Women and the AIDS Pandemic

By Teen Voices editorial intern Ally Betker

Each year, we mark World AIDS Day on December 1. It brings together people from around the world to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS and provides opportunities for public and private partners to encourage progress in prevention, treatment, and care.

A recent World Health Organization study shows that AIDS is the leading killer of women of reproductive age in poor and middle-income countries.  As we observe World AIDS Day, it’s important to understand the special circumstances of women and girls coping with the disease.

Women’s exposure to HIV is closely related to gender discrimination and violation of women’s rights. In many societies, women have few rights within their sexual relationships. Men often make the majority of decisions, such as whom they will marry and whether they will have more than one sexual partner. This power imbalance means that it can be more difficult for women to protect themselves from getting infected with HIV. For example, a woman may not be able to ask to use a condom if her husband is the one who makes the decisions.

Mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) is an issue that directly affects women and at the same time increases the spread of HIV. MTCT occurs when an HIV positive woman passes the virus to her baby during pregnancy, labor and delivery, or breastfeeding. According to UNAIDS, at the end of 2007 there were an estimated 2 million children living with HIV, most of who contracted the disease from their mothers. A large number of these children will not live to adulthood. There are drugs that can reduce the chances of a child acquiring HIV from its mother, but they are unavailable in many parts of the world.

Advancing gender equality will increase women’s empowerment to negotiate safer sex and protect themselves from HIV infection. Equality will help women seek treatment, care, and support. HIV/AIDS and gender inequality are mutual — and if we work to solve these two problems in tandem, we can create lasting change.

For more on women and AIDS, please read about Sejal Hathi’s work with Girls Helping Girls and Nomhle’s Story.

Sources:

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/events/annual/world_aids_day/en/index.html

http://www.worldaidscampaign.org/en/Key-events/World-AIDS-Day/World-AIDS-Day-2009

http://www.unifem.org/news_events/story_detail.php?StoryID=987

http://www.avert.org/women-hiv-aids.htm

Top Five Ways YOU Can Get Involved with Teen Voices!

By Teen Voices editorial intern Jackie Catcher

You have a voice and we want to hear it! Teen Voices is about you—your thoughts, your feelings, and your input. Here are five ways for you to amplify your voice.

1. Become a teen editor! Are you a Boston-area teen interested in journalism? Here’s your chance to gain experience while meeting new friends and having a fantastic time. Teen editors meet to write the features you see on our website and in our magazine. Although our fall session is in full swing, there’s always the spring and summer sessions to look forward to. So start planning ahead and visit our website www.teenvoices.com to apply.

2. Share the goods. Your words matter and we work hard to make sure they’re heard, but we can’t do it alone. Like something you read online? E-mail to a friend or post it on your own blog or profile. Love the magazine? Give submissions to your girlfriends or family members as holiday or birthday gifts. Want to see Teen Voices in your public or school library? Ask the librarian to stock it. Spread the word and stretch your impact.

3. Become a reviewer! Like music? Books? Free stuff? Teen Voices reviewers receive free books and CDs before they’re even released to the public. All we ask in return is your opinion, so is it a bestseller or a flop…you be the judge.

4. Become a Teen Voices Activist of the Month (AOTM) Are you a teen who’s changing your world? Are you passionate about a cause, devoted to an issue, or involved in an organization? We highlight movers and shakers like you each month in our online magazine. Nominate a friend or nominate yourself; we’d love to hear about what you’re doing to make our world a better place.

5. Amplify your voice! Submit your artwork, photos, poetry, essays, opinions, short stories and more to Teen Voices. We can’t get enough of your voice, so keep the submissions coming. Visit our website www.teenvoices.com to learn more and submit!

Vote for Teen Voices to Receive Funding From Chase Community Giving!

Chase Community Giving is awarding money to selected charities and nonprofits, and Teen Voices could be one of them! Charities that receive the most votes will receive $1 million, and the top five runners-up will receive $100,000 each! Please vote for Teen Voices on Facebook and help us empower more young women!

Boston Girls Express Themselves…Poetically!

By Teen Voices editorial intern Jackie Catcher

Poetically Speaking performers and Teen Voices peer leaders-in-training Anna-Cat and Kassandra

Whoever said “money makes the world go round” should have attended Poetically Speaking, where 20 teens proved there’s more to life than making bank.  The annual poetry/spoken word event, which Teen Voices presented in partnership with Emerson College, had a special theme this year: “The Value of Voice.”  Teen girls (and a couple of women) performed their original poetry to a packed house at Emerson, using four topics to guide their poems: overdraft protection, more than face value, making ‘change,’ and R.I.C.H. (Respected, Influential, Courageous and Hopeful) Girls.

Through prose and rhymes, the girls thanked the people who have supported and cared for them, discussed the meaning of real beauty, thought aloud about how to improve our world, and showed how their respect, influence, courage and hope make them some of the RICHest girls in the world.  “My outer beauty doesn’t make me successful, get it straight.  It’s my passion, drive, and determination that structure my fate.  My passion for writing is going to open my gate,” rhymed Tekeisha Meade in her poem Imagine.

Kaire greets the audience during her performance at Poetically Speaking

As girls danced onto the stage, host Saun Green kept everyone laughing, but these girls were also here to talk seriously about change – and we don’t mean coins.  Poet  Kaire Holman recited, “I’m here to pick up the change and advance the pace of this race, and in time, our line will be fine.  I’m that coin collector,  and I’m also their overdraft protection.”

Rather than addressing dollar value, the teens expressed voice value—the importance of amplifying their voices.  They had the audience laughing, crying, and dancing in their seats.  “Do we all need to conform?  Conform to the ideals that this thickness I got right here is wrong?  That my light brown and curly hair don’t fit their song?   Well listen —  listen carefully.  The beauty I got, you can’t even see,” wrote Natasha Gonzalez in her piece Conforming.

The Poetically Speaking performers gather after the event

Inspiring, strong, confident, and beautiful, these young poets showed that teen girls are way more than just pretty faces – they are a social movement, a generation of strong new voices, a group that isn’t going to wait to add their voices to society — because their time is now!

Photography by Lolita Parker, Jr. of Parker Digital Imaging

Report Shows Violence Against Girls and Women On the Rise In Network TV Storylines

By Teen Voices editorial intern Ally Betker

Storylines depicting violence against females are increasing according to a report released by the Parents Television Council last month. The PTC’s report, Women in Peril: A Look at TV’s Disturbing New Storyline Trend, examined female victimizations on prime time broadcast television and found that violence against women is being shown more graphically and in ways never before seen on television.

PTC President Tim Winter said, “…by depicting violence against women with increasing frequency, or as a trivial, even humorous matter, the broadcast networks may ultimately be contributing to a desensitized atmosphere in which people view aggression and violence directed at women as normative, even acceptable.”

The report found that there was a significant increase in all forms of female victimization: an increase in the depiction of teen girls as victims; in the use of female victimization as a punch line in comedy series; and in the depiction of intimate partner violence.

Some of the report’s major findings include:

• Every network but ABC demonstrated a significant increase in the number of storylines that included violence against women between 2004 and 2009.

• Although female victims were primarily of adult age, collectively, there was a 400% increase in the depiction of teen girls as victims across all networks from 2004 to 2009

• Fox stood out for using violence against women as a punch line in its comedies — in particular Family Guy and American Dad — trivializing the gravity of the issue of violence against women.

PTC Director of Communications and Public Education Melissa Henson said, “We all must pay attention to the fact that this is a problem in our society. Children are influenced by what they see on TV and that certainly includes media violence.”

To read more about the Parent Television Council’s report, click here, and visit www.teenvoices.com for more articles on women and the media.

Glamour Magazine Highlights Curvier Models

By Teen Voices editorial intern Ally Betker

The November issue of Glamour includes a spread titled “Supermodels Who Aren’t Superthin,” showcasing “plus-size” women who proudly bare it all. This article is part of Glamour’s body image revolution that Teen Voices tweeted about back in September.

Glamour’s efforts to highlight “plus-size” models started when they ran a picture of 21-year-old model Lizzi Miller in a story about feeling good in your own skin. Positive responses flooded in, with readers clamoring for more images of natural-looking women like Miller.

Glamour’s highlighting of models who maintain a healthier weight than the norm has helped spark a conversation about what “plus-size” really means. The modeling industry calls anyone over a size six plus size, but the average American woman wears sizes 12-14. Should magazines turn their focus to this size since it represents the majority of their audience? Or would this just move the pressure to naturally thin girls and make them feel negative about their body type instead?

Glamour says that every body size, shape, and color should and will be represented in its pages. Editor-in-Chief Cindi Leive writes, “Turning the tables so we can bash one type instead of another isn’t the answer. Celebrating the fact that we’re all born different is.”

Check out the rest of Leive’s blog post here and visit www.teenvoices.com for more empowering ideas about accepting yourself!

Two Truths and a Lie

The girls got a laugh out of Kassandra's truths and lie.

Pondering over their votes... which story was a lie?

Judelle: "For the first time in six months I’m not partying this weekend. I don’t like kool-aid. I haven’t done my hair in a month."

 

 

Mentoring Begins, Plus a Visit from Rachel Skerritt!

October: Falling leaves, apples, and the beginning of Teen Voices’ fall program! We just finished our first week of mentoring, so all our teen editors have met their mentors and are already hard at work researching their article topics. We have 11 mentoring groups working on magazine features, and they turned in their great article proposals to Jessica yesterday!

Here are some of the great pieces that are in the works. Mentor Brittany and her teen editors Ajané, Sabrina I., and Bria are working on an article about sex trafficking. Kat is working with Malisa, Laurén, and Tekeisha on celeb fashion and how it influences teen girls. Mentor Julia is working with Sasha, Ariana, and Denesha to research ways for teen girls to keep their online personas on the up and up. Carling’s group—Antoinise, Kassandra, and Arismar—is thinking about how to write the most effective college application essays. Mentor Tarra is going to tackle stereotypes, along with Lynn, Talia, and Paige.

Reynelle, Mia, and Shirelle, along with mentor Jeanette, are gathering great advice on sexual assault for our Dear D column. If you have any questions about sexual assault, we want to hear them – email us at teenvoices@teenvoices.com. We won’t use your name or any identifying details. We always love to hear from Teen Voices readers, especially when we have a chance to help them out.

We can’t wait to see all these articles come together!

We’re also excited about this afternoon’s workshop with Boston author Rachel Skerritt. She’s coming to talk to our teen editors about how she got started as a writer, and she’s going to share an excerpt from one of her books and lead the teens in a writing exercise. We can’t wait!

More soon! In the meantime, come visit us at teenvoices.com.

Teen Voices Kicks Off Fall Session

Our Fall journalism mentoring session started this week! First up, our fabulous new and returning teen editors spent a full week getting to know all about Teen Voices magazine and what we do here. They toured the office, had some snacks and took part in a few serious discussions. Don’t get the wrong impression—there was definitely a ton of laughter too! The girls had a blast getting to know each other through icebreaker activities like Two Truths and a Lie (where girls guessed which of three statements about one another was false) and Diversity Bingo (where girls had to find and check off when they met someone who was not born in the USA, someone whose parents are two different ethnicities, etc.).  They also got to know program director Saun Green, and are starting a series of Friday afternoon workshops. This week’s was about job readiness, interviewing skills, and how to be a successful employee.

The teen editors met with Jessica, Teen Voices’ editor and publisher, to learn about some editing and writing ground rules, and about picking a great topic for their articles! We talked about their goals for their time at Teen Voices – they’re all psyched to improve their writing skills, to expand their horizons, and to learn about the magazine world. We worked with the girls to find out their interests, and they’ve all picked the sections of the magazine that they want to work on. Next up, Saun and Jessica will match each teen editor with a mentor, and they’ll get started on eleven weeks of brainstorming, researching, interviewing, writing, and editing their articles!

Speaking of mentors, we’re so excited for them to start on Monday! Jessica ran a weekend of training with this great group of college women earlier in October; they can’t wait to work with the teens on creating great content for our online and print magazines.

We can’t wait to see what the teen editors come up with during our fall session. Check back here for more news on what the girls are up to, and visit teenvoices.com for new monthly content by, for, and about young women!

AmeriCorps Comes to Teen Voices!

This year, Teen Voices has four AmeriCorps VISTA volunteers – and we want to introduce you!  VISTA members serve full-time for a year at a nonprofit organization or local government agency, working to fight illiteracy,  create businesses, strengthen community groups, and much more.

Dana

Dana is the Special Projects Coordinator for Teen Voices, so she is responsible for various research tasks and administrative work and also helps out Jenny, our Executive Director. Dana is excited to  meet new people, get to know her VISTA co-workers better, admire Boston, and work at Teen Voices!

Caroline

Caroline chose to serve in AmeriCorps as a way of paying forward the  generosity she has received from many people in her life. She says the best part of her job as Development Coordinator is knowing that she is making a difference. Caroline wishes she had known about Teen Voices growing up, and  is so excited to meet the girls in the program!

Laura

Laura is the Marketing and Communications Coordinator at Teen Voices. Her favorite part about her job is spreading the word about Teen Voices, through Twitter, conferences, or this blog! This year, she is most excited about meeting the girls and seeing the program in action.  She’ll keep you updated on all the great things we do in future blog posts.

Emily

Emily is the Program and Volunteer Coordinator at Teen Voices, and she says the best part of her job is being able to interact with the amazing teens in the program! This year, Emily  is most excited to meet the new teen editors, to attend our Poetically Speaking event in November, and to learn as much as she can!

VISTAs Caroline, Emily, and Laura being silly on the Teen Voices staff retreat.