Women’s Web: Pick Of The Week

Posted: April 1, 2012

We herald April with the Hunger Games, harried mums and a Haitian crusade among other things.

Her only lapse was – she spoke the inconvenient truth. Melissa Petro shares her disquieting story of social excoriation. “There is a stereotype that current or former sex workers are so highly sexualized that all we think about is sex, but I’ve found that it is people with no experience in the sex industry whatsoever who can’t get our business off their minds.”

In Haiti, a social organization is changing the prevalent rhetoric for the LGBT community.

“From teen magazines choosing to air brush away the slightest hint of baby fat to kids being constantly bombarded with messages about branding, food and self-image (such as kids being sold sugary foods while being held up to an impossible thinness standard), fact and fiction lead an uneasy co-existence in children’s lives.” – Sujatha articulates a parent’s angst on dystopian teen fiction.

Reflection – Psych Babbler on body image.

“It can get ludicrous, that list — never-ending and self-propagating like a fungus producing spores. Maybe more like bacteria doing binary fission, dividing to recreate without cease.”– On to-do lists and work-life balance.

Life comes full circle for this mother but with a twist. This one makes for an engaging read.

“…by handing her dolls, makeup, and a mini-cooking set while buying her brother scalectrix, the message being sent across is ‘you need to look after things, be pretty, and stay in the kitchen’ while telling boys ‘use your brain, analyse, build things, and have fun doing it.’” – Compelling lines from Chandrika who writes on foisting gender divides through toys.

With a little awareness and a few habits, we can make Earth Day a daily affair.

*Photo credit: Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games from Collider.com