Fighting Like A Girl

Fighting Like A Girl
How Girls Can and Do
Make a Difference
Lyn Mikel Brown, Ed.D.
Hardy Girls Healthy Women
(www.hghw.org)
Colby College
GIRL
WOMAN
GRRRL
GIRLY
ACTIVIST
EMPOWERED GIRL
CAN DO GIRL
ANGER
Unfeminine emotions
AGGRESSION
Resistance
POWER
(RA)
MEAN GIRLS
Erotic
Girlfighting
GIRLY
The power to be a
consumer citizen
Consumer Girl Power
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The power to make yourself over
The power to shop
The power to be sexy/hot
The power to fight with other girls
From Sharon Lamb & Lyn Mikel Brown, Packaging Girlhood
The Power of Makeovers
“Geo-girl”:
Walmart‟s new
“Anti-aging”
make-up for
tweens
The New Dora
“By changing
Dora‟s hair length,
jewelry, and eye
color on screen,
the Dora doll
magically changes
as well.”
“The doll really
taps into a tween‟s
love of fashion and
empowers girls to
influence and
change the „lives‟
of Dora and her
Nancy Drew Remade
The Power to Shop
The Power to be Hot
One Way to Grow Up
The Power
To Fight
With Other
Girls
Reality TV?
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Beauty Contests
Give up everything for true love
“Behind the scenes” catfights, betrayals
College-age women became more
aggressive after watching scenes
of relational aggression. Subjects
who viewed Kill Bill and the Mean
Girls clips reacted in similarly
aggressive ways.
Indirect female aggression on TV sit-coms
has reached the status of a female
character trait; girls are socialized into
relational aggression through their media.
Corporal Colonization
Padded Bras for 4-year-olds
“babikinis”
Tweenie Women
Marketing
experts call
tweens’
yearnings for
products like
Victoria’s
Secret lingerie
"aspirational"
A very scary Halloween
Sexualizing Everything
Dancing,
Singing,
Friendship
Media Exposure Studies
Young women and girls exposed
to beauty ideals in fashion
magazines and on TV are less
satisfied with their bodies. For
both White and Black teens, the
more they idealize t.v. images,
the more dissatisfied they are
with their bodies.
Frequent exposure to cultural beauty ideals is associated
with increased eating disorders, lower self-esteem, higher
rates of depressive symptoms
Societal Sexism
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Adults and high schoolers exposed to sexually
objectifying mainstream media are more
accepting of sexual harassment and sex role
stereotypes.
Exposure to sexualized rap videos fosters
negative perceptions of African-American
women particularly.
Undergraduate males exposed to sexualized
content behaved in a more sexist manner
toward female purported job applicants.
Moving Beyond Empowerment…
“Girls empowerment is all too often focused
on incorporating girls into the social order
as it stands, rather than empowering them
to make any meaningful changes to it…..”
Jessica Taft, Rebel Girls
Media sexualization, objectification, commodification
Sexism: double standards, discrimination, devaluation
Sexual harassment and violence, trafficking
Injustice at the intersections of gender, racism,
classism, homophobia
…TO ACTIVISM: A DESIRE TO
MAKE THE WORLD INTO A DIFFERENT AND
BETTER PLACE.
“Coalition is work that is
difficult, exhausting, but
necessary “for all of us to feel
that this is our world.”
Bernice Johnson Reagon
BRING GIRLS TOGETHER
29
Fighting Like A Girl
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Social
Networking/Blogging
Girlcotts, Petitions, and
Protests
School and Community
Actions and Education
Coalitions and Movement
Building
What Girl Activists
Want From Adults
A physical home to meet and
work together (safe space or
hardiness zone);
 Financial resources;
 More positive feedback.

Jessica Taft, Rebel Girls
Scaffolding Girls and Young
Women‟s Activism
Educate about the culture of power
Ask Questions!
Pose Problems
Present Contradictions
Listen!
Example: Media Literacy
http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com
American Apparel‟s Best
Butt Contest
powered by girl
Website with blog
Recaptioning app
Facebook Fan Page
Active SPARK coalition membership
Jamming Girl Culture
Using the material
of consumer culture
to change meaning,
expose inherent
illogic, and thus
undermine its
messages and
power.
My mom says “protest march.” I
say “online organizing.” Feminist
blogging is basically the 21st
Century version of consciousness
raising.”
Courtney Martin
Reinventing Feminism, TED.com
Creating space for a diversity of girls and
opinions;
 Interrupting and disrupting the surface of
things, the way things go;
 Advocating and participating in social
action.
SPARK GIRL BLOGGERS: CREATING
ENABLING CONDITIONS FOR HEALTHY
SEXUALITY (BROWN, GIRLHOOD STUDIES, IN

PRESS)
Projection
http://www.hghw.org/projection
"Before I realized I was a feminist,
I just thought I was a narcissist because
I really liked myself."
13 year old SPARKteam blogger, Izzy
True Youth-Adult Coalition
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Just and equitable shared
power and respect, where
adults learn from girls and step
back to allow girls to lead (are
“muses” rather than mentors);
A shared history of (youth)
activism in their communities;
Shared knowledge about the
culture of power, strategic
planning, and how social
systems work.
The Return
Renewable energy, time and
passion;
 Fresh ideas and creative
solutions to problems;
 A politics of learning,
participation and hope;
 Girls and young women with
the skills, knowledge, and
passion to lead.
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Go-To Organizations
Hardy Girls Healthy Women http://www.hghw.org/
Powered By Girl http://www.poweredbygirl.org/
SPARK http://www.sparksummit.com/
Project Girl http://www.projectgirl.org/
About-Face http://www.about-face.org/
Endangered Species Women
http://www.endangeredspecieswomen.org/
Women, Action and the Media (WAM!)
http://www.womenactionmedia.org/