Are You Ready to Lead?

Hiya!

Over the past few weeks, contributing this blog has been a great experience. I loved learning about some of the amazing celebrity women out there who use their visibility to positively impact the world. It's been inspirational to learn about some of my favorite leading ladies, both fictional (Olivia Pope, Leslie Knope, etc.) and real (Kerry Washington, Tina Fey, Michelle Obama, etc.). These women are out in the world, ready to lead.

That said, I'd love to see even more women stepping into leadership positions. Actresses who become politicians. Singers who use their music to spark social change. Comedians who point out societal issues through humor.

We, the next female generation, need to fill these roles. We need to live up to our full potential to shape the world.

I hope you've learned more about all the different ways in which you can be a leader. After all, the girls of today are the leaders of the future.

Caroline

Final Blog Reflection

One of the highlights of the last few weeks was the opportunity to share information with you through this blog! Hopefully you have learned halfway as much information as I have learned through this process. The goal of my blog posts was to provide you guys with information that you would consider empowering, useful, and motivational. It goes without saying that the media focuses on many female role models, however, finding political information about these celebrities that you would find interesting was a tad bit more difficult of a task. The purpose of this task was to motivate you to be interested in politics and motivate you to learn more about the numerous celebrities that you could potentially make role models. 

If I could leave you with one advice, it would be: 

Don't let anybody tell you what you can or cannot do! 

You are fully capable of making a difference in this world and every dream is possible if you dedicate yourself wholeheartedly to it. 

It has been so much fun writing to you and hopefully you have gained something out of this experience!

-Moses

Final Reflection

Hello! I hope you all have enjoyed reading our blog as much as we have enjoyed writing it. Through this blog I learned a lot about the media's presentation of women and the type of resources available to teenage girls.
I was not surprised to see that the media focused on the superficial aspects of female celebrities. However, I was surprised at how difficult it was to find coverage of the meaningful political work that some celebrities do engage in! I read the content of publications like People and Seventeen Magazine with a critical eye for the first time. I realized how easy it is to skim publications like Seventeen Magazine, only appreciating the superficial. But, if you appreciate the accomplishments of the girls in the magazines past their new workout regimen, there are a lot of celebrities overcoming challenges to pursue their passions. While there is no shortage of awesome female celebrities at all ages who are accomplishing impressive feats, finding a political angle in addition to an empowering angle was challenging.
My experience reflected a shortage of media on the content of celebrities' accomplishments that is accessible to pre-teen and teenage girls. More blogs like this one will inform girls about their role models' achievements beyond dressing well or dating a cute boy. So I call to action any readers that really enjoyed this blog -- write something yourself!
-Olivia O

Final Post!

Hey guys,

Through our blog, I hope you've learned that there are plenty of leading ladies who are notable not just for their hair, their boyfriends, or their clothes, but because of their ability to be leaders. And I hope that you've learned that you have that same ability as well.

I've learned that, though there are celebs who are leaders and role models, it's first necessary to dig past the first layer of media: the layer that focuses only on the superficial. The information on celebs as leaders is much harder to find, and often requires you to be active in looking for it.

Thanks for reading!

-Hayley

Blog Reflection: Steph You

       I learned a lot about the available media outlets and content/message provided and targeted to teenage girls. Through my own content development process and our class debate on standards of appropriateness, I realized the importance in sending our youth, particularly young girls, empowering and healthy images of womanhood and particularly, images of women being actively engaged in leadership, whether it be in art, entertainment, politics, or business. Since I was a teenager, I always "trolled" the internet for empowering, some may say "Feminist," content and had kept a word doc of pictures,quotes and speeches that resonated with me and this blog was a great opportunity to share some of the media "gems" I've collected over the years. I was lucky to have my own archives of empowering media, also through my personal Pinterest and Tumblr accounts where I had reposted things,  to draw on for this project due to the very objectifying, dainty and unimportant nature of most of the mainstream content targeted to teen girls. I think blogs like the ones our class created are very important in providing empowering resources for young girls and to groom future female leaders. A counter to the mainstream media's objectifying and unrealistic images of woman need to be cultivated and presented to our youth, on and off the internet.

xo Steph You

Final thoughts

Hello everyone!  I hope you've enjoyed reading our blog.  Now that it is coming to a close, I want to take a moment to reflect on what I have learned, and what I hope you have learned.

I never read magazines or watched TV growing up, but now that I've seen the media that 13-15 year-olds are expected to read, I don't feel like I missed much.  Yes, we definitely had difficulty finding political topics to write about that were also age-appropriate, but we did find a lot of very impressive, influential female celebrities out there, many of whom are worth looking up to.  I was optimistic that, for young girls who are inclined to look further than the cover of Seventeen, there are many positive celebrity role models.  I think the media would be surprised to find that young girls are more interested in what their celeb role models have to do and say than just in the girls' boyfriends. 

Other thoughts:

• Writing style: It is easy enough to imitate the "cheesy" writing of celeb magazines.  Short and to the point is most engaging, especially when layered with photos/interactive media. 
• Content: Celebrities are very liberal, and this was a tough line to navigate (not be controversial while covering real political engagement by celebrities).  Celebs are more likely to engage in humanitarian work and social causes than actively in politics - perhaps to protect their careers?

Hello Beautiful People!

I hope y'all have been enjoying our fun and exciting posts over the last few weeks. For me, this has been a learning experience in how to write, reach out to people, and keep you interested. I sincerely hope you've picked up on some important lessons. 

1. Don't ever let someone tell you that you can't do something because you're a girl. 

2. There is no such thing as "boys" and "girls" interests. If you like science, study science. If you like playing football, play football. 

3. Don't let magazines and Hollywood try and tell you what a woman is like. No one is perfect. 

4. Look for real role models who do more than just look pretty. 

5. Never be afraid to be assertive. You should always be who you are and if someone doesn't like it, they can deal with it on their own. 

ENJOY THE REST OF THE POSTS. It's been a blast getting to know you all. 

xoxo

Nicole