By Melinda Tankard Reist

Collective Shout is a new grassroots movement mobilising and equipping individuals and groups to target corporations, advertisers, marketers and media which objectify women and sexualise girls to sell products and services.

Most young women don’t like themselves very much. In fact, self-hatred has been described as a right-of-passage for teenage girls. They are suffering unprecedented levels of eating disorders, self-harm, depression, anxiety and low self-esteem. 

One in 100 Australian girls is anorexic, one in ten is bulimic and even eight-year-old girls are being hospitalised with eating disorders. One in four teenage girls wants to have cosmetic surgery. Deliberate self-harm is the number one reason for hospital admission in girls aged 13-19 in Australia.

Research tells us that young women are negatively impacted by messages from media and popular culture which tells them they are only the sum of their body parts; that they have to look thin and sexy and act “hot” to be acceptable. Many are obsessed with their looks and trying to lose weight. 

Research also shows that boys are increasingly affected by these messages;  worried about their looks and whether they are “muscly” enough . They are also affected by messages that teach them that girls are just there for their own pleasure and also by a deluge of violence in media and computer games which moulds their thinking and too often their behaviour.

But not all young men and women are happy with this situation. They have experienced the effects of this toxic culture on themselves and seen the impact on their siblings and friends.

Many want to resist the air headed cult of celebrity and fashion and be valued for their talents and abilities and desire to make a difference in the world, rather than be sucked-in by the cult of celebrity, fashion and body obsession.

Many are choosing to swim against the tide, taking part in movements and groups working to bring about change, engaging in culture-jamming actions, boycotts, new social media, forums, e-zines and other formats to promote alternatives to the current social scripts for how young people should live.

One of the groups which young people are joining is called Collective Shout: for a world free of sexploitation. Collective Shout is a new grassroots movement mobilising and equipping individuals and groups to target corporations, companies, advertisers, marketers and media who objectify women and sexualise girls to sell products.

We’ll be telling them:  if you are going to use the bodies of women and girls to sell your stuff in a way that objectifies, degrades, or exploits, then you’ll be hearing from us.

You will see your advertising on our site – reproduced, taken apart piece by piece to expose its negative messages. We’ll have a graffiti board where budding graffiti artists will ‘re-face’ your billboards and other ads. Thousands of  people will be educated about how dodgy you are and will want to avoid you.

Discussion Questions for teenagers

  1. What are the ways you think the  media (TV, magazines, websites, advertising, music etc)  and popular culture in general (e.g. fashion, celebrity, music industry) objectify women and girls (and men and boys?)
  2. Describe a current advertisement which you think objectifies women and girls. What do you think are the messages this advertisement sends?  How does it make you feel?
  3. How do you feel when you read magazines like Dolly, Girlfriend, Cosmo and Cleo? Do you ever feel good about yourself after reading them, or do you think you need to improve yourself?
  4. If you were a magazine editor, what sort of content would you include to help girls feel better about themselves and challenge stereotypes about how they should look and act?
  5. How would you help a friend who was suffering an eating disorder, self harming, anxiety or depression?

Writer, Melinda Tankard Reist.  Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.