Videos

Always launches new video in #LikeAGirl campaign

Always has launched a new video in their excellent #LikeAGirl campaign. From the description on YouTube:

Do we limit girls and tell them what they should or shouldn’t be?

Do we box them into expected roles?

Well, we asked, and the answer was shocking: 72% of girls DO feel society limits them – especially during puberty – a time when their confidence totally plummets. Always is on an epic battle to keep girls’ confidence high during puberty and beyond!

Our original #LikeAGirl social experiment started a conversation to boost confidence by changing the meaning of “like a girl” from an insult to a total compliment. And – with your help – that conversation turned into major movement sweeping the entire globe.

We’re on a roll, and we’re not stopping! Now, we’re empowering girls everywhere by encouraging them to smash limitations and be Unstoppable #LikeAGirl. We need your help. Join us. Watch, share and champion all girls to be Unstoppable #LikeAGirl.

For more than three decades, we’ve made it our mission to empower young girls worldwide by educating millions of them about puberty and their cycle, so they can feel confident – any day of the month. Together, we’re making great change happen. Don’t stop!

TEDx: Girls Can Be Their Own Superheroes

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John Marcotte, founder of Heroic Girls, challenges the audience to look beyond what is labeled as “girly” or “feminine” to explore how such labels limit the potential of future generations.

The talk includes a clip from an earlier Heroic Girls video, Anya and Stella vs. Action Figures.

Studies and Research Cited

Tree Change Dolls Reveal The Hidden Beauty of Bratz

Australian  mother Sonia Singh did not set out to make a political statement. She is just a woman who loves dolls, and saw something still beautiful in broken and discarded “fashion dolls” — particularly the hyper-sexualized Bratz line.

Armed with nail polish remover, homemade molding clay and hand-knit clothing (courtesy of mum), Singh gives dolls “make-unders,” removing the hypersexualized adult make-up and exaggerated features, and replacing them with a “more down-to-earth natural-looking style” that turns the dolls into toys that look like the girls that play with them.

Photos of the dolls went viral on the Internet and became massively popular with parents who see them as an antidote to the overt sexualization of girls toys. Sonia says that “I’ve heard a lot of comments from people saying, ‘These are the kind of dolls I want my children to play with.’ ”

But it’s not just the parents that love them. As one young fan said, “[They are] probably nicer to play with. You can kind of  think that they are the same age as you.”

Sonia is selling the few dolls that she has made via Etsy and eBay, and has started a Facebook page and a Tumblr blog so that fans can follow her work.

Black Canary - Arrow

Black Canary Takes Center Stage

In a move that fans have been anticipating for three years, Laurel Lance becomes Black Canary on Arrow tonight, defending Starling City from a new criminal menace after Arrow is presumed dead at the hands of Ra’s al Ghul.

Entertainment Weekly caught up with actress Katie Cassidy and asked her what it was like to play one of DC’s toughest women.

“I can’t tell you how happy it made me,” Cassidy gushes to EW. “I remember at the end of season 2, they needed to fit Sara’s [Caity Lotz] jacket on me and I started to cry when I put it on. I’ve been waiting for this for so long. I’m so happy and honored. From Day 1, I knew that eventually that’s where they were planning to go with the character, but I didn’t know when and it’s television, anything can happen. Honestly, there’s no words that can even explain how lucky, excited, grateful, thrilled I am. For the Black Canary fans, I hope they’re happy with my performance and my take on the character. I hope people are happy.”

Read the rest of the interview on ew.com, and tune in to the CW tonight at 8 p.m. to watch the the new and improved Black Canary take Starling City under her wing.

Creative Compulsive Disorder: Zina Nicole Lahr

Can you know someone, just by watching a video?

When that person is as amazing as Zina Nicole Lahr, the answer feels like, “Yes.” A creative force of nature and a pure spirit, Zina was a master of creation and science, fusing art, kinetics and robotics to make a world so weird and so wonderful, only Zina could live in it. She was filled with so much passion, Zina even saw her body as a canvas, turning herself into a showcase for a waifish steampunk aesthetic that seemed lifted straight from the movies.

What might have come across as pretension from a lesser artist, instead presented itself as an expression of Zina’s true soul. As hard as in may have been for the more cynical of us to believe it, she actually was the fantastic, intelligent creature that she appeared to be. Zina was quirky, sincere and instantly likeable. She was selected to appear on a reality television show showcasing special effects artists vying to get a job with Jim Henson’s Creature Studios, but turned them down to make sure she would be available to return to Colorado to care for her ailing grandmother.

A quietly religious woman, Zina was sure that God had plans for her creativity, even if she was not sure what those plans were. In August of 2013, she asked her friend, filmmaker Stormy Pyeatte, to create a video to showcase her art and creativity.

In August 2013 my friend Zina asked if I could shoot a video for her portfolio. She needed something that would showcase her work but also tell a little bit about her personality and her interests. We had two days to shoot and edit so we shot an interview and smashed something together to meet our deadline. On November 20, 2013 Zina passed away due to a hiking accident in Ouray, CO. After the funeral I revisited the footage and made this short as an attempt to capture her personality and creativity. I never planned to release it online but now I have a chance to share her and her creations with all of you! For all who are part of the Zina Lahr love bomb, this is for you!

–Stormy Pyeatte

No foul play was suspected. A quietly religious woman, Zina did not drink or do drugs. She simply slipped while rock climbing, and the world was instantly a less magical place.

Can you feel the loss of a woman you never knew? When she is as special as Zina Nicole Lahr, I believe you can. In these brief few minutes of video, Zina mapped out exactly how you can live a life of passion and creativity while remaining true to yourself.

That’s why she is a heroic girl.

Rest in peace, Zina.

Read more about Zina in Outside Magazine.

A L B on “Fake Geek Girls”

This is the video that introduced me to the wonderful Angelina L B, and which helped me see that casual sexism you encounter in comic book shops and at conventions had moved beyond basic social ineptness and had become a large problem for the entire community.

I think I had seen her videos before, but the super-girly appearance made me think that I was definitely not her target demographic. I didn’t think less of her, just that her videos were probably not my thing. But she was so articulate in defining just what was wrong with an industry that I love and that I wanted my girls to love, that I became an immediate fan.

There is a bit of language in here that is not appropriate for younger ears, but the message is something that everyone should hear.