About-Face aims to provide women and girls with skills to critically examine media messages that affect their positive self-image. Their website is a one-stop shop for simple, direct, teen-friendly educational materials about female self-esteem and body image. [more inside]
posted by emilyd22222 on Jul 20, 2010 - 65 comments

Hidden World of Girls: Girls and the Women they Become is NPR's collaborative year-long, ongoing series between The Kitchen Sisters, NPR and listener submissions. The series explores "stories of coming of age, rituals and rites of passage, secet identities—of women who crossed a line, blazed a trail, changed the tide." [more inside]
posted by zarq on Jul 2, 2010 - 16 comments

After decades of selling tampons and "sanitary products" with ads containing nebulous, euphemistic images and language, Kotex launched a new product line, 'U by Kotex' and a 'Declaration of Real Talk Campaign' to encourage girls and women to speak about menstruation without embarrassment. Ironically, their ad was rejected by the major US television networks for mentioning the word 'vagina'. Here's the 'safe for the viewing public' version. / YT channel. [more inside]
posted by zarq on Mar 18, 2010 - 193 comments

Rosalie Kunert, the inspiration behind the iconic Rosie the Riveter, passed away June 28 at the age of 86. Rosie's can-do spirit was captured in an ad campaign by J. Walter Thompson and sponsored by the Office of War Information and War Manpower Commission, designed to inspire other women to join the workforce during WWII. It worked - to the tune of two million new women on the job. [more inside]
posted by tizzie on Jul 8, 2009 - 16 comments

"Hot Cougar Sex!" Since the term was first coined, "cougar" has become something of a cultural phenomenon: it's been applied to Samantha on "Sex and the City" and actress Demi Moore, and sometimes shares territory with that other recently-ubiquitous label for sexualized older women: MILFs. Some women have embraced the term as empowering, but as a new reality show debuts, others show why it's less than appealing.
posted by ocherdraco on Apr 16, 2009 - 182 comments

• "Please don't beat me. I'm having my period." ~ Mama Wangari
• "It is being both black and gay [which is problematic]." ~ Zanele Muholi (Nehanda Nyakasikana) [NSFW]
• "Sisters at heart, these women are: from Kibera to Loresho." ~ WM
• "My vagina wants an Uzi" ~ Larissa Klazinga (Amanda Atwood)
• "You are from Kenya? So are you Kikuyu or Luo?" ~ Wangui

Blogs of women from Africa. That is all.
posted by hadjiboy on Apr 17, 2008 - 25 comments

The New Shaker Wives Aren't Really Into Furniture or puritanism or bonnets. But kickass cocktails? And revenge? That, yes. Oh yes. Empowering? I should bloody well think so. Disgruntled housewives you say? I say their boring, stupid husbands don't appreciate their luck, more likely. Explore their website, enjoy and learn! [Offered as a companion-piece to tranquileye's June 2002 Ladies For The Preservation Of Cocktails post. P.S. This is neither here nor there but the more I live and know, the more I love and respect women and the less I like men.]
posted by MiguelCardoso on May 16, 2003 - 12 comments