"You're perfect as you are...as long as you look like me."
Ariana Grande's new "God  is a Woman" video

by Amanda Mozea,  Education Outreach Manager

Girls and young women are inundated today with messages that contradict each other about female power. We see the unquestionable might of Emma Gonzalez from Parkland, FL, who uses the tools of social media to become a poster child for gun control, with 1.6 million Twitter followers cheering her on. We have watched a sea of women speak up on Twitter with #metoo and #timesup, and watched box office sales blow up for movies featuring stellar amounts of girl power like "Black Panther" and "Moana." And yet, the vast majority of media that we consume still insists that to truly matter, women need to be "hot," "thin," and sexy as hell. Nowhere do we see these dueling messages - the sexy woman versus the vocal, self-loving woman - play out more than in today's music videos.

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Moms, watch out for a FB takeover!

The MEDIAGIRLS staff is talking with girls at camps this summer about how they can join our social media revolution to harness its power for positive change. One favorite moment: At Camp Danbee (pictured here), a  girl came up at the end to say she wanted to be part of our  revolution  but doesn't have her own Instagram account. We asked her if she could come up with any ideas, and she suggested  doing a takeover of her mom's Facebook account when she gets home. Love it! (Sorry, mom, but we did propose she ask you first!)   
Reflections from our 17-yr-old editorial volunteer
"Some days it felt like I was tricking myself into caring on social media." 

by Izzy Silver, Editorial Volunteer

When I found out that part of my summer volunteering for MEDIAGIRLS meant logging onto Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, I had to really think about it. After all, it'd been over a year since I eliminated social media from my life, and I was enjoying the freedom. Did I really want to risk going back on and getting sucked into a world I found so draining and even demoralizing?  One month back on social media, I've had some revelations...

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This ads gets an "X" and an "O"...
In our program, we teach participants how to think critically about ads by having them give "X's" for negative messaging to girls, and "O's" for positive messaging. And sometimes ads like this one (displayed in Target) get both: a giant "O" for different body types but an "X" because there is no girl of color. Middle-school is a good time to introduce girls to the fact that media can be positive and negative at the same time.



MEDIAGIRLS: Where girls give media the makeover