically, American Apparel and Diesel you should resolve to stop those horrible campaigns. We want to see “smart”, real, women, not “stupid” scantily clad booties.  And clothing stores, don’t make us dig to find our size; display them so we can feel proud of our bodies.

To media in general: just stop objectifying girls and women.  It’s not a lot to ask. Let’s work together to make 2011 our year for change.  At SPARK, we’re doing it anyway, but we could always use a little help.