Photoshop, Ethics and the Girl Guides

The Girl Guides have joined Beat (the UK’s leading eating disorder charity) to protest their concern with the portrayal of physical perfection as attainable and the norm through the routine and extensive use of digital enhancement of published images of celebrities – arguing they should be labelled as such. Girlguiding UK said that half of 16 to 21-year-old girls consider having surgery to change the way they look to match idealised imagery.

The American Psychological Association Task Force have produced a damning report on the  consequences of the sexualisation of girls, internalisation and self objectification — check out page 20 “Impact on girls health and well-being”.

In America SPARK (“Sexualization protest: action, resistance, knowledge”) has just been formed: “SPARK is not opposed to girls being sexual or having sex. In fact, Women’s Media Center’s Jamia Wilson had the audience repeat the mantra “we are not anti-sex” several times during her early-morning speech. Instead, the message is about rejecting a standardized, commercialized and denigrating take on what girls ought to do to be sexy: lose weight, purchase stilettos, or make out with other girls for male amusement, for instance. “Sex and and sexuality are an important and vital part of life,” Wilson said. “Sexy is not just a look, but a feeling.”  Alternet

The Last day of Term

At my son’s primary school the upset started in the final assembly for the pupils off to secondary school next year. By the last goodbye in the playground teachers, pupils and parents had all been crying — the girls comforted each other whilst the boys buried their faces in the security of mum.  Shirts were signed  and the headteacher was in evidence — extraordinary that the children identified so strongly with the school and its staff. I of course was tucked behind my IDs and safely removed from the emotional scenes around me — I think my boy, also leaving, understood.