Here's a piece called "Girls Rock!" by GWEB-member prettynpink

In 2005 I was part of a team that wrote the book Girls Rock! Just the Way We Are. I’m in 8th grade now and three years older. So, this is my chapter from the book rewritten as a 14-year-old. I’m going to take out quite a bit because not all of it is related to pop culture, but I’m not going to change everything because I think it’s powerful to have a message coming from an 11-year-old. If you want the full, original version you can order the book at Lulu.com.


Dear Girls,

When I was in fourth grade I went through a really hard time. Something was happening to the girls in my grade. The commercials and ads that we had been watching since we were young started to affect us. The messages were that girls should be thin, tall, have big boobs, and have a boyfriend. So we started complimenting each other on being “skinny” and we criticized ourselves on being “fat”.

Body image is the way you think and feel about your body. It’s what you believe you look like. When you always rely on other people’s or the media’s judgments of how you look, then you can’t feel content with who you are or what you look like.

Our culture’s everyday language is part of the reason many girls feel bad about their bodies. We use words everyday that reinforces the problem, “Oh, you’re so thin,” or “Do I look fat in this?” Even if this is being said to someone else, the people around you will take it in, and it might worry them that they have to be careful not to look “bad”.

Those words became a part of my everyday language and started changing my confidence about my own appearance. What I was hearing was sometimes meant to be innocent; but it really hurt me inside.

Soon, I thought my belly was too big. I was always comparing myself to my friends and all the pretty girls in the magazines. I didn’t realize that everyone’s bodies are different from one another.

Luckily, by the end of fourth grade my mom and I went to our first Turn Beauty Inside Out (TBIO) conference (The idea of Turn Beauty Inside Out was created by the Girls Editorial Board of New Moon Magazine, and the message of the turn beauty inside out campaign is to challenge media portrayals of girls and women.) in Washington D.C. I learned that being pretty on the outside just didn’t matter that much and I learned that all girls are beautiful. I learned that girls and woman should speak out and say what they believe in.