Warning: Models in This Image May Not Be as Thin as They Appear

This week, the American Medical Association denounced the use of digital manipulation and retouching on models and asked advertising agencies to consider imposing stricter guidelines for manipulating photos before they are sent to press. I, for one, say it’s about time. But should the U.S. go a step further? In England and France, lawmakers have [...]

Why Aren’t We Protesting Miss America?

“When I was growing up, Miss America was the symbol of what every young girl wanted to be,” author Alix Kates Shulman, one of the organizers of the first Miss America protest in 1968, said in an interview with NPR in 2008. “That was the kind of attainment that everybody yearned for, to be considered [...]

Black-Grrl Power: Willow Smith and Sesame Street

There has been quite the response–supportive and enthusiastic–to Sesame Street‘s ode to loving black girls’ hair, and it’s deserved: Not since bell hooks’ children’s book Happy to Be Nappy has there been such an enthusiastic celebration of black hair for kids. For so many of us black women, who grew up with external messages informing [...]

Today’s the Day to Love Your Body

There are things we say to ourselves that we would never say to the people we love. Can you imagine telling your best friend her butt is too big or her breasts are too small? Or telling your daughter she’d have more friends if she just lost a few pounds? How about letting grandmother in on how much more beautiful [...]

Yoga’s Feminist Awakening

The online yoga community is still feeling the aftershocks of a recent debate about the use of women’s bodies in asana-related advertising, and the conversation is far from finished. It all started when the grand dame of U.S. yoga and Yoga Journal co-founder Judith Hanson Lasater wrote a letter expressing her unhappiness with the increasing [...]

90210 on 9/02/10

When I think about growing up in the 90s, I always return to one particular place: Beverly Hills, California. I never actually stepped foot in the zip code (until recently, when I came to work as an intern for Ms.), but I watched Beverly Hills 90210 every Wednesday night at 8 p.m. I followed the [...]

Blog Roundup: Editor’s Picks, July 12-16

This week, Ms. learned from the blogosphere that gay parenting is better parenting; MAC is marketing maquiladora makeup; Vaseline launched a Facebook skin-whitening app; abortion hit primetime; and more. Gloria Feldt, The Real L Word, Bristol Palin and Angelina Jolie are all part of the best discussions of identity, politics, and identity politics on the [...]

Banning the Veil, Loving the Face?

In visible opposition to these concepts of French femininity, shrouded women question their “reality” by refusing to participate at the visual level in French culture being “there” and “not there” at the same time. With “French” beauty constantly and consistently constructed to exclude migrant identities and notions of beauty perhaps a visible simulation of exclusion is necessary to start a debate on the question of whether all Frenchwomen’s faces are equally beloved.

Unretouched Photos: Empowering or Just More ‘Empower-tainment’?

Recently, there have been a few high-profile examples of magazines publishing images of “real” women: plus-sized models, or celebrities free of makeup and/or Photoshop. The ensuing publicity can make it feel that we’ve won body image victories–but let’s look closer at these images to find out how much we should really be celebrating. February 2009: [...]