We've hit an all new low in American television

A new reality television show called Bridalplasty is scheduled to begin this month. As you finish your Thanksgiving dinner of turkey and cranberry sauce, you can tune in to see women compete for their wish list of plastic surgeries just before they say "I do."

What an incredibly sad comment on our society that women would subject themselves to this ridiculous level of scrutiny and men would condone it. Plastic surgery comes with all kinds of risk factors. For the men, if you really love someone and want to spend the rest of your life with them, do you want them engaging in multiple voluntary procedures that could potentially kill them? And, for the ladies, aren't you supposed to feel so good when you're with this person that you wouldn't change a thing?

Any couple that signs up for this insane show needs serious counseling, not a plastic surgery competition.

A Great Campaign to Ban “Fat Talk”

An excellent start at changing beliefs about body image! It's time we shift our focus and our perspective.

Do I Look Fat? Don't Ask. A Campaign to Ban “Fat Talk”

Good news from the United Nations......

Women's issues are being made a priority. When the world helps women, women help the world.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=35224&Cr=gender&Cr1=

Jessica's "Daily Affirmation"

Little Girls Dance Routine to "Single Ladies" by Beyonce @ WOD

Quote of the month: Tuli Kupferberg

When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge.

-Tuli Kupferberg

Happy International Women's Day!

On this day, when I think about my friends and sisters around the globe, I realize again how very blessed I am by the mere virtue of being a United States citizen. I have every freedom, every privilege and every opportunity to live to my potential. The pursuit of happiness is my birth right in my nation's constitution.

I embrace all that I have in mind, body and spirit and I send pause to those who think of the "American dream" as a race to accumulate material wealth to look again at all of the gifts that surround them that are readily available in this country!! Stop for a moment, take a deep breath and look at our abundant lives through new eyes. Just appreciate the basic things that many don't have: clean water, access to health care and free education in public schools.

And, knowing that ultimately, we are all connected and global citizens. As Virginia Woolf said beautifully: As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the world.

The price of suppressing the girl cells - Eve Ensler

Check out Eve Ensler's speech at the TED conference. She addresses the price of the "missing feminine principle" for both girls and boys. The text is a brief synopsis of the 30 minute video.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/02/02/ensler.TED.talk.girl.power/index.html

Quote of the month: Deepak Chopra

The new reality must harmonize the masculine and feminine in our culture and corporate environments. Masculine energies such as conquest, predation, violent action, and certitude have created imbalance in the world.

Leadership that expresses feminine archetypal energies such as beauty, intuition, creativity, insight, inspiration, nurturing, affection and tenderness will bring sanity, peace, harmony, laughter and love to a world that desperately wants to awaken to a new way of living and being.

-Deepak Chopra, M.D., Spirituality Expert, Author

What are we buying in America? Do we even know?

Take a look at this month's cover of Vanity Fair. It is strewn with beautiful girls. Unfortunately, all beautiful girls that fit only one mold. The ultra thin, size zero model. The western iconic image that women and girls are pummelled with daily. If this is the only image being promulgated by the media and recent studies show that adolescents are dialed into the media an average of seven and half hours a day, how do girls who do not look like this feel about themselves?

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/features/2010/03/cover-girls-201003

Do adolescent girls really have the resilience to cast this image aside and pretend it doesn't matter to them? Can they really be expected "not to care" if they don't look like this? Where in our society is the message that tells them this image is not important? Is there even an alternative message being conveyed?

Do we really ever consider what our daughters are digesting culturally in terms of body image? And, what are we actively doing to help them build strong internal cores so that they can shrug off these external messages that invalidate them if they don't fit this mold? What can we do in our every day lives to remind girls they are whole and complete exactly the way they are??

Here are a few things to consider:
1) We should not be critical of our own bodies in front of our daughters. Any scrutiny we put upon ourselves will transfer to our girls scrutinizing themselves in the same way;
2) Choose movies, magazines, books and music that demonstrate/value women leading lives of meaning and purpose; and
3) Acknowledge, praise and support the development of internal qualities, gifts and talents in ourselves, our girls and other women.

Remember, they are watching us to learn how to take care of themselves and treat others.

Quote of the month: Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Great as our country is in her boundless acres, majestic forests, mighty lakes and rivers, and inexhaustible sources of wealth, she has hidden treasures in the undeveloped powers of her women, that if employed would add more wealth of the state, than all of our other resources together.

-Elizabeth Cady Stanton - 1875


And, a special PS Quote to set the intention for the new decade!

Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.

-President Dwight D. Eisenhower