Men Can Stop Rape’s new College Bystander Intervention campaign.
Actual good anti rape campaign posters! They don’t shame victims, they ask people to examine their own actions and inactions and protect their friends. And not in a gross excuse for chivalry either, just as people keeping people safe.
I like this.
(via hiohmegan)
This is the essay that inspired this blog. These are my experiences, which are mine alone. I hope you enjoy this. Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive.
The library bookshelves towered over me as I wandered indiscriminately, searching for the book I would report on for class. I…
From the article: Social Hygiene and the Gender of Health in 1922
In 1922 the American Social Hygiene Association, funded by the American Public Health Service, created a social marketing campaign aimed at American teenagers. While it was predominantly about sexually transmitted infections, it also taught about good health and hygiene in general. And maintaining health, then as now, is not only about health but also about conforming to social norms–especially gender norms.
Comparing the boys and girls’ posters, you can see that fitness is not just about physical health; it is also about particular character traits. For boys, those traits are will power, courage, and self-control–traits that are based on a puritan work ethic that we value in a competitive capitalist society.
While courage and endurance were important for both boys and girls, fitness for girls was less about power and self-control, and more about grace, beauty, and friendship.
Men were taught how to grow up to be honorable husbands and fathers, while women were taught how to grow up to be good wives and mothers.
It may be tempting to think that we know more now than we did back then and that with progress we make fewer mistakes today than they did in the past. However, controversy surrounding many health topics such as obesity, circumcision, and the way we screen, treat, and fundraise for breast cancer should tell you that we still have many assumptions behind our health recommendations that are based on ideology.
