.

Well duh:

The “Wall of Shame” at Pearl Crisis Center depicts the relentless coverage in magazines, television and movies to show skinny, “perfect” bodies of young women.

And the roughly dozen young girls ages 10 to 13 in Pearl’s “Just As I Am” group are the ones who put the Wall of Shame pictures together.

Tired of seeing photographs of airbrushed, too-thin models in teen magazines, the girls have been meeting twice a month after school to talk about self-esteem, to scrapbook, do yoga and eat cake!

The girls want to see more modesty in clothing rather than baring it all.

But rather than just talk about it, they decided to try to make a difference by doing something about it.

The girls recently sent a letter to Jordache Enterprises, a clothing company, which often shows more skin than clothing in its advertisements.

From its website, Jordache touts, “In business for more than 30 years, Jordache has become a powerful name in the world of fashion and beyond. As the originator of the designer denim phenomenon in the late 1970s, the Jordache brand quickly became synonymous with sexiness.”

The Just As I Am girls each wrote their own thoughts to Jordache on the advertisements used to sell Jordache clothing.

Alissa, age 12, wrote, “I realize that people can go to extreme lengths to make money, but is there any other ways to do that besides showing off girls’ bodies in a sexual way? A lot of girls around my age can be affected by it in a negative way, and their self esteem can be lowered a lot. I wish you wouldn’t advertise like this.”

Twelve-year-old Hope wrote, “I think that your advertisements are really inappropriate because it shows off a girl’s body. In this group, we try to make ourselves feel better and strong and not think of ourselves as fat. Your advertisements are not helping us. I think you need to think of other ways to make more money by advertising and please cover your models private areas that we don’t really care about.”

As one girl in the group said, “It makes us feel like we don’t have perfect bodies or we need to be a perfect size to be attractive.”

The group of Just As I Am girls are a variety of shapes and sizes and have different personalities, but they are all strong and they are all beautiful.

And they are trying to help other girls understand that by letting their fellow classmates and friends know that no one has a “perfect” body. Shifting the focus from the body to what’s inside.

“I don’t think our bodies matter, it should be our personalities,” one stated.

“You need to take care of yourself and stay healthy,” another teen added. “As long as you’re healthy, it shouldn’t matter how you look.”

The girls are trying to maintain a positive attitude about themselves and help others keep a good attitude too.

“Don’t let how other people judge you affect how you look at yourself,” one of the girls commented.

That’s a positive outlook, but a difficult one for many teens to follow through on.

According to National Eating Disorders, as many as 10 million females and one million males in the U.S. are fighting a life and death battle with an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia. Forty percent of newly identified cases of anorexia are in girls 15-19 years of age.

Of the top 10 teen magazines on the web, only one showed teen girls not looking “sexy” or airbrushed. They were in basketball uniforms. The rest had pictures of airbrushed entertainers and models.

The girls want to continue Just As I Am, but funding for the program has run out and another grant will be applied for so a new group of girls can participate.

“Can we help?” the girls asked their coordinator Natalie Hagle. “Can we visit? We don’t want it to end!”

The girls will be able to help the next group of teens, just as they’ve already been doing by making the decision to speak out and be proud of who they are. 

(Source)

A few of my modest-minded homies were featured in the National Catholic Register over the weekend:

Shakespeare may have been right to write that “all that glitters is not gold.” But some young Catholics are out to buck that logic with a little spiritual alchemy.

Working amid the glitz and glamour of the entertainment and communications industries, these young people are, through their faithful witness, successfully transforming elements of the media into spiritual treasure.

Their tool is zeal. Their message is modesty.

Paige Rees of the Cajun band L’Angélus is one of these young Catholics.

“Immodesty is prevalent in our society,” she says. “In his World Youth Day address, Pope Benedict noted that ‘people sometimes treat others as objects to satisfy their own needs rather than as persons to be loved and cherished.’ Modesty in dress is important because it safeguards against the objectification of persons that the Holy Father speaks of.”

Paige, along with her sister Katie and brother Stephen, has been performing with L’Angélus for 12 years. (The band is online at AngelusBand.com.) She doesn’t make presentations on modesty but, instead, lets her music — and her own modesty — do the talking.

“I keep in mind that external appearance is a reflection of an interior attitude,” she says. “St. Peter tells us that our adornment ‘should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in God’s sight’”(1 Peter 3:4). “Many times, mothers have thanked us for dressing in a way that is attractive and modest. They tell us that their daughters want to dress the way we do.”

Actress Jessica Rey agrees that it’s important for girls to have a role model. When it comes to choosing clothing, she says, “Girls often don’t want to listen to their mothers. And that leaves a void that needs to be filled.”

Rey, creator of the Rey Swimwear line and star of the Family Theater Productions film Rosary Stars (FamilyTheater.org), is launching a modesty-formation program in southern California. “If girls are not learning about modesty,” she says, “they’re going to turn to media like Seventeen magazine and MTV for fashion advice.”

The current fashions “are all about being half-naked,” says Rey, who works in television shows and commercials. “In essence, the media is saying that you have to sell your soul in order to be fashionable.”

It is just these trends that inspired Rey to design her own line of swimwear. Its tagline is “Who says it has to be itsy-bitsy?”

“Our collection is named ‘Audrey,’ after Audrey Hepburn,” Rey says. “Audrey lived during an era when women dressed and acted like ladies and didn’t feel they had to ‘bare it all’ to be attractive. Modesty is all about beauty. Don’t let anyone tell you that it’s boring, frumpy or dull!”

Dignity by Design

Joseph McClane, founder of The Catholic Hack blog (CatholicHack.blogspot.com), explains modesty from the male point of view.

“The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that ‘modesty guides how one looks at others and behaves toward them in conformity with the dignity of persons’ (No. 2521). Modesty isn’t another stuffy rule to follow. It’s a beautiful opportunity to seek holiness.”

McClane is a Catholic media producer, podcaster and evangelist. He also identifies himself as a former pornography addict.

“Women cooperate with God by bringing life into this world. To compromise that gift of their femininity for the lie of this world is absolutely evil,” he says. “Modest dress is an outward sign of an inward truth: Our sexuality is sacred and purpose-driven.”

“I think that most women do not understand this point and therefore don’t realize how serious it is to be the stumbling block that causes others to sin,” he says, adding that his years of employment “in the world” fueled his pornography problem.

“No matter where I was working, I was absolutely surrounded by immodesty and immorality,” he recalls. “There were times when I helped to perpetuate this environment and the objectification of women. In my job at a secular radio show, I used sex and scandal to attract listeners. Is this what God had in mind when he gave me my aptitudes?”

McClane believes young Catholics need to employ their own talents in spearheading a return to virtue. “Embrace modern technology and media,” he urges, “and use it for the glory of God.”

Rees agrees. “In the 1936 encyclical Vigilante Cura (On the Cinema), Pope Pius XI wrote that ‘there does not exist today a means of influencing the masses more potent than the cinema.’ The encyclical goes on to affirm that ‘good motion pictures are capable of exercising a profoundly moral influence upon those who see them. … They are able to present truth and virtue under attractive forms.’”

“Although the Holy Father wrote these words in the days before television and the Internet, I believe that they speak to committed young Catholics today,” she says. “The message is: ‘Go! Be a light in the darkness.’”

Even committed Catholics, however, may find it hard to withstand the temptations that are part and parcel of the popular culture.

“‘Frequent not the company of immodest persons; keep company with the chaste and virtuous,’” says Rey, quoting St. Francis DeSales. “But that can be pretty tough when you’re active in the entertainment industry.”

“A well-meaning Catholic will try to walk the line between good and evil — making an effort to get to daily Mass, but also partying at the hot spots at night, and sometimes trying to evangelize the people he meets there,” she says. “This is dangerous at best and can lead someone into serious sin. I’ve seen it happen.”

Changing Hearts

“It takes courage,” emphasizes McClane, “the kind of courage that the Holy Spirit uses to change hearts.”

“When God knocked me off my high horse, I made a commitment to stop being influenced by my environment and to rather start influencing it by my faith,” he says. “By the grace of God, I was able to stand firm. But this doesn’t mean that young Catholics should lightly fling themselves into environments that are hostile to the faith. They’ve got to be well fitted with a strong armor of faith before working behind enemy lines.”

It’s a battle that can be won, all three agree.

Says Rees, “God is faithful; he keeps his promises. He will give us the grace to listen to the voice of truth, if we ask him. In a society where the ‘voices that advocate a permissive approach to sexuality’ [Vigilante Cura] are a billion-dollar industry, we must follow the radical call to imitate his purity, his love.”

Concludes McClane: “We need people to be bold for Christ, and to use media for the purpose which God meant for it: to communicate the faith. The victory is ours — if we have the courage to take it.”

The Orange County Board of Supervisors has voted unanimously to rescind a contract with Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties because of the organization’s links to abortion.

“I don’t believe the county should be funding abortion, and I don’t believe the county really should be involved in funding an organization who performs about 35 percent of the abortions in the country,” said Supervisor Chris Norby, the Orange County Register reported.

The 5-0 vote came on Tuesday, March 10, following a lengthy debate and many comments from the public. Supervisors directed county staff to end funding to Planned Parenthood within 30 days under a $7.5 million contract with the Orange County Coalition of Community Clinics. County health officials should find another member of the community clinics coalition that could use Planned Parenthood’s share of the contract money, supervisors decided.

Read the rest here.

I haven’t commented on the octuplet story because I learned in 5th grade that if you don’t have anything nice to say, you shouldn’t say anything at all.

But check out this article about 22-year-old WNBA star Candace Parker, a married woman who just so happened to make the stupid “mistake” of having a baby with her husband:

Parker probably figured the news would be non-controversial, given that the fresh-faced Los Angeles Sparks forward and Olympic gold medalist is happily married to Sacramento Kings forward Shelden Williams. Both earn more than enough to support a family: Parker alone reaps millions on and off the court as one of the most celebrated women athletes in the world.

But Parker’s pregnancy was not greeted with the same approval and tolerance that many of today’s child-bearing sexagenarians and single mothers by choice enjoy when they form their families. Instead, Parker was blasted by fans and pundits for becoming a mother at age 22. Critics bemoaned her selfishness in putting maternal ambitions ahead of her team’s 2009 season prospects. Others lamented her foolishness for starting a family when she should be living a strings-free existence oriented around her glamorous career.

Not long ago, a 22-year-old woman was considered plenty old enough to marry and bear children. But in today’s era of prolonged adolescence and commitment phobia, high-achieving women like Parker often face ridicule and scorn for defying the feminist conventional wisdom that marriage and motherhood are second-rate pursuits best delayed until middle age. Young mothers frequently are accused of forfeiting a hard-won feminist privilege: the right to spend their 20s single-mindedly pursuing sexual license, success and self-fulfillment without the hassles of a husband and children. (Source)

I wish nothing but blessings on Parker and her new family….just wish the public would do the same.

Though I haven’t written about it here, I have been following this story about the “Italian Terro Schiavo” quite closely:

Eluana Englaro has died, three days after she began to be deprived of nourishment.

Last week, the comatose 37-year-old Italian woman was taken by her father Beppino from a hospital in Lecco, Italy, where Eluana was receiving care from Sisters of Mercy. She had been in a coma since 1992 as a result of injuries she sustained in a car accident.

Her father acted without legal authorization, in order to place Eluana in a medical clinic in Udine that was willing to kill her by depriving her of the food and hydration she required through a feeding tube in order to stay alive.

After her father moved her, Italy’s right-of-center government led by Italian Prime Minister Sylvio Berlusconi introduced a bill to prohibit the withdrawal of food and water from comatose patients. But Eluana died today before the legislation could be voted on in the Italian Senate, Associated Press reported. Source

From One News Now:

A pro-family advocate is calling the University of Chicago’s decision to allow coed dorm rooms troubling.

The university announced the decision to parents in a letter that was sent in mid-December. The change in boarding rules will allow students of the opposite sex to reside in the same room, and the school says the decision was born from a student-led initiative. Students who wish to have a coed roommate will not need parental consent.
 

My question is, why on earth would you want to live with a guy? Even if you are in a sexually active relationship, guys tend to be gross. I’m sure UC will be seeing an upswing in unplanned pregnancies and disputes between roommates. Good grief…