Social media usage — whether it be Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok — is a huge staple of modern life, to the point that most of us may not think twice about the information that we consume online. But there is growing evidence to suggest that increased social media usage can be related to a variety…
Read more
As a little white girl, naively comforted by the romances of Madame Butterfly and Disney’s Mulan, I had developed a pretty enduring schema by which to evaluate Asian women: they must either be supplicants donning opulently embellished kimonos, or they must be men. By the time that movies like Godzilla and Aloha came around,…
Read more
According to Weight Watchers, recent findings have revealed that 63 per cent of Australian women believe a good sex life is important to an individual’s overall wellbeing – not unlike the content we see in some popular women’s magazines. However, about a quarter of these Australian women report having avoided sexual activity on at least…
Read more
Popular culture is full of images pressuring us to conform to so-called acceptable ways of being. These ideas are so all-pervading they become the norm and we forget that the stories we hear through our favourite characters are a deliberate social construction. Such as when we assert the stereotype that all fat people are lazy….
Read more
With today’s power and abundance of social media, it’s very rare to discover an artist’s music without already having some sort of preconceived idea about what you’ll think of them. Lana Del Rey’s music has always been clouded for me with the pervasive opinion that she’s a fake. Little criticism about Lana Del Rey’s career…
Read more
‘Larger women have to try harder to look good,’ a stressed and frazzled mother said to her 12-year-old daughter, Rosie*. Rosie was a confident young girl, who embraced her body. She was, however, challenged by her mother’s harsh words. I feel for Rosie, being told the way you feel is not necessarily how you are…
Read more
Are you sick and tired of the constant imagery of skinny models with perfect skin plastered all over media? Well, we have all been sick of it for a while. But artist Mikhaila Nodel has decided to make images and put them into a zine, and these images inspire confidence for all girls and…
Read more
Don’t get me started on Spanx. I hate that the models they use to advertise their shapewear don’t have any reason to be wearing the Spanx in the first place. By reason, I mean that they don’t have any of the bodily attributes that this product is designed to hide. I’ll quickly clarify that…
Read more
On the rear of my car, there is a sticker declaring how much I love my box. I’m not just talking about the hatchback or the boxes of wine it is meant to denote (cheers, university Goonion.) This sticker also connotes the admiration I have for my vagina, my vulva and all the other intricate…
Read more
It seems wherever we look in our increasingly media-consuming society, body shaming abounds. From songs that shame one bodily extreme to the other – ‘skinny’ or ‘fat’– and the eternal homage to anaconda-like penises (which, coincidentally, profess to not perform where a big booty is lacking), there’s an endless string of having to fit in…
Read more
Girlfriend magazine won the government’s Positive Body Image award for Media and Entertainment in 2012 for their efforts in portraying images of young women that are inspirational and truthful. In a world where young women are still constantly receiving an influx of negative images of bodies such as super skinny fashion models and skin perfected…
Read more
In a recent study conducted by the Australian Institute of Family Studies, dissatisfactions of the physical appearance of the body have been discovered to be evident in children as young as eight years old. These kinds of body image issues, affecting both men and women, are perfect representations of the impact of the media…
Read more
My mum says that when she was a little girl and she was late to school (as usual), she would have to tear across the cornfield next to her house to make it to the bus. One winter, when the field was slick with ice and snow and she was running to the bus, she…
Read more
She’s fourteen – though she is often mistaken for twelve – and a mixture of insecurity and confidence is etched into her movements. A freshman in a tiny Texas town, she tiptoes through the halls of her high school quietly and curiously. She’s not quite sure how to carry herself – this body of a…
Read more
