This is MY view from the panel. I don’t know if there is a picture of me on the panel.

So I had my big BlogHer08 speaking panel, Mirrors: Ours, The Media’s, Our Cultures’ and Our Kids’ speaking panel yesterday and it was a rush.

The panelists were Laurie Toby Edison of Body Impolitic, Tracee Sioux of Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me, Kelly Wickham of Mocha Momma, and Glennia Campbell of The Silent I (also Mom-o-crats and Kimchi Mamas).

Laurie Toby published the transcript on her blog and I’d love if you would hop over and read it. I think it went really, really well.

Audience member: My husband is judging her clothing choices. I think that she’s a little girl, and I think little girls get to wear shorts. I don’t think little girls should be wearing a habit in the summer time when she’s hot. He has this way of messaging to her that that’s not okay, and I am very defensive of her right to be a little girl, and I don’t want her to be ashamed. “You’re a little girl, and you get to just be a little girl.” My husband and I go round and round about that.

Tracee: I have that same issue with my husband. We’ve been to therapy about some girl issues. We have to realize that their job is to protect little girls, but we as mothers sort of have to teach them … There’s this idea in society that if a girl covers up, nothing bad will happen to her, and that’s just plain fiction. Husbands want to do something, fathers want to do something, and we have to teach them. I don’t want her to wear the midriff not because I’m afraid of sexual predators but because I’m afraid you will judge me as a mother.

Truly, I had the best time. It was so encouraging to see how many women are thinking about the complex world our daughters live in and how best to approach the building/moulding of their selves.

Post from: Blisstree

Mirrors: Ours, The Media’s, Our Cultures’ and Our Kids’

Laurie Toby Edison of Body Impolitic asked me to guest blog. I submitted Body Image: No Name Calling about how I try to teach Ainsley that the habit of self-deprecation is wrong and carries a real cost to the self-esteem.

Thanks to Laurie for the opportunity. Laurie will be sitting on the BlogHer panel about body image with me in San Francisco in July.

Please stop by and read it while I decompress from my political trip and spend extra time with my kids – they missed me.

There’s another reason to leave the kids every once in a while – you can’t beat the experience of seeing them run towards you with pure joy to see you. Who else is that happy when they see me? You miss that experience you never leave home.

Post from: Blisstree

Body Impolitic

I can’t tell you how often I hear women criticize their own breasts.

I often hear, I just want “normal” breasts. The owner of the breasts has generally stood before a mirror and compared her own image to the images she sees on television, in movies, in magazines and on the Internet.

But, those aren’t NORMAL breasts. Those usually aren’t even REAL breasts.

I once dated a guy who lived in LA. I was astounded and shocked that he believed those LA girls were born with those DDs. He would even argue that 5 foot tall Asian women we would see at a club had been genetically blessed with those DDs.

Give me a break! I would tell him. Living in LA has distorted your idea of what real women look like.

In the past 10 years, with the increase in plastic surgery and the invention of Photoshop there has been a dramatic increase in unrealistic images of breasts plastered all over commercials, television, movies, magazines and the Internet. I think most people now have a distorted idea of what real women’s breasts look like.

Enter the radical and brilliant Normal Breasts Gallery, where real women have posted anonymous images of their own breasts.

Have you seen pictures of normal non-sexual breasts? the Female Intelligence Agency who started 007b.com asks? It’s a valid question.

Along with the Normal Breasts Gallery they also sell a book, Female Breats: The Taboo – The Purpose and advocate reclaiming the breasts for nursing babies (gasp … even in public).

It’s wildly refreshing to see what God and Mother Nature made women to look like.

It’s very satisfying to see real women stand up and declare “This is who I am,” and talk about how they feel about their own mirror image.

Image Source: www.007b.com

Post from: Blisstree

Normal Breasts Gallery