Can We Keep It Real? (With Teen Magazines)

This fantastic video by the teen activists at Sisters Action Media responds to Seventeen Magazine’s statements about diversity and authenticity. “When you look at mainstream magazines, diversity means there’s a black girl, a Latina girl, and an Asian girl somewhere in the magazine.” Does this really count as diversity?

When Seventeen Magazine’s editor in chief Ann Shoket told Julia Bluhm that Seventeen “celebrates girls for being their authentic selves,” and that “there is no other magazine that highlights such a diversity of size, shape, skin tone and ethnicity,” a few eyebrows went up. Here, teen girls from Sisters Action Media respond to that statement while going through the latest issue of Seventeen.

“They do have a few girls of other races and a few girls of other  body types, but when I think about “diversity” I think about an even amount, and they definitely don’t have an even amount at all. There’s definitely more white skinny girls in this magazine than anything else.” [Turns out there are only 14 girls of color in the whole mag—and only one of them had a darker skintone.]

What do you think? Join the conversation on #TalkBack17.

SPARK has been up to some business, and our friends at the Women’s Media Center posted a great roundup so we didn’t have to! Check it out: 

On Friday, 14-year-old SPARKteam girl activist Julia Bluhm presented Seventeen Magazine with her Change.org petition: Give Girls Images of Real Girls! The petition asks:

For the sake of all the struggling girls all over America, who read Seventeen and think these fake images are what they should be, I’m stepping up. I know how hurtful these photoshopped images can be. I’m a teenage girl, and I don’t like what I see. None of us do. Will you join us by signing this petition and asking Seventeen to take a stand as well and commit to one unaltered photo spread a month?

The petition has garnered over 49,000 signatures (and counting!) and the media has been eager to cover the story. Read the SPARK blog post on the event here.

Here are some of the media pieces on the SPARKteam meeting with Seventeen Magazine:

New York Times: A Real Girl, 14, Takes a Stand Against the Flawless Faces in Magazines

5/3/12: “As of Thursday evening, the petition had been signed by 46,000 people. Julia and her mother, Mary Beiter, came to New York this week from their home in Waterville, Me., for a demonstration organized by Change.org and Spark outside the offices of Seventeen in Midtown.”

The Guardian: Thousands join girl in urging Seventeen magazine to publish unedited images

5/3/12: “Seventeen magazine said it had invited Bluhm to its offices after seeing her petition. It said in a statement: ‘We’re proud of Julia for being so passionate about an issue – it’s exactly the kind of attitude we encourage in our readers – so we invited her to our office to meet with editor in chief Ann Shoket this morning.’”

New York Daily News: Teens ask Seventeen Magazine: “Where are the girls like me?”

5/2/12: “Outside the headquarters of the teen magazine known for its skinny models, a group of girls dressed in plain old jeans and jackets posed in front of a white backdrop Wednesday holding up signs that read ‘Where are the Girls Like Me?’”

ABC Nightline: Are Airbrushed Ads Dangerous?

CBS New York: 14-Year-Old Takes On Altered Photographs In Seventeen Magazine

5/2/12: “While kids are being bombarded by what they see in ad campaigns and magazines, what they hear at home hits just as hard. Child psychologist Dr. Jennifer Harstein said parents obsessing about their own diet and how they look is often passed down.”