Moms Speak Up is collaborative blog of writers from various backgrounds. We're talking about the environment, dangerous imports, health care, food safety, media and marketing, education, politics and many other hot topics of concern.
About Us
We are women, parents, consumers, voters and much, much more and we're fed up with the "business as usual" attitude of politicians & greedy corporations. It's time for us to speak up and be heard!
I’m so excited to be invited to regularly cross-post on Moms Speak Up! My mission is to revolutionize the perception of Girlness and the Culture of Girlness. Please visit Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me to find out how. Thanks for having me.
I loath problems without solutions and complaints that make us feel powerless. So, here’s a list of 10 Antidotes to Self-Objectification and Sexualization of Girls.
* Media Literacy - talk to girls about the images they see. Point it out when there is obvious digital retouching like in Keira Knightly Stands Up for Her Girls and Yours. Watch Dove’s Onslaught campaign with her and discuss it. If it’s age-appropriate take her to the Natural Breast Gallery and talk about how different the images of women in media are than the bodies of real women. Tell her about Photoshop and discuss the motives of the media to sell products by misrepresenting women’s bodies.
* Athletics - A focus on the body that is nonsexual, athletics focuses on competency, agency and action. As participation in sports increases, participation in risky sexual-activity decreases. Taekwondo and soccer are good choices. The report sites cheerleading and dance as less empowering types of athletics due to the focus on appearance, sexiness, and thinness.
* Extracurricular Activities - Girl Scouts, band, after-school programs like Girls Inc., drama club, band, computer or video gaming clubs give girls an alternative to activities that focus on their appearance.
* Comprehensive Sexuality Education - “A central way to help youth counteract distorted views presented by the media and culture about girls, sex and the sexualization of girls is comprehensive sex education. Programs must include accurate information about reproduction and contraception, the importance of delaying intercourse initiation for young people, and the building of communication skills, and promotes a notion of sexual responsibility that includes respect for oneself and an emphasis on consensual, non-exploitative sexual activity.” Read the rest of this entry »
Marketing to children is a huge industry and all of our kids, even babies, have a high price on their heads. The aggressive, negative and unscrupulous tactics used to reach and influence our children and their long-term effects, which are finally being acknowledged by the American Psychological Association, are incredibly manipulative and designed to undermine parents.
If you’re tired of the media onslaught directed at your kids; tired of being undermined by a machine seemingly too powerful to stop, then consider signing both of these petitions, one to each political party, to make this topic a platform issue and put our children’s well-being ahead of corporate profits.
Click here to sign the petition to the Republicans
This YouTube video is just a portion of this awesome film. It’s actually Chapter 5. But believe me, chapters 1-4 are also totally worth watching and if you go here, you can watch the whole thing from start to finish.
It’s about twenty minutes but it will be some of the most illuminating, eye-opening minutes you’ve ever spent watching any indie documentary. Show it to your kids and send the link to friends and family. Everyone in America should watch this film.
Last week, students in Seminole County, Florida received their report cards in envelopes adorned with Ronald McDonald promising a free Happy Meal to students with good grades, behavior, or attendance.
“It bypasses parents and targets children directly with the message that doing well in school should be rewarded by a Happy Meal.†Susan Linn says.
(That sometimes tends to gravitate towards the I-Really-Don’t-Like-You-At-All end of the scale)
Occasionally, I’ll read Parents Magazine. It’s a little bit too mainstream for me, but it’s the only parenting magazine at the library that stays current in subscription issues. It comes in handy when I just want to flip through something quickly.
As a side note, the library also has a Mothering collection, but that seemed to stop around 2005. A shame, I think. But-that’s a whole other post in itself.
There are several reasons why I have a love/hate relationship with this mag. I love the
recipes and craft ideas. I definitely enjoyed the Groceries Go Postal Review in the November 07 issue. I’ve actually been considering this. I don’t love how incredibly mainstream it is. I wouldn’t subscribe to a magazine that uses Shrek as an advertisement on the FULL COVER of their November 07 issue. That’s a little disturbing to me.
I’m certainly not too thrilled with their Best Toys of 2007 List (Nov 07), particularly when I saw that this made the list.
I have a problem with it. The Smart Cycle is marketed to ‘combat obesity’ in children. Yeah, that is smart marketing. This from Fisher Price, a company that has recalled more than 1 million toys back in August, and the number keeps rising.
Eh…why don’t you have them run around outside? Too cold, weather bad? Puzzles? Reading? Laps around the living room? Also, the fact that it comes with different cartridges portraying ‘their favorite’ TV characters (Dora, Sponge Bob, Barbie, Hotwheels, etc.) is incredible-extreme target marketing. This could well be another post in itself as well….You’d think the TV would be enough…
Another thing I don’t love is their advertising onslaught both in the magazine and on their website. I’m not too keen on advertisements for pharmaceuticals, including Keppra and Vyvacse in a parenting magazine. I’m all for birth control, but Mirena is not something I would ever consider using. Seems as if Parents subscribes to the Medicinal Culture in a way that I just cannot.
Of course, all of this is just my opinion, and perhaps the readers of Parenting Magazine feel the same way about Mothering Magazine. And that’s their opinion.
Still, I don’t see any insane, overboard Shrek advertising between the covers of Mothering Magazine…
What do Kelloggs, Coca-Cola, Mattel and Takeda Pharmaceuticals have in common? They are all winners of the International Bad Products Awards. Takeda Pharmaceuticals won grand prize for “taking advantage of poor US regulation and advertising sleeping pills to children, despite health warnings about pediatric use.” Way to go, Takeda!
I think it’s particularly icky that Coca-Cola is bottling tap water and marketing it under the Dasani label as “filtered for purity”. Gross. I won’t be buying that brand again.
To read more about why these companies are bad, go here.
Silly me. Just last week I told my mother it was a-ok to buy T.D. costumes but just NO DISNEY PRINCESSES. I said yes to fairies and would actually rather her wear something off a clearance rack from a Halloween store. Bottle of Ketchup? Sure. Hershey Kiss? That is fine with me. Jasmine from Aladdin? Whoa there! Wait just a minute.
I have a rule in our house about toys like this. No princesses, no divas and no queens. I don’t like commercialized bedding or clothing either. A Dora t-shirt. Not in this house. I highly discourage people buying this stuff for T.D. for many reasons. First, I think it looks cheap. Second, as if there isn’t enough advertising thrown at kids. Why continually have it in my house? I’m getting off track here. I’m really worried about the whole Princess Mentality with T.D. I guess after reading article I should be more worried about her overall wardrobe choosiness.
When I read this, “Ten-year-old Ashley Parks said she admires the Pussycat Doll look.
I like how it’s sexy,” she said.” I about puked into my coffee. At ten I had no idea what sexy was. I just knew I wanted to have long flowing hair and I would wear a turtleneck on my head with the shirt flowing down my back to make my “hair” longer. The fact that people buy and companies make (because people buy them!) padded bras, pimpwear and thongs for the under 10 set is so disturbing to me. We worry so much about the safety of our neighborhoods and have websites tracking where pedophiles live yet we buy thongs and teeny tiny skirts and cleavage revealing tops for our six year-olds? Low riders for four year-olds? Doesn’t anyone recall that a pimp is not something to aspire too?
I wore my first thong to my Sr. Prom because I knew that VPL is a fashion no-no. I wasn’t trying to be sexy. That damned thing was uncomfortable. My white little 17 year old butt hadn’t seen the sun since I was a toddler so who would deem that sexy? Besides I still wasn’t into the whole looking sexy thing even then. I wanted to be beautiful in a classic Jackie O/Grace Kelly type of way. I wanted grace, elegance, a Chanel suit and big sunglasses. Guess I was a total tool who didn’t know fashion according to these girls.
I really think the whole thing that bugs me about this tarted up toddler look is that it warps the young kids mind. Being sexy is a state of mind not just the clothes you wear. Having them dress like that so young puts so much emphasis on how a kid looks and not what they can do or be. It’s incredibly sad to me. The parents are letting a company and a child dictate so much. There are other alternatives in kids wear out there. Not to mention the small fact that these items are tasteless and setting up a whole change of bad fashion no-no’s in the years to come. A middle school class photo will look like the Saturday night holding pen at at police station full of low-class hookers.
Harsh? Maybe, but I think we need to be if kids are looking to Kimora Lee Simmons for fashion advice and parents are buying half shirts and low cut tops for five year-olds. What’s next crotchless panties and fishnets in pre-school?
Mad and sick enough yet? I thought so.
BusRadio is a new company that plans to put radios with advertising on school buses. Every hour of programming will contain 8 minutes of ads.
BusRadio boasts that it will “take targeted student marketing to the next level,” and that it gives advertisers “a unique and effective way to reach the highly sought after teen and tween marketâ€
The ads will even target elementary school children as young as six.
Another offender is Channel One, a company that delivers two minutes of advertising and ten minutes of “news,” banter and fluff to captive audiences of about 7.7 million students in 11,500 middle and high schools across the country via classroom televisions.
Channel One doesn’t belong in the schools because it:
1. Promotes tobacco to students;
2. Misuses the compulsory attendance laws to force children to watch commercial advertising;
3. Wastes school time;
4. Promotes violent entertainment;
5. Wastes tax dollars spent on schools;
6. Promotes the wrong values to children;
7. May harm children’s health;
8. Corrupts the integrity of public education; and,
9. Promotes television instead of reading.
You can help stop this unethical marketing to children by simply clicking this link to send an email to companies that advertise on Bus Radio and Channel One. It will literally take less than a minute!
Your email will be sent to corporate officials at PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Cingular, Verizon, Time Warner, Cadbury Schweppes, Subway, Lego, Radio Shack, Guthy-Renker, Leapfrog, News Corp. and Dreamworks SKG.
