Eliza in Progress

Imagine hearing about an amazing band.  All of your friends and family members have just raved on and on about them and you're dying to hear them.  Even better they're coming to your city and your friend got a bunch of tickets so your whole group can go together.  You anxiously count down til the day of the concert.  You paid a lot of money and are fully invested in enjoying yourself.  You get there and they play their first song.  Everyone around you is singing and dancing and clearly having the time of their life.  You're not.  You're a little confused as you feel disappointment but you think that it's maybe your unfamiliarity with them or maybe that that one song was an anomaly.  There's a whole concert left, surely you will love something.  The more they play the more you feel flustered.  Your friends couldn't be happier and keep remarking on how incredibly beautiful that one song was and how amazing that other one was, and you ...

Dear Girls, You are More than Your Body Have you ever felt like your whole value was based on your weight, size, and appearance?  That everywhere you go, media is pushing products that only sell based on how bad and inadequate you feel?  Do you feel that society only values what you look like and is the only way to “contribute”?   If you answered yes to any of those, I would argue you are a) most likely a woman and b) you have been objectified.  If you feel like those don’t ring true, you are either a man or will most likely relate to what I hear from conservative women that say things like “I have never felt discriminated against because of my gender.”  “We have every right that men do, why are feminists always protesting?”  I hope to prove that we are being discriminated against so automatically and pervasively by being objectified, that some don’t even recognize it and see the enormously negative effects on individuals and our society at larg...