Entries Tagged 'Media, Marketing and Advertising' ↓

I have lowered the price on Love Distortion: Belle, Battered Codependent and Other Love Stories. 

My intention with this book is to help parents understand the way the culture sets girls up for victimization, coercion and manipulation by distorting what love is. Some of the messages are subtle and some are overt.

My intention is for people to read the book. Therefore, I’ve lowered the price to $3.50 plus shipping and handling. Which covers the cost of the book only.

Simply click here and order NOW.

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The Girl Revolution is proud to announce the release of Love Distortion: Belle, Battered Codependent and Other Love Stories. 

Order Now for only $9.99.

In this compilation of blog posts, I draw a parallel between the reality of dating violence, domestic violence, molestation, rape, date rape (if there is such a thing) and cohesion with the messaging of todays culture and media. Taken from almost 900 blog posts, I’ve chosen 30 posts that draw a concise and compelling picture of the Girl Traps, most stemming from a distortion of the word Love. 

Love Distortion takes a critical look at the Disney Princess Culture and the messages within that set girls up for dating violence and disastrous expectations about transforming bad guys into loving guys, the messages encouraging girls to give up their voices, their talents and their families for the “love” of a boy or man.

Love Distortion also takes a harsh look at other girl culture phenomenon like the Twilight Series and Bella’s willingness to give up her mortality, family, education and future to be with Edward; Gossip Girls, and their emotionally violent and disastrous games to achieve “success” with boys; Hannah Montana and other extensions of the Disney Brand; and posts about dating and domestic violence and the ways in which the word Love is used to coerce and manipulate girls and excuses violent and sexually predatory behavior against girls.

Love Distortion clearly explains the distorted thinking about love on both the part of the girl or woman and the boy or man in a violent, manipulative or abusive relationship. The book makes the connection between the thinking of participants in unhealthy relationships and the cultural messaging we are all inundated with day in and day out.

So as not to leave readers with defeated feelings, Love Distortion provides resources for more positive messages about, what I call, Authentic Love. Readers are given concrete exercises to do with their sons and daughters so as to prevent the distorted beliefs about love that they are inundated with through television, literature, music, Internet, video games, movies, advertising, radio and even, other adults in their lives.

Order Now for only $9.99.

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One of the best things I do for my kids is write them a book for their fifth birthday. I wrote one for Ainsley when she turned five, Ainsley, Perfect You and this week I gave Zack his, Incredible Zacktastic.

I want them to know who they are, where they came from and also, who I want them to be. I don’t want all the media they ingest to be from outside sources – television, internet games, cell phones and the Wii. I want to have some control over their media and I want them to know who they are, not who the media tells them to be. I feel like these books help carry them through childhood, builds their identities and makes them feel important.

Ainsley has had her book for four-and-a-half years now and we pull it out and read it when something scary or hard is happening. Bullying, friend trouble, first days of school, first trip away from home come to mind. When she gets critical of herself, I ask her, Wait, have you forgotten who you are? Should we read the book to remember?

I really feel it’s helped her appreciate her positive attributes, skills and talents. It’s a book – it’s authoritative. It carries weight.

Every person, not just every child, wants to know things like, Where did I come from? Where do I fit in? Who am I? Who am I supposed to be? Am I loved? Am I good enough? What should I do with my life? Am I awesome? What do people expect of me? Writing a book for your kids gives you an opportunity to answer those questions from your perspective.

Nearly every online photo company will allow you to write your kids their own books for $35-$50. Buy several, they make fantastic Mother’s Day and Father’s Day gifts for the grandparents. Also, buy one for yourself. You’re not going to want to let your kids walk out the door with them when they leave home.

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I know it could be perceived as controversial. I realize it might be taken wrong. I know I’m on a tight rope, walking a very fine line . . .

Still, I want you to know that TGR Body was born of Love. Love . . . the kind you feel for your kids, and you wish you felt for your self. The kind that knocks you to the floor when you see sex and violence mixed on television and you want . . . better. Better for these beings you’ve taken the trouble to birth, teach and raise. Love . . . the kind that makes you look at advertising and marketing towards girls and you know it’s condescending . . . hateful. . . minimizing . . .painful . . .heartbreaking to internalize. It’s so poisonous to their very selves. Intrusive to their sense of wholeness and being. It. Is. Not. Who. They. Are.

TGR Body was born of the love that answers that media conflict. The labels. Oh, how important they are. Labels have a choice to say . . . the creators have a choice to say . . .You’re enough. or You’re not. The labels can say, “I love the incredible miracle that is who I am.” or they can say, “I am not good enough as I am, unless I devote a portion of myself to improvement with the products of this bottle, which might improve my flawed, imperfect self.” Or they can choose to say, “I am. I am a beautiful human being, which has a right to exist and be heard just as I am and seen as beautiful in the way I was made, by a miracle of birth and natural selection and holy creativity.”

Yes. All of that is what I hoped to provide with the labels of TGR Body. See, the thing is . . . we’re here, all of us, to serve a purpose and that purpose can get derailed by the wrong marketing, advertising and labels.

The wrong messaging to our reflections in our mirrors. The kind we see on beauty products and television commercials and Internet ads. It can. Get derailed. And we can lose our place in the knowing of the incredible miracle that we actually are.

TGR Body – me – knows that every person born IS a miracle. IS the person who was supposed to be born. Is the person who was supposed to look in the mirror with gratitude and joy and say, “Yes, this. This is the miracle that I am. This is who I’m supposed to be and what I’m supposed to look like and it. is. good. It is a miracle, after all. Miracles are bountiful and beautiful and I am one of them.”

Is that too much to ask of a skincare or haircare product? As I am the creator of TGR Body, I have to say that No. I don’t think it’s too much to ask. I think it’s the minimum we should ask of every experience we have and every product that we buy. It should be something affirming of the miracle that we are. The miracle we were created to be.

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One of the motivating factors for my new skin care line, TGR Body, is my frustration with traditional marketing and labeling on skin care products for women and girls.

I use skin care products, but many of them are not products I would want my daughter to use because of the packaging. For instance, I don’t want her using a sunscreen with an image of a voluptuous woman lying on the beach. It irks me that this is what some companies believe girls and women need to use sunscreen and lotions for. Don’t get me wrong, I sometimes enjoy lying on the beach with a good book. If I can get there. But, the majority of my sunscreen use, and my children’s, is when we’re doing something active. We pull out the sunscreen at the water park, riding bikes, hiking, playing sports, swim lessons, etc.

I wanted to use images that are bold and powerful. Images that show girls doing what girls do: swinging, biking, snowboarding, hiking. I wanted to use images that allow a girl to put herself in the image, rather than some trumped up, overhyped beauty ideal that has almost no relationship to girls’ reality. So, I chose bold and powerful silhouettes of girls doing active things for the TGR Body labels.

I’ve researched the issue of body image and self esteem extensively here on The Girl Revolution. What I’ve learned and observed is so simple it may seem simplistic, but I believe it to be true. Good self esteem and body image starts with good emotional habits. If you look in the mirror and say “I’m fat and ugly,” you will feel fat and ugly no matter how many compliments you get that say otherwise. Oddly, your body will also start to obey you by becoming fatter and less attractive, if for no other reason than you are not radiating joy when you feel bad about yourself. If you look in the mirror and say, “I look amazing and have great hair,” you will feel amazing and your hair will obey you.

Due to this insight, each label reminds girls to look in the mirror and give themselves a compliment. A hair product, for instance, encourages girls to say, “I love having great hair!” A sunscreen product will say, “I am naturally radiant!” It’s simple and it works.

So, do you want to see one or two? I’m almost ready to launch. Just getting the labels printed and we’re ready to go!

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