ABOUT – FACE – FACING THE MEDIA!
About-Face’s Mission is to equip women and girls with tools to understand and resist harmful media messages that effect self esteem and body images.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4b8lC07zDg
These messages — part of what About-Face calls the “toxic media environment” — are contributing to a host of girls’ and women’s ills, including low self-esteem, depression, persistent anxiety over weight and appearance, extremely unhealthy diets and exercise regimens, and eating disorders. All of these problems interfere with a woman’s ability to function to the best of her abilities.
I think this is a great resource for young teens and adult women. The media publishes highly inaccurate images of what a woman should look like, however, many of the models have been digitally enhanced with tools that reduce the size of body parts. These images are not realistic and many women and girls will never reach such levels of beauty (unless of course they become familiar with tools like Photoshop). I am a woman in my thirties who has come to a place of comfort with my body and my image. It hasn’t always been this way. I spent many years trying to look a certain way, however, I have come to realize that it hides who I am and I get further away from who I am. I am a gift. I don’t need to modify or change myself. My hope is that each woman and teen will find themselves.
Posted on June 19, 2011, in Education, Achievement, and Work. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
Women's Blip 
Great post and what a great site!! It’s all about education and teaching young adults that there is a difference between how women are portrayed through media and how they actually look! Photoshop has really helped to make the “ideal” body for a woman even more impossible but without knowing this young women can’t help but believe what they see.
I was stunned at the quantity that the media used photoshop and to such an extreme extent! I agree that it does hurt the self image of so many. I can remember thinking that I was doing something terribly wrong to have such large bags under my eyes. So many of the women my age and older that I’d seen in the media didn’t have them, I had no idea that they had been digitally altered. I think that there should be a standard that the media uses to prevent such drastic photo edits, a rating so to let the public know that this photo has been 20% altered or 80% altered.
This is a great resource for young women who might not realize the motives of teen magazines to create a physical “defect” and then offer a product to “fix” it. It would be great if this campaign achieved more visibility in the media and at schools. Maybe word of mouth and this website will help spread awreness of this campaign.