"I was going to ask you what's new, but I think I know"

Anyone watch American Idol? This is extremely disturbing to me on so, so many levels...

Tyra Takes on Same Sex Marriage

I have a hard time talking with people who believe sexual orientation is a choice. Literally, i shut down and am unable to further "debate" with them about rights because i recognize that they see gays and lesbians as "lesser than," "other," and nothing i say will ever change their mind. I am all for tolerating opinions different from my own but this isn't a topic i can tolerate a range of values on because for me, it's so basic and so essential. Denying someone human rights because you think their sexuality is something they should "control" or something they can "change" is absurd. Did you wake up one morning and "decide" to be straight? Seriously, is this something you thought about and made a conscious decision on? No.

Tyra Banks did an episode yesterday that i want to post here, because i thought a lot of it was really good. But more than that, it presents a very real display of bigotry, intolerance, and people who claim to be "Christians" when in fact they are just using the bible as an excuse to hate, which is very very not Christian of them. They are the same people who think homosexuality is a choice and a sin. For example, in one of the segments the woman says, "I see emotional and mental instability" as one of the audience members emotionally shares the discrimination and violence he has faced in his life for his sexual orientation. She does not show empathy, she does not show love or support. She laughs, on stage, and tells the world he's emotionally and mentally instable. Shame on you, lady.

Tyra had Sandy Rios on (who IS this woman?!) who had lots of quotable gems, such as:

"You can stop being gay, you cannot stop being black"

"As a fully heterosexual female i can tell you how difficult it is not to have sex, too. So i can understand that dilemma" She was asked, "is celebacy the answer?" Her reply: "yes, as apposed to acting out homosexuality or adultry or pedophelia, yes.

"When you talk about discrimination and the misery of being a lesbian, gay upfront is the wrong name for that. It's broken hearts, it's disease, it's unnatural." (just for the record, the woman she was talking to never said being a lesbian made her miserable...)


If you have time, and can tolerate Tyra, watch the show, "Gay is the New Black." If nothing else I want you to see the "arguments" that same sex marriage opponents make. I want you to hear the intolerance, bigotry, and hatred that they spew and I want you to see exactly why i have such an unbelievable difficult time "debating" with people like this in my own life. Primarily because there is nothing i can say that will ever make them hate less, love more, and celebrate diversity.

I posted it here from youtube which had it split up into four video. I only included the last part of the show because that's the one that had a lot of what i discussed above:



Just don't read the comments on youtube, or else you're get lots like this one:

Ginne86 (12 minutes ago)
"Being gay IS a choice, just like fat people can choose to eat fast food or you can choose to eat healthy. even though healthy food dont tastes as good as fast foods."

Way To Go, ScarJo!

This post may shock those of you who know me, because I am the absolute last person to keep up with pop culture and celebrities. However, I have a special place in my heart for stars like Scarlett Johansson who speak out against the media and for positive body image.

Johansson is preparing for a role in Iron Man 2, for which the tabloids claim, she is starving and over exercising herself to lose 14 pounds. ScarJo spoke out in an article featured in The Huffington Post on Monday about body image, irresponsible journalism, and making healthy choices:

"Eating healthy and getting fit is about commitment, determination, consistency and the dedication to self-preservation," She wrote. "People come in all shapes and sizes and everyone has the capability to meet their maximum potential. Once filming is completed, I'll no longer need to rehash the 50 ways to lift a dumbbell, but I'll commit to working out at least 30 minutes a day and eating a balanced diet of fruit, vegetables and lean proteins."

My favorite part of her article is when she calls out the "media" and their "utterly lunatic" claims that she is losing so much weight and being heavily influenced by co-stars. ScarJo is super snarky in her response, and hopefully this will help set some "journalists" straight - we see celebrities' appearance up for discussion way too often (wasn't Jessica Simpson criticized for putting on some weight not too long ago?).

"Since dedicating myself to getting into 'superhero shape,' several articles regarding my weight have been brought to my attention. Claims have been made that I've been on a strict workout routine regulated by co-stars, whipped into shape by trainers I've never met, eating sprouted grains I can't pronounce and ultimately losing 14 pounds off my 5'3" frame. Losing 14 pounds out of necessity in order to live a healthier life is a huge victory. I'm a petite person to begin with, so the idea of my losing this amount of weight is utter lunacy. If I were to lose 14 pounds, I'd have to part with both arms. And a foot. I'm frustrated with the irresponsibility of tabloid media who sell the public ideas about what we should look like and how we should get there."

"I believe it's reckless and dangerous for these publications to sell the story that these are acceptable ways to looking like a 'movie star'... The press should be held accountable for the false ideals they sell to their readers regarding body image — that's the real weight of the issue."

"The concept of 'Stars Are Just Like Us!" makes us feel connected to lifestyles that can sometime seem out of this world. Yes, celebrities are just like us. They struggle with demons and overcome obstacles and have annoying habits and battle vices. That said, I would be absolutely mortified to discover that some 15-year-old girl in Kansas City read one of these "articles" and decided she wasn't going to eat for a couple of weeks so she too could "crash diet" and look like Scarlett Johansson."

Way to go Scarlett Johansson, really well said. Except wait, "celebrities are just like us"?? You ARE a celebrity: own it and do good by it, just like you did in this article.

The Madonna "Diet"

My first interest in feminism and Women's Studies centered around body image, eating disorders, and social standards of "beauty." Jean Kilbourne's work propelled me into the field and focused both my activism and academic interests on the thinness, control, body image, and social influence. I attended a lecture by Kilbourne that taught me not only the importance of media literacy but also of the accessibility of social activism, cultural differences in beauty, and unconscious influence. In fact, when i started this blog i thought i'd be writing a lot more about body image and eating disorders than i have been, primarily because it's where i feel most comfortable and the area i know most about. In retrospect, i realize i haven't touched the subject all that much.

(check out About-Face and Jean Kilbourne's site for more negative advertising)

My undergraduate honors thesis examined body image satisfaction and thin-ideal internalization in relation to feminist identity. I hypothesized that feminists, or women with a stronger feminist consciousness, would be more satisfied with their bodies and would internalize thin-ideals less than women who did not relate to feminism. Some of my findings were inline with that: as feminist self-identification increased, body dissatisfaction decreased. Thin-ideal told a more complicated story. I measured two aspects of thin-ideal: awareness and internalization and found that although awareness of the thin-ideal was impacted by feminist identification, internalization of the thin-ideal was not. What this told me is that raising feminist identification in general may not be enough and although feminist identification raises awareness of negative stereotypes about women, it may not protect women from internalizing these stereotypes. Basically, social messages, images, stereotypes, advertising, etc. may effect us way more than we consciously know and realize.

Feminism taught me the importance of maintaining a critical eye. Whether i was looking through fashion magazines, watching TV, or going about my daily business, applying the feminist tradition of not accepting things as they were totally changed my life (and annoyed lots and lots of people).

Dealing with my own stuff surrounding food I quickly became empowered by feminist theories of "normalcy" and beauty. I also finally understood that a woman's value is not defined by how she looks or how much she weighs. I'm not saying that feminism will cure an eating disorder, if i could prove that i'd be rich and lots of girls wouldn't be starving themselves. What i am saying is that feminism allows women to embrace themselves and their bodies, as they are, and recognize that their value, importance, and position in the world should not be a direct result of how they look. Also, i quickly realized the amount of time, money, and energy women spend on looking a certain way. The conspiracy theorist in me was convinced that this "standard of beauty" for women was nothing more than a way to keep women in their place and far away from equality. As long as there are impossible standards of beauty women will never be equal.

Moving on to what this post was supposed to be about: Madonna. I used to be all about Madonna. I recently had an incredibly interesting intergenerational conversation with an older feminist about Madonna's legacy and influence on women's sexuality. I think Madonna has done some amazing things for the women's movement (intentionally or just as career moves) especially surrounding women's power, sexuality, and freedom. These arguably progressive and positive influences on women's bodies and sense of self have undoubtedly left a mark in music, popculture, and society in general. In fact, Courtney (who ya'll know i love) featured Madonna today on her "Thank You Thursdays" column.

Like I said, used to be all about Madonna. Until this week that is. US Magazine did a piece on Madonna's new "diet." In quotes because it consists of her eating around 700 calories a day and exercising about 2hrs daily... If this isn't an eating disorder guide for girls i don't know what is.

Needless to say, it left me a bit disappointed in Madonna... I won't go on a tangent about the social responsibility celebrities should take for the younger generation that is looking up to them, but for real, come on! Cele/bitchy calculated the caloric intake for some of Madonna's meals that appear in the article. Here is an example of a day in the life of Madonna's diet:

Breakfast: 1 cup Kashi cereal, with ½ cup plain—or vanilla—nonfat rice milk [262 calories]
Lunch: 2 hardboiled eggs with ½ cup each of baby carrots and cherry tomatoes [194 calories]
Dinner: 3 to 5 oz grilled sea bass with ½ cup steamed spinach [240 calories]

[Total: 696 calories]

Combine that with 2 hours of exercise and you have a really unhealthy and dangerous lifestyle that no one would be able to maintain longer than one week. Madonna has a huge influence in both music and pop culture. It scares me to death that girls will be reading that article and replicating Madonna's extreme diet.