Julia Bluhm2013-05-20T18:25:29-04:00Julia Bluhmhttp://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=julia-bluhmCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Julia BluhmGood old fashioned elbow grease.Being Proud 2 Be Ustag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.21182462012-11-12T16:36:57-05:002013-01-12T05:12:01-05:00Julia Bluhmhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/julia-bluhm/ Are you tired of feeling like you can never measure up? According to mainstream media, we should be spending our time chasing "perfection," snarking on others, and placing our self-worth in our looks. We're over it!
You know how when something awesome happens, it takes a long time for it to sink in, and for you to realize what's actually happening?
That was how I was feeling the morning of October 13. I woke up to a beeping alarm, curled up deep inside the covers of a floral-print comforter in a pretty hotel room. It took me a few seconds to realize, "Oh, yeah... I'm in Florida."
The morning before, I'd hopped on a plane with my mom to begin our journey to Tampa, where I would be speaking at the Proud2bme Teen Summit of the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) annual conference. After two sleepy flights, we were picked up by an enthusiastic driver who was raised in Brooklyn. When we explained why we were in Florida, he told us all about his cousin who was recovering from bulimia, how he thinks the most important thing is to be yourself, and how he used to beat up all the bullies in school who picked on the kids who couldn't stand up for themselves. My mom and I have some pretty cool memories of drivers who have told us about their lives during an hour-or-so commute from the airport to hotel. They always make me so happy. This guy was a New Yorker, Fox News-lover, baseball enthusiast, and he couldn't be any more different from my mom and I. But when we brought up the subjects of eating disorders and photoshopped models, he could't stop talking. And I couldn't stop agreeing. It made me realize just how much of an effect these issues have on literally everybody. It left me feeling kind of inspired.
The NEDA conference was going on at the same time at our hotel. I was able to slip into a social that was going on downstairs. We weaved through people holding cups and snacking on food, and I was introduced to about a million people who shook my hand and told me how happy they were that I was here. Two singers called the Falk Girls were strumming guitars and singing about their own struggles softly into microphones. There were men and women of all ages there -- over 500 people at the NEDA conference altogether! And the feeling that had begun in the backseat of our car grew bigger and bigger inside of me.
So on October 13, after months of preparation, we arrived at the Summit. I met a bunch of amazing people, including Sara Ziff, who created the Model Alliance, Roy Cui, a professional photo retoucher, Lindy West, a writer for Jezebel, and Gabi from GABIFRESH. They were all on the panel that followed my talk, and they made me feel really inspired.
After listening to the stories and ideas that everyone was sharing, the girls split into several different rooms, and enthusiastically completed a number of different workshops. We cut up pictures from magazines and posed in front of a wall covered with the media's unreachable standards, and we covered another wall with compliments that weren't appearance-based. Roy Cui gave a presentation where he showed us just how quick and easy it is to retouch a photo, and how to tell if a picture is photoshopped. Are there are no bags or creases under her eyes at all? She's been retouched. No skin sticks out when she presses her arm to her side? She's been retouched, too. No pores? Certainly retouched.
After a number of great activities, we closed with a song and inspiring speech from Jenni Schaefer, the author of "My Life Without ED."
At the end of the Summit, when I watched all of the girls leave -- whether they were crying or smiling or walking confidently -- that same feeling that I'd experienced before erupted inside of me.
And it wasn't until later that night that I realized what that feeling really was, when my mom and I walked into an ice cream store, and two men enthusiastically encouraged us to buy "the best ice cream in the world, I swear it's the best thing you will ever eat!" (It was pretty good.) When we were leaving, I heard those two men talking about where they had just been...the NEDA conference that was happening at my hotel.
These issues affect everyone. Literally everyone. A lot of times activism and feminism have to do with arguing and disagreeing, which is good because it means we are standing up for what we believe in. But it's refreshing to see some things that are so important that we all agree on them: loving our bodies, minds, and selves, and encouraging our sisters and daughters and cousins to love their bodies, minds and selves, too. I felt like I was part of a giant group, but a group even bigger then SPARK or even everyone who was at the NEDA conference. When I left Florida, I not only felt proud to be me, but feeling proud to be included with everyone else, too.]]>One School Girl's Protest of Seventeen Magazine -- Now 75,000 Strongtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15534862012-05-30T12:23:11-04:002012-07-30T05:12:13-04:00Julia Bluhmhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/julia-bluhm/
"Get ready, Julia," my mom said. "Your life is about to get pretty crazy."
That's when I learned that I would be leaving for New York City the next morning to be interviewed about a change.org petition I had written only a week or two earlier. I'm a member of the SPARKTeam, a group of 20 girl activists from all over the U.S. and Canada. We are part of the fabulous girl-powered movement called SPARK, and with their help I was able to create a petition asking Seventeen Magazine to include some photos that aren't photoshopped. SPARK and our 60+ sister organizations shared the petition all over the Internet, and many of my friends and I shared it all over Facebook. Soon it had reached over 25,000 signatures. That was enough to spark some media interest.
So, my mom and I hopped on a plane the next morning. A plane that would take me from my small town in Maine all the way to New York City, to represent the tens of thousands of girls, mothers, fathers and supporters who signed my petition.
We all know how Photoshopping can make models look unbelievably "perfect" and how it can cause girls to develop an unrealistic idea of beauty. By showing girls how different non-Photoshopped images look, we can teach girls to recognize the airbrushed, touched-up, "perfect-ified" images when they come across them.
Instead of looking at computer-edited pictures of girls, and wishing we looked like them, we should roll our eyes and say "well, you're fake, and I'm not. I don't need a computer to be beautiful. I'm already beautiful." We even made a video with kids at my school during lunch to show how we felt about this issue. My friend Izzy Labbe (another amazing SPARK activist) helped launch the video. She told me that she loves Seventeen, but "it's really ironic to see pages telling you to love your body right next to advertisements that are sending subliminal messages about changing your body."
Once in New York City, I gathered with a number of other SPARKTeam activists, like Emma, from New York City, and even Crystal who took a train up from Baltimore at 4 a.m., and we did a mock photo-shoot outside of Seventeen's headquarters. We wanted to show Seventeen that we're real girls, and we don't need Photoshop to be beautiful.
The photo-shoot was really great. It was pouring down rain, my toes were kind of numb (not the best day to wear sandals), and my hair was frizzing out like crazy. But I didn't care. We were standing out there in the rain, talking and laughing, and not caring about what anybody thought of us. We were being real girls, and we were enjoying it.
Soon reporters were gathered around us, shoving microphones in our faces. They asked me the same things over and over, and I said the same things over and over. That sort of thing sucks the energy right out of you. Or at least that's what it did to me. This trip to New York City was one of the most exciting three days of my life, but talking to so many reporters was kind of overwhelming. Eventually my lips and tongue started tasting like rubber. I was kind of sick of my own voice. I was really not used to that sort of thing.
The next crazy amazing thing that happened was that we were invited inside to meet Seventeen's Editor-in-Chief, Ann Shoket and a woman who works in PR at the magazine. The editor is on the Healthy Media Commission Committee, and she's very concerned about the well-being of her readers. I was really excited to meet her, and hoped to have a really positive conversation. That's just what happened.
My mom, Dana Edell, the director of SPARK, and I went to Ann Shoket's office. It was the most attractive office I had ever seen. There were glass walls, pink chairs, a coffee table with a tray piled with mini peanut-butter-and-jelly cupcakes, and Seventeen Magazine covers all over the place.
We sat around the table, snacked on cupcakes, and chatted for a while. I told her what I liked about Seventeen, but also what I'd like to see change. She talked a lot about how her models were "authentic," girls with great personalities, and natural beauty. She pointed out certain pictures, saying they used Photoshop to change lighting, remove wrinkles in clothing, and stray hairs, but she said nothing about touching up the girls' bodies, skin, blemishes, or faces.
After a nice discussion, she gave me a tour of the Seventeen offices. She showed me the room where they keep all of the clothes (it was, like a whole clothing store in there), the makeup room (a whole wall with makeup and hair products...not exaggerating!) and the computers where the magazine was put together.
I guess I was pretty disappointed that Seventeen didn't commit to anything right away, but I'm really happy that they were willing to give me an hour of their time to talk. I'm also really happy that I got my picture taken with Ann Shoket, and gave her my email. They'll get in touch with us, and we'll see what happens. It would be really great to work with Seventeen in the future on this issue.
So, Seventeen, here's what I'd like to say:
Girls love your magazine. I am one of those girls. We'd love it even more if you were the ones to take charge and use less Photoshop on your models. I want to be able to look at a magazine and say "Whoa...she kind of reminds me of me." I want to be able to read your magazine without feeling bad about myself because I'm not eating the healthy foods that are supposed to make me have "a flat tummy," or because I don't have a bikini that makes my butt "pop," or some kind of other trick to supposedly fix or cover up my "imperfections."
I know, a lot of girls like to read about those things, but why do you think that is? It's because the media tells them that they have to have flat abs and a butt that pops to be beautiful. It's because magazines that girls love (like Seventeen) feature girls that are perfectly perfect, and we think we have to look like them.
Many other magazines do the same things, and often at more disturbing levels. You also see perfectly perfect, mannequin-looking girls in ads in all magazines alike. Sometimes it's really confusing to remember what's an ad, and what's a part of the actual magazine. This is also true for Seventeen.
So, Seventeen, I hope you understand what I'm saying -- and what over 75,000 other people are saying, too. Photoshop hurts girls. We want to see pictures that look like us, in a magazine that's supposed to be for us. You have already done so much to make the lives of teenage girls more fun. Why not go a step further?
