SCORE one for girl power. A 14-year-old
US ballet dancer has taken on a major magazine over its distortion of female body shapes, and won.
The young activist, Julia Bluhm, led a crusade against altered photos in
Seventeen magazine now has a promise from top editor Ann Shoket to leave body shapes alone, reserving Photoshop for the stray hair, clothing wrinkle, errant bra strap or zit.
And when Shoket or her staff do manipulate images, she vowed in the August issue, they'll post before and after shots on the magazine's
Tumblr page for full transparency.
Shoket's promises are included in a "body peace treaty" that also commits the magazine to always feature healthy girls and models regardless of clothing size.
"I didn't think it would get this big. It's a really great surprise for me," Julia said in celebration.
Julia and her mother, Mary Beiter, sat down with Shoket in
New York in early May to discuss the thousands of signatures on the
Waterville girl's online petition at Change.org. Julia declared victory after Shoket's announcement, ending with more than 84,000 signatures.
Now, two of her fellow bloggers from SPARK Summit, a group of girls and young women trying to end the sexualisation of girls in the media, are targeting
Teen Vogue to make the same commitment. They've collected more than 15,000 signatures since Tuesday...
