by Kimberly Belmonte Have you heard that there’s no more photoshopping in American Eagle’s Aerie ads? I think it’s a step in the right direction and it reminds me of SPARK activist Julia Bluhm’s petition to Seventeen magazine that led the company to issue a new policy against photoshopping its images. While it’s totally awesome…
by Dee Putri Waria is a term used in Indonesian for assigned-male-at-birth (AMAB) transgender people. It originally comes from words wanita (woman) and pria (man). (Indonesian loves to make acronyms, I’ll tell you.) Seeing waria on the street is not strange; I see them everyday working as pengamen – street performers. They usually sing in intersections or near food booths. I’d…
by Mehar Gujral, Angela Batuure, and Crystal Ogar This past weekend, SPARK activists Angela Batuure and Mehar Gujral and SPARK Action Squad Coordinator Crystal Ogar were at the Women in the World Summit in New York City! While Angela and Mehar live blogged from the Women in the World Tumblr, Crystal spoke on a panel…
by Ty Slobe I can’t remember a time growing up when I didn’t idolize older girls. When I was in middle school, I dreamt of being in high school and having cool friends with licenses who frequented concerts and looked awesome at proms. When I was in high school, I dreamt of being in college…
by Lilinaz Evans You may remember CoverGirl from our recent Capitol Cuties campaign, but today I wanted to talk about Covergirl’s newest ad campaign #GirlsCan. Here, in the campaign video there is a wealth of strong, high powered women–many of whom are self- proclaimed feminists, like Ellen DeGeneres or Janelle Monae, and all of whom…
by Julia Bluhm When girls are young, Cinderella tells them “dreams really do come true.” As we get older, that philosophy changes and we learn that life isn’t actually a fairytale. You have to work hard in order to achieve something great, and even then it doesn’t always happen. For me, ballet started as a…
by Sam Holmes On my first day of kindergarten, I encountered the consequence of poor representation in media. I remember how terrified I was as I entered the classroom. All my friends from pre-k had gone to other schools, so I didn’t know a single person in my class. When I finally found the courage…
by Angela Batuure I’ll admit I’m not a huge fan of Hollywood awards ceremonies like the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, People’s Choice Awards, or the Academy Awards. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve sat down to watch these shows (unless Beyoncé is performing, in which case the likelihood I…