Canadian meteorologist Kristi Gordon of Global News in British Columbia is visibly pregnant and still working every day. When some news viewers took issue with her changing body and sent hurtful letters to the station criticizing her appearance, Gordon made a gutsy move and took to the air to speak out against bullying. On a […]
Body Image
Body image is a person’s perception of their physical self and the thoughts and feelings, positive, negative or both. Because of negative media representation and prevalent gender stereotypes, many people of all genders struggle with body confidence.
Eating Disorder Awareness: It Starts With Us
Before arriving at college, you hear warnings—from parents, classmates and maybe even teachers—about the terrifying “Freshman 15”: go to college, gain weight. The warnings might seem harmless, but it matters that we present weight gain as a problem to avoid. More than incoming college students are warned to watch out for their GPA, their alcohol […]
We Heart: “This Is What a Yogi Looks Like”
Who do you imagine when you imagine a yogi? If you’re going along with the mainstream pop culture rendition of yogis, you’re seeing a conventionally attractive, young, able-bodied, petite white woman doing a downward dog in Lululemon yoga pants. But the truth is, the practitioners of yoga are much more diverse than this idealized imagery […]
The Power of Social Media and the Thigh Gap Trap
Reprinted with permission from Adios Barbie, “the intersectional body image site for every body, promoting media literacy, along with a large dose of healthy self-image.” Read the original post here! The thigh gap is everywhere—on social media sites, television, in books and clothing catalogs. It was even rumored that Beyoncé digitally altered photographs posted to her Instagram so that […]
Calafia: Re-appropriating the Amazon Queen
Well-known Latin American folklore/saints have been presented through the eyes of the colonizer for centuries now. Stories of La Llorona (the bad mother), La Malinche (the traitor) and Santa Maria de Guadalupe (the good mother) have been labeled this way since the time of colonization. However, many Chicana/Xicana academics have reclaimed these images by revealing the complexities […]
Baby North West Gets Gender-Policed
Little Miss North West is not even 2 years old and already she’s stirring up trouble with the gender police. Her father, Kanye West, claims he invented the leather jogging pant, so it was no surprise to see little North sporting a pair of the slick trousers on her mother Kim Kardashian’s Instagram last week. What was surprising, […]
Serena and Venus Williams Battle More Body-Shaming
It seems like Serena and Venus Williams just can’t catch a break. Though both have been ranked No. 1 in women’s singles tennis, taken home armfuls of trophies and been credited with ushering in a new era of American women’s athleticism, nasty comments about their bodies—and gender performance—continue to plague their careers. The most recent […]
How Yoga Can Heal a “Fractured Body Image”
During every yoga class, my teacher said it: “If you can breathe, you can do yoga.” Given that this is true, why do so many American yoga practitioners look the same? Why has “doing yoga” and “wearing yoga pants” become ready joke fodder about slender, young, sorta-clueless, upper-middle-class white women? Yoga has become a modern […]
4 Clothing Items Schools Should Ban So Girls Don’t Look Like “Prostitutes”
In response to some girls wearing leggings, jeggings and tight jeans to class, a school in Devils Lake, North Dakota, responded calmly and reasonably by insinuating that the girls’ clothing made them look like prostitutes and banning the pants in question. A controversial, reaction perhaps, but the school officials’ hearts are in the right place; after […]