FROM THE ARCHIVES: As part 2 of SPARKing through History, today we are remembering our first major win. In October 2011 as we walked past yet another Halloween superstore peddling sexed up costumes for girls with lower and lower necklines and higher and higher skirts, our rage kept simmering but didn’t quite spark flames until we…
FROM THE ARCHIVES: As part of Women’s History Month, we’re looking back on some of our favorite, still-relevant SPARK blogs. About this particular piece, originally published in April 2011, Cam says: I wrote this post because I thought that if females continued using the word “slut,” it would enable men to use it in trying to…
by Crystal Ogar Over the past weekend I was lucky enough to be a part of the third Women in the World Summit (Stories + Solutions) held in New York City at Lincoln Center, and co-hosted by Tina Brown (editor-in chief of Newsweek & The Daily Beast), Lauren Bush Lauren, Leymah Gbowee, Nizan Guanaes, Jane Harman,…
By Bailey Shoemaker Richards February 18 marks a change in my TV watching habits. Normally, the only things I’ll be caught watching are Doctor Who, Castle and the occasional cartoon (with my little brother, of course). I get most of my news and op-ed information from blogs, Twitter and news sites, usually read on my…
By Izzy Labbe You’ve seen it all before: all the facebook pictures of girls taken in bathrooms, smooshing their lips together in the typical “duck-face”, bending over so far their cleavage is easily the focal point of the picture, or bending backwards so much that their bodies are contorted. Sure, we’ve all seen them. Some…
By Stephanie Cole The 84th annual Academy Awards are this Sunday, and if I had been asked a month ago what I would be doing this weekend, I would have happily said I’ll be enjoying my 10th annual day of vegging out in front of red carpet schmoozing and Best Original Song performances. But when…
By Kaye Toal Hey, SPARK readers! Let’s play a game! First: think of some men who do not fit “traditional” or socially-acceptable male beauty standards but still feature in TV shows and movies where their roles revolve around something other than their weight. Men like, say, Seth Rogen. Or Chris Farley. Or Jack Black. Or Danny…
By Julia Bluhm The perfect ballet dancer has to have a thin body, long legs, and a long neck and no chest. They have to be tall enough that their lines look long, but not so tall that they’re taller than their partner on pointe. They can’t be curvy, but they can’t be so bony…