Penny for MY thoughts ...

Hello all! I hope everyone had a fun and relaxing weekend and a nice start to your weeks! All I can say is that I'm glad tomorrow's Wednesday!

I've recently come across some interesting articles / projects that I've been meaning to share so here we go:

1. CNN: "Men see bikini-clad women as objects, psychologists say" - Now I'm sure many of you may have already seen this article and thought, "Well gee surprise, surprise" but I thought in case you didn't I'd share so you could at least get a chuckle at the defintion of the researchers of hostile sexism as, "a more adversarial viewpoint which includes the belief that women attempt to dominate men." And what about this gem: "This is just the first study which was focused on the idea that men of a certain age view sex as a highly desirable goal, and if you present them with a provocative woman, then that will tend to prime goal-related responses." I'm glad we've begun research on the fact that men view sex as highly desirable. I had no idea!

2. Vanity Fair: "Plastic Surgery Confidential" - It's also no surprise that many women have warped defintions of what it means to be beautiful. Thanks to our culture's fascination with thinness, many women are willing to go under the knife to attain this ideal, creating a $13 billion industry that only serves to perpetuate the strive for body perfection. This undercover piece offers great insight into the behind-the-scenes business of plastic surgery and leaves you wondering what business any of these doctors have in suggesting plastic surgery for a woman that is 27-years-old, five-foot-nine, and 120 pounds.

3. Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape -

Over the past 3 years photographer Jonathan Torgovnik has traveled to Rwanda to document and tell the stories of women who bore children from the rapes they endured during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. These stories are no doubt heart-wrenching and difficult to share, but ones that need a voice. Depicting them through photos will be extremely interesting and certainly create an eye opening experience for many. Bravo Mr. Torgovnik!

4. Missing Mothers - Every year 500,000 women die from pregnancy related complications that could have been avoided - That's one woman missing for every minute of every day. Unbelievable!

2. Check out what you can do to help!

Sorry for the scatter brain approach of this post! Just thought I'd share a collection of interesting things that I've read / are going on.

Thoughts?

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Sex (I mean Sexism) Sells!

I don't know how many of you may have watched the Super Bowl this past Sunday but I only tuned in during commercial breaks to check out the yearly anticipated advertisements. Boy was I unsurprised by the overuse of sexism to sell just about anything and, of course, garner the loudest laughs.

I'm not sure what it will take to put an end to this tradition of monopolizing women's bodies for the funniest and cleverest ads, but it needs to stop.

Maybe we can start by:

1). Explaining to people who mindlessly laugh along why these commercials are not funny and are actually incredibly offensive.
2). Boycotting companies with said offensive ads. They may be selling sexism, but we don't have to buy it.
3). Writing angry emails or letters to the companies themselves or networks that air their ads, demanding an end to their blatant objectification of women.

Any other ideas? I'm all ears!

For some of this year's most offensive picks check out what I have to say about on Care2

What did you think?

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