This is a guest blog from Proud2bme.org. Melanie Klein is an Associate Faculty member at Santa Monica College, teaching Sociology and Women’s Studies. She is featured in the forthcoming book Conversations with Modern Yogis and the documentary, The American Housewife. By Melanie Klein I wasn’t trying to make a political or intellectual statement when I…
This is a guest blog from Proud2bme.org. Thanks to Mary of the Mary Streech Project, Jen Rubino of Cards for Hospitalized Kids, and teens from the Boulder Youth Body Alliance for participating in the virtual roundtable! Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have become a huge part of most teens’ lives. But do they…
Recently, for my English class we had to write an essay about the “Power of a Word.” While a lot of my other friends were writing about words like “Hope” and “Love,” I wrote about “Sexualization.” Since I’m really passionate about SPARK and feminism, I figured writing about it would be easy, plus maybe I…
By Melissa Campbell In the ongoing conversation around SPARK’s Seventeen Magazine campaign, I’ve been hearing over and over again my absolute least favorite piece of advice for young people (or any people) who are trying to make a difference in the world: “Vote with your dollars!” I’m not kidding that this is my least favorite…
By Bailey Shoemaker Richards We’ve all heard these songs – “You don’t know you’re beautiful… and that’s what makes you beautiful,” “She wears short skirts, I wear T-shirts,” – and the dozens of others like them: the songs that emphasize young straight white women being ignorant of their own beauty (or deriding a certain type…
By Ben Ubiñas Perfect skin, perfect teeth, perfect hair. Razor thin bodies, glamorous clothes. Is that what I’m supposed to expect from girls my age? Because that’s what Seventeen magazine shows on every page in every way. I hadn’t even heard about Seventeen magazine until I saw on the news that some girls were protesting…
This is a guest blog from http://proud2bme.org. Rachael Haskell is 22 years old and lives in Los Angeles with a basset hound named Rosie Honeybun (AKA Rosie, Bun Bun, Bunny, The Bun, Hellbeast, and Beezlebub.) When she is not blogging, doing work for school or procrastinating Rachael enjoys dancing, reading, writing, hiking, trying (and usually…
By Izzy Labbe “This is not a contact sport; it shouldn’t be an issue. It wasn’t that they were afraid they were going to hurt or injure her, it’s that (they believe) a girl’s place is not on a field.” ~ Pamela Sultzbach Paige Sultzbach is a strong, athletic 15-year-old student at Mesa Prep, a…