Another Ad Standards fail

One man, five days and actually caring about the community has achieved what Ad Standards, a comprehensive advertising Code of Ethics (and accompanying Practice Note), a 22-member panel and a weeks-long review process could not: takedown of a sexist, objectifying advertisement from Perth’s public buses.

Stop the mutilation of women’s bodies for profit!

If you missed ABC Four Corners searing expose of Australia’s cosmetic surgery industry and its callous disregard for the health and wellbeing of women, you really should take a look.

You will see how the cosmetic surgery industry preys on the body angst of vulnerable women and girls to get them to conform to harmful constructions of ‘beauty’ for profit. And the physical and mental injury to some of the brave victims who have come forward to tell their stories. Seeing healthy flesh being cut into, seeing deformed ‘enhanced’ breasts, seeing gigantic swollen backsides, and women’s bodies covered in bruises, was at times, like being witness to a crime scene.  It’s time these barbarians were reigned in. And it’s time we overturned the dictats of a global beauty industry – aided and abetted by its celebrity handmaidens which lies to women about what beauty should look like. Reflecting on the program afterwards, I realized just how much I love looking into the unadulterated, natural faces of women and girls who have refused to succumb to false messages about how they should look and be in the world.

Beauty’s New Normal – Four Corners

Last week I received and email from my health insurer, NIB, emailing me about breast implants and tummy tucks in Thailand. I was shocked. I took to social media to express my disappointment. 

"Super size me" has a new meaning

And women die for

Two items this week highlight the urgent need for cultural change, a complete revolution.

Unfortunately the word Revolution gets thrown around a lot and watered down in the process. However it has been defined as:

(n) revolution (a drastic and far-reaching change in ways of thinking and behaving)