Lily Allen Is Back...

...And making us think and dance at the same time.

Lily's new song and video, Hard Out Here, takes aim at the bullshit that women have to go through to be "successful," gender stereotypes, the pop culture use of the word "bitch," slut shaming and insane body expectations. It starts with Lily undergoing liposuction, while her agent and the doctor question, how anybody could look let themselves go like this, with Lily protesting, unheard, that she has had two kids.The video pokes fun at so many videos with scantily clad women simulating not sex but porn, but in particular the video for the rapey Robin Thicke song, Blurred Lines. Spelled out in balloons in the Robin Thicke video: Robin Thicke has a big dick. Spelled out in balloons in the Lily Allen video: Lily Allen has a baggy pussy. Just awesome.

Here are a couple of great lines from the song (apologies if they aren't 100% accurate or that there is so much -- it's just soooo good):

Don't need to shake my ass for you
Cause I've got a brain
If I told you about my sex life, you'd call me a slut
But boys be talking about their bitches, no one's making a fuss
There's a glass ceiling to break, there's money to make
And now it's time to speed it up, 'cause I can't move in this space
...
You're not a size 6, and you're not good lookin'
Well, you'd better be rich, or be real good at cookin'
You should probably lose some weight, cause we can't see your bones
You should probably fix your face, or you'll end up on your own 

Don't you want to have somebody who objectifies you
Have you thought about your butt, who's gonna tear it in two?
We've never had it so good, we're out of the woods
And if you can't detect the sarcasm, you're misunderstood

The song is fun, but it's also true (which is the case with most of Allen's work). I hope that some people who might not normally pay attention to Lily Allen's music, really listen to this one. It deserves it because it's good. And it's got a message more people need to be paying attention to.

PS - I can't wait for the album!

When Your Mother Says She's Fat

This letter written by Kasey Edwards to her mother is beautiful and absolutely heart-breaking. It's all about that self-defeating language women use and how it has to stop. We are all beautiful, we are all important, we are all special. We need to KNOW it. Our daughters need to KNOW it. The letter comes from the book Dear Mum, which is collection of letters from Australian celebrities to their mothers.

I'm posting the entire letter below, or you can read it here.

Dear Mum,
I was seven when I discovered that you were fat, ugly and horrible. Up until that point I had believed that you were beautiful - in every sense of the word. I remember flicking through old photo albums and staring at pictures of you standing on the deck of a boat. Your white strapless bathing suit looked so glamorous, just like a movie star. Whenever I had the chance I'd pull out that wondrous white bathing suit hidden in your bottom drawer and imagine a time when I'd be big enough to wear it; when I'd be like you.

But all of that changed when, one night, we were dressed up for a party and you said to me, ''Look at you, so thin, beautiful and lovely. And look at me, fat, ugly and horrible.''

At first I didn't understand what you meant.
''You're not fat,'' I said earnestly and innocently, and you replied, ''Yes I am, darling. I've always been fat; even as a child.''
In the days that followed I had some painful revelations that have shaped my whole life. I learned that:
1. You must be fat because mothers don't lie.
2. Fat is ugly and horrible.
3. When I grow up I'll look like you and therefore I will be fat, ugly and horrible too.

Years later, I looked back on this conversation and the hundreds that followed and cursed you for feeling so unattractive, insecure and unworthy. Because, as my first and most influential role model, you taught me to believe the same thing about myself.

With every grimace at your reflection in the mirror, every new wonder diet that was going to change your life, and every guilty spoon of ''Oh-I-really-shouldn't'', I learned that women must be thin to be valid and worthy. Girls must go without because their greatest contribution to the world is their physical beauty.
Just like you, I have spent my whole life feeling fat. When did fat become a feeling anyway? And because I believed I was fat, I knew I was no good.

But now that I am older, and a mother myself, I know that blaming you for my body hatred is unhelpful and unfair. I now understand that you too are a product of a long and rich lineage of women who were taught to loathe themselves.
Look at the example Nanna set for you. Despite being what could only be described as famine-victim chic, she dieted every day of her life until the day she died at 79 years of age. She used to put on make-up to walk to the letterbox for fear that somebody might see her unpainted face.

I remember her ''compassionate'' response when you announced that Dad had left you for another woman. Her first comment was, ''I don't understand why he'd leave you. You look after yourself, you wear lipstick. You're overweight - but not that much.''

Before Dad left, he provided no balm for your body-image torment either.
''Jesus, Jan,'' I overheard him say to you. ''It's not that hard. Energy in versus energy out. If you want to lose weight you just have to eat less.''

That night at dinner I watched you implement Dad's ''Energy In, Energy Out: Jesus, Jan, Just Eat Less'' weight-loss cure. You served up chow mein for dinner. (Remember how in 1980s Australian suburbia, a combination of mince, cabbage, and soy sauce was considered the height of exotic gourmet?) Everyone else's food was on a dinner plate except yours. You served your chow mein on a tiny bread-and-butter plate.

As you sat in front of that pathetic scoop of mince, silent tears streamed down your face. I said nothing. Not even when your shoulders started heaving from your distress. We all ate our dinner in silence. Nobody comforted you. Nobody told you to stop being ridiculous and get a proper plate. Nobody told you that you were already loved and already good enough. Your achievements and your worth - as a teacher of children with special needs and a devoted mother of three of your own - paled into insignificance when compared with the centimetres you couldn't lose from your waist.

It broke my heart to witness your despair and I'm sorry that I didn't rush to your defence. I'd already learned that it was your fault that you were fat. I'd even heard Dad describe losing weight as a ''simple'' process - yet one that you still couldn't come to grips with. The lesson: you didn't deserve any food and you certainly didn't deserve any sympathy.

But I was wrong, Mum. Now I understand what it's like to grow up in a society that tells women that their beauty matters most, and at the same time defines a standard of beauty that is perpetually out of our reach. I also know the pain of internalising these messages. We have become our own jailors and we inflict our own punishments for failing to measure up. No one is crueller to us than we are to ourselves.

But this madness has to stop, Mum. It stops with you, it stops with me and it stops now. We deserve better - better than to have our days brought to ruin by bad body thoughts, wishing we were otherwise.

And it's not just about you and me any more. It's also about Violet. Your granddaughter is only 3 and I do not want body hatred to take root inside her and strangle her happiness, her confidence and her potential. I don't want Violet to believe that her beauty is her most important asset; that it will define her worth in the world. When Violet looks to us to learn how to be a woman, we need to be the best role models we can. We need to show her with our words and our actions that women are good enough just the way they are. And for her to believe us, we need to believe it ourselves.

The older we get, the more loved ones we lose to accidents and illness. Their passing is always tragic and far too soon. I sometimes think about what these friends - and the people who love them - wouldn't give for more time in a body that was healthy. A body that would allow them to live just a little longer. The size of that body's thighs or the lines on its face wouldn't matter. It would be alive and therefore it would be perfect.

Your body is perfect too. It allows you to disarm a room with your smile and infect everyone with your laugh. It gives you arms to wrap around Violet and squeeze her until she giggles. Every moment we spend worrying about our physical ''flaws'' is a moment wasted, a precious slice of life that we will never get back.

Let us honour and respect our bodies for what they do instead of despising them for how they appear. Focus on living healthy and active lives, let our weight fall where it may, and consign our body hatred in the past where it belongs. When I looked at that photo of you in the white bathing suit all those years ago, my innocent young eyes saw the truth. I saw unconditional love, beauty and wisdom. I saw my Mum.

Love, Kasey xx

Self-Defeating Language

I'm pretty good about not putting myself down in front of my daughter. It happens occasionally and I've been quick to recognize it and correct it.

But that doesn't mean I don't hear it internally.

The main source, like so many people who put themselves down, is appearance. Mostly my weight.

I'm not skinny. I never have been and I never will be. I'm also not morbidly obese. I'm somewhere in the middle. And stuck. I so often feel lost, helpless, uncomfortable, ugly, unworthy, unattractive, unsexy. It's these "uns" that I'm most sick of. But when I'm trying to be healthy that helpless feeling kicks in, the struggle to lose weight seems so difficult, that I turn to my usual comfort -- food. But food doesn't make me feel comfortable any more. Chocolate no longer makes me  feel better, nor does it even really taste good. It's a crutch. It's a habit. It's an addiction. I want and need that habit gone. But I really am not sure how to do it -- forever.

One day at a time. One minute at a time. One pound at a time. But one minute can ruin an entire week. One shitty thought can easily turn into a shitty day. I'm sick of thinking about food every minute. I need a new routine. A new habit. But more importantly, I need a new focus for my brain. And I need to stop beating myself up inside.

It all comes back (as everything does) to my daughter. I need to be healthy for her. I need to model healthy behaviour for her, internally and externally. She needs a fun, happy mom who runs and plays with her everyday. I need to be that person. And I just need to do it. Just do it until. Until it's natural. Until it's habit. Until I don't know another way. Until.

Reversing Media Gender Roles

Some wonderfully bright sparks in a Women and Gender Studies class at the University of Saskatchewan decided to show us what it would look like if men were portrayed the same as women in the media. It's a bit cheeky, but some of the statistics and original advertisements that glamorize rape are shocking.

But I'll let this great video speak for itself. Well done!

http://www.good.is/posts/intermission-what-if-gender-roles-in-advertising-were-reversed

The Diet of a 7 Year Old

This makes me sad and angry. It's the reason I write this blog. It's reason I've been more dedicated to this since my daughter was born. It's why, among other reasons, we have to keep fighting society and the media, and keep in touch with our children.

An Australian mommy blogger, who sounds like she is doing all the right things, found this note on her 7-year-old daughter's bedroom floor:

How terrible. How sad. A seven-year-old girl should not know the word diet. Apparently she learned about it from another 7 year old  is on a diet. This is what we are up against. We can model the right behaviour. We can talk about how beautiful every woman, every shape, every size is. But 7 year olds may still be told they are fat, that they need to diet, that they aren't the incredible human beings we know they are.

See this mom's post here.
http://www.mamamia.com.au/parenting/i-found-this-today-on-my-daughters-floor-my-daughter-is-seven/

Ashley Judd fights back

A well thought out and intelligent article from Ashley Judd about the externalization of worth that every woman and girl faces...
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/09/ashley-judd-slaps-media-in-the-face-for-speculation-over-her-puffy-appearance.html

The "How to Defeat the Disney Princesses" debate continues

Another look at the invasive Disney Princesses and how a few moms are dealing with it...
http://www.thegridto.com/life/parenting/the-princess-trap/

The Book Is Out And As Bad As Promised

I wrote about this book in one of my first blog posts. And now it's available to buy. Please let no one buy this book!
http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2012/03/05/maggie-goes-on-a-diet/

A great response to a common issue

This is an awesome and honest response from a mom hearing her daughter call herself fat:
http://www.rachelsimmons.com/2012/01/mom-im-fat-one-mothers-inspired-response-to-her-7-year-old/

Talking to young girls about beauty

Here is a very balanced approach to raising a balanced girl from a dad who knows what he's talking about:

http://jezebel.com/5871822/the-right-way-to-talk-to-young-girls-about-beauty?tag=genderal-interest

Creative girl nails it to American Apparel

For years American Apparel has been sexualizing young girls and underweight women and men in their ad campaigns. Now they've decided to start offering larger sizes, and sponsored a contest where plus-sized women posted photos of themselves to become the next face of American Apparel. They just weren't counting on anyone intelligent and lacking the need to find beauty approval finding out about the contest:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/09/09/nancy-upton-on-her-american-apparel-plus-size-photo-spoof.html

Diet book for four-year olds; get them while they still have self-esteem!

Thanks to Sandra for this:
http://jezebel.com/5832072/new-childrens-book-encourages-young-girls-to-diet

Sexualizing 10-year-old girls

This is the kind of digusting bullshit we have to fight against.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1035470--mallick-image-of-girl-10-on-vogue-cover-is-retching?bn=1