Teen Girls (and Writers!) Take Manhattan

Last week, I was home in New York City attending the awesome annual conference of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Not only was it great to meet other ultra-talented writers like  Crai Bower (a most awesome travel expert.  Check out his stuff.  Seriously), Molly Blake, and Jen Reeder....I also got to meet a handful of inspiring girls from Raleigh, North Carolina who had come to New York to participate in a Model UN.  Which I think is great, because I loved me some Model Congress back when I was in high school, and I adore hearing about girls who are following their passions instead of getting caught up in celebrity hype.

So here's a snap of them, me and my book All Made Up: A Girl's Guide to Seeing Through Celebrity Hype and Celebrating Real Beauty (playing the part of the little garden gnome in that French movie Amélie)

Kickin' in in Grand Central.

Maybe Heidi Montag deserves another chance

This may be old news, but a January 3, 2011 copy of Life & Style featuring Heidi's confessions has been sitting on my desk for over a month...and I've got a few related thoughts I need to get off my (non-surgically enhanced chest). 

Why is no one talking about Heidi's recantations?  As a culture, we couldn't shut up last year about the number of surgeries she elected to have, her cup size, her relationship with her mother, the shade of her bleached blonde hair, her failed pop album, her PR seeking stunts etc etc.

And now she's admitted that we were right.  That "surgery made her look worse."  That she regrets having gone under the knife.  That there have been major repercussions (she can't jog due to the size of her G-cup breasts; she can't wash her face because she's afraid to bump her fragile nose; she has visible dimpling and scars on the back of her legs).

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Cover Girl Culture

Updated on Thursday, September 16, 2010 by Audrey Brashich

Right around the time my book All Made Up: A Girl’s Guide to Seeing Through Celebrity Hype and Celebrating Real Beauty was published, a former Elite model named Nicole Clark contacted me about a new DVD documentary she was creating.  She told me it was going to explore the impact of today’s beauty standards on teens and young women.  She told me she was going to take aim at the media created for young women for offering so little to girls by way of role models and definitions of beauty.  She told me it was going to be BIG—and basically, she had me at Hello.

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Killing Us Softly: Advertising's Image of Women

When I was a freshman in college, I saw Jean Kilbourne speak in support of her documentary Killing Us Softly--and it quite literally changed my life.  It illuminated so much about how the media work and the impact of ads on our collective psyche when it comes to self-esteem, body image and women.  I am not exaggerating when I say that it, along with Sassy, put me on the path to becoming whatever it is I am today (girl advocate, body image activist, feminist writer.....)

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