The "Natural Born" Case

I have been reading a lot about Jenna Talackova who was recently disqualified from the Miss Universe Canada competition. On their website it is written that she was disqualified "because she did not meet the requirements to compete despite having stated otherwise on her entry form." Many news articles/blog posts on the internet are making it sound as though she was disqualified because she is transgendered (although I can't find proof of that anywhere).

While you cannot see Jenna's profile anymore, I took a brief look at a few of the profiles on the Miss Universe Canada website. The majority of the girls come from supportive families, have university degrees or are in progress, travel the world, and seem to do little philanthropic work. To apply you have to submit a face photo, and a swimsuit photo.

So... what exactly is Miss Universe Canada looking for? What are these women judged on? Can't find the answers to these questions on the website. 

In the spirit of what I am trying to promote with this blog, shouldn't inner beauty be way more important than outer beauty? DTowner wrote a comment on thestar.com in reply to their article about Jenna: "...Naturally born female? Fine. But, then, do we exclude women who wear make-up? Wigs? False eyelashes, bras? None of these are 'natural'. Shaving body hair? Not 'natural', and all very cultural. So, what is natural and what is unnatural?"

Maybe I just don't understand the reasoning behind pageants. Maybe I'm crazy for thinking that what people do makes them more beautiful than what they look like. 

Stay Beautiful,
Lisa

UPDATE: April 6 2012

Jenna has been invited back to the competition and they will be changing their rules to include transgendered individuals  "provided she meets the legal gender recognition requirements of Canada, and the standards established by other international competitions"

Excellent! I was very happy to hear this :) 

DramaWay - Enriching Lives Through Creativity

In January I talked about Ability Theatre, which enables children and youth with special needs to express themselves using drama. This company is located in Vancouver, and I recently heard about DramaWay, a company with a similar mission, located in Toronto. 

DramaWay has programs for children and youth who are interested in visual arts, singing, drama, leadership, film, and music. The programs encourage the development of self-confidence, communication and social skills, focus and concentration, creative expression, vocal health, listening and aural perception skills, self-discipline, and self-awareness. There are programs for individuals and for schools and organizations.

On June 16th, DramaWay will be presenting an adapted version of Peter Pan in The PaperMill Theater in Toronto - the first time they will be performing in a full theatre! Check out the facebook event and see if you will be in Toronto to celebrate and support the company and the performers!

Amazing companies like DramaWay and Ability Theatre can bring so much to someone who wouldn't have the opportunity without them. Thank you for continuing to work so hard to make life better for children and youth with special needs!

Visit the DramaWay website here!

Like their facebook page!

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

Am I Beautiful?

Hey, Youtube... What Do You Think?

Teens and tweens have been posting videos on youtube asking the internet world to tell them if they are ugly or pretty. Here is BeautifulAndProud's video entitled "Am I Ugly?" In the description all she wrote was "Am I?"

Remember When...

I wasn't sure how exactly to start this post without sounding too much like the article, or without asking people to stop posting negative comments and encouraging these kids to keep believing negative things about themselves.

I think we need to look past the videos themselves and look at the root of the issue. Young girls and boys don't understand what it means to be beautiful. Right now most of the people reading my blog are in upper year university, so we've kind of lost touch with our end of elementary/high school selves. There was SO much pressure from our peers to look and act a certain way. We added to that by having our own personal beliefs of what a 'perfect' person was like. For me, how I thought I looked was a huge source of stress! I'm sure many of you could relate.

No one is going to get through to these kids by telling them to take down their videos, by posting comments saying they're pretty/ugly... How can we connect with these kids? There came a time when we all realized that our looks didn't directly influence the outcome of our lives. 

So, I think we should start sharing stories from when we were in high school. Maybe, just maybe, one of these kids will come across these and realize that it's your inner beauty that shines outwards to people, not what you look like.

Comment!

PLEASE reply back to this one. Tell us a story about someone noticing your beauty (hey, you can reply anonymously), write a poem, short story, or post a drawing, post some encouraging words, anything that you would have appreciated as a teen. And you can read my story in the comments!

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

The Stigma of Domestic Abuse

Chris Brown at the Grammys

Now, I'm not the biggest fan of award shows, so when the Grammys were on this weekend I was just surfing the web. I came across HelloGiggles post called "I'm Not Okay with Chris Brown Performing at the Grammys and I'm Not Sure Why You Are" which I highly recommend you read. It's a reminder about how the media treats domestic abuse. Less than a year after Chris Brown hit Rihanna, he came out with a new album which hit #7 on the Billboard charts. 

After his performance at the Grammys this year he won Best R&B Album. There has been some interesting reactions on Twitter, from girls tweeting "Chris Brown... Please beat me ;)" to RIP Chris Brown, celebrities and others tweeting messages to support Rihanna, Miranda Lambert tweeted "Not cool that we act like that didn’t happen. He needs to listen to Gunpowder and Lead and be put back in his place. Not at the Grammys." Many people have been wondering why he was allowed to perform at the Grammys.  

HelloGiggles says it all: "The message we sent to young women was unmistakable: You are powerless. You are worthless. You will be a victim, and that will be okay with us."

You never know...

Today in class we were talking about domestic abuse. After the break, my teacher told us that he had a guest who would like to speak to us about her experience. A girl in the back of the class stood up, Jaclyn, who I have a few classes with. I never would have imagined that she was a victim of domestic abuse. She told us her story and explained how she was recently crowned Miss Canada 2012 and will be using that platform to "Break the Silence." Miss Canada is raising funds to send Jaclyn across Canada to educate students about domestic violence.

Jaclyn was a university student studying family studies when she was in the abusive relationship. She told us how she was studying the signs of abuse but it took her a long time to realize that she was in an abusive relationship. She was embarrassed, scared, and alone.

In her bio Jaclyn writes "As a society, we criticize those who have been victims of abuse. We blame them, assuming it was their fault. We put them down and make them feel embarrassed and ashamed." Read the rest of her bio here.

Myths: 

Men are always the abuser.

Even though my two examples are about women who were victims, but abuse is not gender blind. Women can be abusive.

If there's no mark, there's no abuse.

Abuse can be mental or physical. Abusers isolate their victims from their friends and family. 

Read some more myths about domestic violence here.

What do you think?

Does society blame the victim? Why? Why are these myths ingrained in us? Let's talk about it.

Are you in an abusive relationship or do you

know someone who is? Don't know what to do? Call Kids Help Phone at 1-800-668-6868 

or call the police.

Or hey, you can email me - redcardi.love@gmail.com

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

Marketing for Girls and Boys

A Cutie is Doing it Right!

This is Riley asking why girls have to buy pink toys and boys have to buy other coloured stuff. Many comments on YouTube point to the fact that she is probably repeating what her parents say to her... although if you read my older post (here) kids really do understand this stuff. They can come to realize that they don't have to buy into the girls have to like pink and boys have to like blue labels. At a young age, most kids want to play with the "girl" and "boy" toys - in my own experience I was babysitting a neighbour and her male friend of about 6 years old came to visit and was playing with a "girl" toy (I can't remember what it was now)... when his dad saw him playing with the toy he promptly took him away and said that it was for girls. 

This story reminded me of the House Hippo!

Stay Beautiful,
Lisa

Gay-Straight Alliances in Catholic Schools

Sorry for being away for almost a month - I got extremely busy with a musical I was putting on at school!

Now - back to business.

Taken from bornlikethis.org

GSA vs. Respecting Differences

The Ministry of Education in Ontario states that all publicly-funded schools must have clubs where students from the LGBT communities (or students who are interested) can come together to discuss anything to do with equity for LGBT students. The suggested group name is "Gay-Straight Alliance" (known by most as GSA).

Ontario's Catholic Schools have banned using the word "Gay" in the group's name, and have decided on the name "Respecting Differences" as the suggested group name. Instead of being specific to LGBT issues, the group would focus on all types of bullying.

The Catholic Church does not condone sexual acts performed out of marriage, and they accept that some people are homosexuals. However, just as heterosexuals, they should not act on their impulses. 

Share your opinion!

I've given a very brief summary of this issue. Should Ontario's Catholic schools (which are funded by all Ontarian's tax money) be allowed to ban GSAs? Or could the Respecting Differences clubs be a fair solution for Catholic schools?

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa

What You See Isn't What You Get

Girls in the Media

In one week American teenagers spend 31 hours watching TV, 17 hours listening to music, 3 hours watching movies, 4 hours reading magazines, 10 hours online. That’s 10 hours and 45 minutes of media consumption a day. (Source: missrepresentation.org)

That's a whole lot of media consumption! This seems to be the direction the world is moving to - it's easier to message or poke a friend than to call them on the phone... but at what point are youth educated on understanding what they see? 

This clip from Miss Representation demonstrates how media values women - for sex, youth, and beauty. Women role models aren't easy to come by. Even in "inspiring" tv shows like Glee, the lead female, Rachel Berry is constantly bullied for being ugly/fat/un-sexy/weird... and she has very "girly" character flaws - she's incredibly vain and thinks she can control/change her boyfriend... Almost every episode she seems to have made some mistake that she has to apologize to Finn for! Reminds me of Serena from Gossip Girl who also seems to be apologizing every few episodes to either Blair or Dan for gossiping, lying, cheating, or sneaking around. Luckily she's beautiful and otherwise perfect (cough), so she's always forgiven. In both shows I can count on one hand the female characters who are strong role models.

So what are girls to do when these are the types of role models they look up to 31 hours a week? We have to turn to teachers, parents, guardians, and family to help girls weed through the difference between media and real life.

What do you think?

I could go on and on about this... but I would rather hear what you have to say! What do you think about the role models that girls have in media (tv, internet, magazines, music)?

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa