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What is Faking It?Faking It: The Female Image in Young Women's Magazines is a magazine-style research paper published by independent women’s think tank Women’s Forum Australia. In a glossy, dynamic, magazine style layout, Faking It explores issues around the objectification of women and girls in the media and popular culture, with a focus on women’s magazines. Faking It helps young people recognise and critically assess messages in advertising and pop culture which tell them they have to be ‘thin’, ‘hot’, and ‘sexy’ to be acceptable. Second edition available now! Read more... Faking It endorsed by Australian Educators‘As the CEO of Enlighten Education I have worked with thousands of teenage girls and their schools right across Australia. I see first hand the very real and urgent need for programs that help girls make sense of our increasingly toxic culture, and for resources that teachers and parents can use to inform, inspire and initiate powerful conversations around gender and identity. Faking It is by far the most accessible, smart publication I have come across. It combines key research on the objectification and sexualisation of females in women’s magazines with a sassy, post-modern layout and a tone that is both highly appealing and thoughtful. We need to provide texts that model critical media consumption, thus avoiding a generation of girls who feel consumed by the media. Generation Empowered – bring it on!’ - Dannielle Miller, CEO, Enlighten Education Latest News Press Release: A new alliance of women’s organisations has called on the Victorian Government to ensure that reform of the State’s abortion laws are made in the interests of women
21 August 2008The alliance, ‘Real Reform’ comprises women’s advocacy groups including Women’s Forum Australia (WFA), Real Choices Australia (RCA), Real Alternatives for Women (RAW) Feminists for Life (FFL), and the Feminist International Network of Resistance to Reproductive and Genetic Engineering (FINRRAGE). Real Reform accepts that the new Bill will decriminalise abortion. However there must be amendments that address the importance of informed consent, counselling and options. Read the full press release here Women's Forum Australia provides a submission to the National Council to Reduce Violence against Women and Children - August 2008Women's Forum Australia has provided a submission to the National Council to Reduce Violence against Women and Children. Read the submission here - Women's Forum Australia Violence Reduction Submission Recommended Reading The pornification of Girlhood | Melinda Tankard Reist | July 2008In her book The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls (1998), Joan Jacobs Brumberg examines the diaries of girls from the 1800s to the present. Extracts from two journals illustrate the significant shifts in the way girls see themselves and what they consider important. In 1882 a girl wrote: "Resolved, not to talk about myself or feelings. To think before speaking. To work seriously, To be self restrained in conversation and actions. Not to let my thoughts wander. To be dignified. Interest myself more in others." A century later, another girl writes in her diary: "I will try to make myself better in any way I possibly can with the help of my budget and baby-sitting money. I will lose weight, get new lenses, already got new hair cut, good makeup, new clothes and accessories." Read the full article here
A Mother's Grief | Natalie Withers | 9 September 2008As the abortion debate starts in the Victoria Parliament this week, it seems to me not all voices are being heard - not those of the mothers and fathers that have already endured it, nor those of the tiny babies that are taken away as a result. I write from the experience of a mother who went through a late-term abortion at a Melbourne hospital, an experience I will regret forever. Read the full article here Child sexualisation shrouded in weasel words |Clive Hamilton | June 29, 2008IN A store one Saturday morning early in 2006, I became aware of a bank of television screens tuned to a music video showing a rap singer engaged in simulated sex with several barely clad dancers. The women were bent over while the rap singer rhythmically thrust his genitals at their backsides. There were quite a few children in the store with parents. I looked around to see if anyone was shocked that soft porn should be shown in a "family environment", in public on a Saturday. No one seemed to be taking any notice and I thought maybe it was just me. I considered complaining, but wondered whether I was so out of touch I would be regarded as weird. Read the full article at The Age |
