Entries by Tracee

Self-Objectification and Low Self-Esteem

We all know how objectification works, some men see women as an object for their sexual pleasure. But, what happens when girls and women begin to see themselves as an object for men’s sexual pleasure? The Association for the American Psychological Association (APA) calls this self-objectification and/or self-sexualization in the Report of the APA Task […]

Self-Loathing Sin Bank

Vacation Rerun by Tracee Sioux I am going to put a self-loathing sin piggy-bank (pardon the pun) on my kitchen table. Naomi Wolf has a great quote which is taped on my bathroom mirror, “The mother who radiates self-love and self-acceptance vaccinates her daughter against low self-esteem.” I accept this as a self-evident truth. In […]

My Face/Her Face

by Tracee Sioux I am deeply struck by this photograph which I found on About Face, a non-profit company which combats negative images of women in the media. Without taking a right or wrong stance about plastic surgery, this photograph of a mother and her daughters speaks volumes about what self-hatred, self-criticism and self-loathing costs […]

Smoking is PG-13

Have you met Just Margaret? She’s a New England Mom and I thought she poses an interesting question – why are we being selective about what habits will be bad for kids? Perhaps because we have resigned ourselves to being non-smokers but we don’t want the kids nagging us about our cocktails? I quit smoking […]

Body Image Activists Blog

There’s a brand new group blog about body image: we are the REAL deal. We are Body Image Activists. Fatties, skinnies, and disordered eaters who want every girl to feel beautiful and strong. Muscle chicks and plus-size fashionistas, yoginis, marathon-runners and mathletes, alpha women, gamma girls, cheerleaders, bookworms, punks, moms, daughters, sisters, and friends. WE […]

BFF Attachment

My daughter is madly attached to her best friend. Madly attached. The other day her mother offered me her social security number so I can file her on my taxes. That’s how often she is over. She has dinner with us several nights a week, lunch nearly every day. She runs errands with us, goes […]

Makeover Madness

Surely, you’ve been to Reign of the Girl Child? Today there is a great story about the message to teens and preteens that a Makeover Makes Everything Better. (It’s exactly the same message given to these girls’ moms too isn’t it?) It’s an old tried-and-true message, but now “image consultants” are charging big bucks for […]

A Girl Is Watching: Sotomayer, Palin & Clinton

Marie Wilson of The White House Project is wondering about the children who are watching the way we treat the women who dare stand up and lead. It’s day three for Sonia Sotomayor (female Hispanic Supreme Court nominee) on the Capitol, and like many of us, I am dismayed by the politics and punditry surrounding […]

My Gifted Girl

So, I’ve been seeing on Facebook that my friend Audrey Borden has a new website, MyGiftedGirl.com. To be honest I was a little worried that I would have to subject my daughter to an IQ test or they wouldn’t let her play on the website. Luckily, this is not the case. However, there were many […]

Gender Advertising

Can I just say Dirty Vagina is one marketing tactic too many women fall for. (Really, I just wanted to say Dirty Vagina for my Discovery Click if they ever come here.) But, serious, no wonder women sometimes feel like crap about themselves. Thanks Coleen.