Wanted: Female Creative Directors To Change the Media Landscape

Update Oct. 30, 2014  This coming week Nov. 3 & 4, 2014 Kat Gordon's highly successful 3PercentConference circles back to its origins in San Francisco after gaining momentum across the country, … [Read more...]

Little Bits & Roominate- Innovate to Educate with STEM

Update July 23, 2014 Wow. From toys to tools...LittleBits launches CloudBit to make any object 'smart'!  Sept. 4, 2012  “Light it, push it, twist it, bend it, buzz it, blink it, shake it…” the promo … [Read more...]

Olympic Body Image: Talking Points To Get it Right, Fit vs Fiction

Aug. 9, 2016 Rio! This post still applies tenfold in terms of word watching and body image critiques of Olympic athletes! Media Smarts has added some parenting talking tips for boys/girls too! … [Read more...]

Bratzillaz, Novi Stars, Monster High: Same Sexualized SnoreFest

Update April 7, 2015 Toy Joy! New offerings upending the toy industry to send healthier cues to kids: Lottie Dolls, GoGoSportsGirls, and now this new Kickstarter, Ember World adventure dolls, … [Read more...]

Julia Bluhm’s Plea To Curb PhotoShop Sparks Change at Seventeen Mag

July 8, 2012 No secret the 'world according to teen magazines' is abysmal for girls, and we've seen mega-stats, studies and fact sheets about the impact on tweens and teens, (KFF pdf here) but as the … [Read more...]

Mattel’s Manipulative Monster High Marketing Machine: Unkind.

June 15, 2012 Last year when I wrote about Mattel’s vampy campy Monster High dolls I purposely didn’t even name their brand, hoping it would quietly fizzle and bury itself in the outcry of parents … [Read more...]

Sexism in Video Games: Tropes, Trolls and Terrific Upstanders

Update YET AGAIN: Oct. 15, 2014 Reprising Anita Sarkeesian's important words, "The most radical thing you can do to support women online" given the cancellation of her Utah State University event … [Read more...]

Boys, Body Image and Sexualization: An Equal Opportunity Destroyer

Aug. 8, 2016 Update More new research shows marketing is responsible for creating body image issues with boys, which I've written about here, and certainly here devoted to the impact of 'bigorexia' on … [Read more...]

Miss Travel: Misrepresentation Way Beyond Arm Candy

April 26, 2012 “If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck”… It doesn’t take much inductive reasoning to see Miss Travel is afoul. That said, using critical thinking skills to see why … [Read more...]

Public Health: DV Grammys, Too Short Of A Memory, Sexualization

Update Feb. 12, 2016 With the 2016 Grammys coming up this weekend, I wanted to add two posts by the author of The Achilles Effect and Boys, Sex & Media as a ponderable question about what we're … [Read more...]

Kids, Media & Intimacy: What’s Love Got to Do With It?

Update Feb. 13, 2018 Related research and an excellent NYT read on the need for "porn literacy" given that teens exposure to online porn sites is distorting their lens of peer social norming, healthy … [Read more...]

Miss Representation Sparks Change As a Film, As a Movement

Ready for Feb 3, 2013? Miss Rep will be at it again. Here is the new list of 2013 Twitter handles for advertisers, just use the #NotBuyingIt hashtag on Twitter to make a social media statement … [Read more...]

The Supermodels, Then and Now + A Chat With Janet Lansbury

Feb. 1, 2012 “25% of young women 18-34 would rather win America’s Next Top Model than the Nobel Peace Prize..." ..."And 23% would rather lose their ability to read than their figures” opens Lisa … [Read more...]

Lego Friends: Please Build on Possibility, Brain Plasticity

April 28, 2016 "37 year old son of Lego billionaire takes the helm as Vice Chairman" Congrats, Thomas Kirk Kristiansen, now that you've inherited the Lego legacy, and named your daughter and five … [Read more...]

American Teacher Film Premiere: Review, Media Roundup

Oct. 11, 2011 American Teacher premiered in San Francisco this week, and I found myself pre-qualifying industry colleagues to see who had a macro lens to cover the screening in my absence, with … [Read more...]

The Bro Code: Media, Masculinity & Misogynistic Misfires

Update Sept 3, 2015 From the maker of The Bro Code and Generation M, Thomas Keith announces his newest film trailer via Media Education Foundation titled, "The Empathy Gap: Masculinity and the Courage … [Read more...]

Storytelling Via Stickers: Girl-Caught Aims To Dial Down Disrespect

Sept. 22, 2011, Celebrating "Day of the Girl" Brands and broadcasters are always talking about “authentic engagement” and they’re about to get some. It all starts today, with New Moon Girls’ … [Read more...]

Dear Media: Please Change Your Channel of Influence

Sept 12, 2011 After the ludicrous JCPenney toxic tee-shirt with a wink and nod to academic underachievement "I'm Too Pretty For Math, So My Brother Has To Do It For Me" and the fabulous rapid-reply … [Read more...]

Talk To Me: Because Media Matters For Youth Outreach

Sept. 9, 2011 “Text, poke, like, or chat...” What about TALK? I love how this Trevor "Talk To Me" 3-word anti-bullying campaign by The Trevor Project goes back into time to cut through the social … [Read more...]

Rachel Simmons Chats About Mythbusting “Mean Girl” Media

Aug. 31 2011 Transitioning back to school is tough, especially when media and marketing blitzes the ‘what could be’ fear dynamics of peer acceptance based on what you wear, how you look, and who you … [Read more...]