By Diana Martinez Amongst the stereotyping Superbowl commercials and the hetero-normative advertisements for Valentine’s Day, February can be a tough month for some of us SPARKladies, especially in terms of the media. For me, the most exciting occasion–apart from Mount Holyoke’s annual Drag Ball party–is the Academy Awards. Movies account for a huge part of…
By Rachel Berger The average Facebook user: Male or female? Not sure? What about the YouTube troll posting grammatically incorrect homophobic slurs? The preteen playing games on Neopets.com? The author of Harry Potter romance stories on Fanfiction.net? The viewer of a porn site? The gender line may blur, bend, or blip briefly out of existence,…
By Culley Schultz January and February are cold, wintry months in the New York City area. There is little that is bleaker than the gray skies mirrored by the gray snow pushed to the sides of the gray, salt stained pavement. You can imagine my elation when, on particular Sunday night during these months, the…
by Melissa Campbell For a while, I had a serious love/hate relationship with MTV’s Jersey Shore. I don’t own a television, so I would go out of my way to download it the day after it aired, watching it on my laptop curled up under my covers before I got out of bed to start…
Alyssa Hammel is an Environmental Science undergrad at Pace University and a native of Woodstock, NY. She is active in Amnesty International as well as numerous animal rights groups. “Clitoral Truth” author Rebecca Chalker opened her mind to the sexualization of girls while teaching a Woman’s Studies class in the fall semester. This piece was…
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…
By Nicole Schirmer Nicole Schirmer is a Public Health undergrad at CUNY Hunter College. SPARK has really raised her awareness to the over abundance of sexualization of young girls in the media. She is now talking to more people about these issues and raising their awareness as well so we can push back against the…
By Dina Zipkin Dina Zipkin is currently a graduate student in the field of Public Health at Hunter College. She is in the Community Health Education track and feels passionately about health education. She is also working with four other Public Health students in creating a documentary focused on the SPARK Summit and young female…