Education staff member Kathy Seipp and Apple Valley High School student MacKenzie Ellis conducted a workshop in honor of International Women’s Day entitled: Challenge the Media: End the Sexualization of Girls and Young Women in Mainstream Media at the International Women’s Day conference in March. The workshop analyzed the impact of media on the rights of girls and young women from an international human rights framework, specifically focusing on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that girls have the right to safe, self-directed, and healthy sexual lives; free of coercion, exploitation and abuse. “The idea for this workshop evolved from personal experience raising three children in today’s society” stated Seipp. “More and more main mainstream media such as TV commercials, movies, music lyrics, and even Halloween costumes, sexually exploit girls and young women perpetuating unhealthy and unrealistic stereotypical portrayals of both young men and women. The idea came about to challenge the media and it proved to be an overwhelming success!”
Over 100 people attended the interactive workshop, including men and women of all ages. In a brainstorming activity participants generated ideas to combat media bias such as circulating petitions and blogs about inappropriate TV ads, supporting female writers and directors in the film industry, giving incentives to those promoting positive images in the music industry, applying TV ratings to commercials, and holding major networks accountable for their portrayal of women and girls.
As one participant who is the director of a state sexual violence prevention program stated, “The Challenge the Media Workshop was a great opportunity to network with people in different occupations who all care about kids and the toxic messages that they are receiving. It was action oriented and motivating. We can take steps to turn things around and engage others to help. We can and we must.”