SPARK a Movement!
1. (noun) a movement to speak out, push back on the sexualization of girls, and have fun while fighting for girls' rights to healthy sexuality.
2. (verb) to rouse strong feeling or action
SPARK is an intergenerational movement fueled by girl activists & their allies. Get at us on Facebook, Twitter, & and SPARKmovement.org!
Got questions or feelings? Leave us a note in our askbox, or submit a post.
1. We will not knowingly work with models under the age of 16 or who appear to have an eating disorder. We will work with models who, in our view, are healthy and help to promote a healthy body image.
2. We will ask agents not to knowingly send us underage girls and casting directors to check IDs when casting shoots, shows and campaigns.
3. We will help to structure mentoring programs where more mature models are able to give advice and guidance to younger girls, and we will help to raise industry-wide awareness through education, as has been integral to the Council of Fashion Designers of America Health Initiative.
4. We will encourage producers to create healthy backstage working conditions, including healthy food options and a respect for privacy. We will encourage casting agents not to keep models unreasonably late.
5. We encourage designers to consider the consequences of unrealistically small sample sizes of their clothing, which limits the range of women who can be photographed in their clothes, and encourages the use of extremely thin models.
6. We will be ambassadors for the message of healthy body image.
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From Jezebel:
To ask is this child too sexy is to put a child’s body under a kind of scrutiny that is (and should be) strange and unnatural, and that’s not a thing that should be taken lightly. But it’s one thing for a parent to take a photo of his or her little girl while she’s running around a beach in a pair of swimsuit bottoms. It’s another for a fashion magazine to take a photo of a 10-year-old sitting topless on a bed and publish it for a global audience. What steps are being taken to ensure Thylane is comfortable with these images? Is she aware that, to people older and more familiar with the commonplaces of fashion photography than she is, the way she is being portrayed reads as somewhat adult, somewhat sexualized? Is a 10-year-old truly capable of consenting to being shot in the nude — by a fashion industry client that is using her body to move product, no less? Is a 10-year-old capable of understanding the ramifications of that consent?
This whole piece is a great read that raises a lot of important questions and critiques the industry that produced the images rather than the model or her parents. Definitely check it out.
