To My 7th Grade Self

Western University's anti-homophobia group, Get Real, recently posted a video titled "To My 7th Grade Self"

It's a really great watch because we hear the stories of students who were bullied for being gay or were bullies towards their gay peers. We see how they were affected. 

I know most of my readers are post-secondary aged, are pretty open-minded, and can probably relate to these stories, looking back to when they were in elementary and high school. For those of us who were bullied, it seemed like it would never end. For those of us who bullied, we didn't realize the impact our words had. All we ever wanted was to love and be loved, but our differences sometimes blinded us to understand what that really meant.

Share Your Stories

What I'm asking is that, just like in the video, you share your stories. If you were affected directly or indirectly by bullying, your story should be shared. Comment below, anonymously or by name, because you never know who is going to read it and who it may bring strength to.

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

Ashley Judd's Conversation

Between social media, television, and advertisements, it's easy to forget that everyone, deep down, is human, just like you and I. 

Ashley Judd was recently ripped up from news magazines about having put on weight (or was it plastic surgery?). She wrote a letter and posted it on The Daily Beast about media, and more specifically society's view on body image. We're all guilty of it, myself included (and Ashley Judd too, as she wrote in her letter), but why is it 'normal' for us? We do it to women and men... no sex is safe. 

Ashley Judd writes:

"The insanity has to stop, because as focused on me as it appears to have been, it is about all girls and women. In fact, it’s about boys and men, too, who are equally objectified and ridiculed, according to heteronormative definitions of masculinity that deny the full and dynamic range of their personhood. It affects each and every one of us, in multiple and nefarious ways: our self-image, how we show up in our relationships and at work, our sense of our worth, value, and potential as human beings."

It is so ingrained in us to judge others (and ourselves) based on their looks, race, age, disability, and everything else. We do it to make ourselves feel better. We do it to have something to talk about with each other. On top of everything else, with the internet we feel like we are also allowed to remove any sort of filter because we can be 'anonymous.'

Some of the criticism of Judd's letter was that it was feminist and was not a topic worthy of being read. But she's trying to shed light on an issue that we are plagued with for a huge part of our lives and that we think about, consciously or not, all the time.

I don't think by any means that our society will stop functioning in this way anytime soon. It's ingrained in everything, in society and in ourselves. Stopping every once in a while to think about it is all that I can ask, and for you to read Ashley Judd's letter and share your opinion.

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

Open Your Mind Before Your Mouth

Recently I liked Get REAL on Facebook, whose mandate is "Reaching Equality At Last" and is a student-run organization at Western University who are trying to eliminate homophobia. 

I think this is a great organization, but there was a status post that irked me a little, mostly for it's vagueness and lack of thought:

"From a good friend and out-going VP Campus Issues, Marissa Joffre: 

'I'm extremely upset and disheartened to hear that a friend of mine and his partner were treated inexcusably at Jack's last night. Shortly after embracing, my friend was asked to leave the bar without much explanation.

It is 2012, and this is inexcusable. If you feel as disgusted as I do that a bar that gets as much business as it does from Western students would treat them so poorly because of their sexual identity.. then please post your distaste in your facebook status. Jack's should be ashamed of themselves.' 

This behavior is most definitely inexcusable, on the part of Jacks and these employees involved. Feel free to share so that other students are aware of this."

When I first read this I was upset. Why would Jacks do that? Then, keeping that in mind, I re-read the post. The explanation is vague at best, we don't really know anything about what happened. Then, I read Stephen Krull's reply, stating he worked at a bar as security and he says "I eject patrons for not only being too intoxicated, but appearing intoxicated, on a nightly basis... To the patron, it may seem like they just got kicked out, and without being provided a reason, attribute it to the most recent action they can recall (which in this case was them embracing one another). To the staff members, they were kicking out a person who was, or appeared to be, intoxicated."


While we don't know the full details yet, (a full story will be appearing in the Western Gazette, the newspaper for the school. Stay tuned, I'll be on the look-out for this) if in fact this was a homophobic action, I will definitely be on board for boy-cotting Jacks. But I just can't see why or how this would happen at a bar as popular as Jacks. I'm sure this wasn't the first time two men "embraced" at the bar.


What do you think? I'll post the story from the Western Gazette when I find it!

Stay Beautiful,
Lisa