Girls: We need your help! The team behind WONDER WOMEN! THE UNTOLD STORY OF AMERICAN SUPERHEROINES, a 2012 SXSW Film Festival premiere, will host a community event benefitting GENaustin on Sunday, March 11, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Gallery Black Lagoon, 4301 Guadalupe Street, Austin, 78751. And we’re having an art contest! Want to [...]

The Women’s Media Center released their annual report about the representation of women in the media, and the news is not good. In nearly every category, both in being convered and creating the coverage, women are massively underrepresented.

It is a well known, (if often unacknowledged) fact that in our society there still exists a significant gap in the number of women compared to men in the fields of science and math, and that women still lag in leadership positions, holding only 5% of top corporate positions and a minority of positions in elected legislatures (just 16% in the USA).

What is to account for this difference? Not ability.

Georgia’s controversial ad campaign against childhood obesity raises the question: what kind of advertising is actually helpful in encouraging not only healthy self-esteem, but healthy kids, both physically and mentally? Do we really think that in a society that covets thinness, promotes thinness, and defines beauty in very specific (thin) terms, that overweight kids don’t already realize they are overweight? Children as young as four have been diagnosed with disordered eating because they think they’re not thin enough. 

GENaustin would like to extend a thank you to all of our volunteers over the last year for their committment to empowering girls. To celebrate their work we’re highlighting the experiences of two of our extraordinary volunteers, who were kind enough to share some of their favorite things about working with girls over the last semester.

Liz Garcia  and Gabriella Laurel serve as workshop volunteers for GENaustin’s Girl Talk workshops for Middle and High School girls, covering topics like Abuse vs. Respect , The Media & Me and Communication With Parents.

In No Particular Order, GENaustin’s (Possibly Biased, Definitely Subjective) Top 10 Picks of 2011.

Hilary Clinton: The former first lady, former Senator, and current secretary of state is a model of lifelong service to country. According to Newsweek, two years into her tenure as America’s 67th secretary of state, she has out-traveled every one of her predecessors, with 465,000 air miles and 79 countries already behind her. One of the central goals of her tenure as Secretary of State has been the empowerment and welfare of women across the world. “I believe that the rights of women and girls is the unfinished business of the 21st century.”

New findings on the development of the teenage brain are changing what we know about how young people process information and perceive the world around them. This knowledge has potential implications for the way parents interact with their teens and guide them through the challenges of adolescence. To find out more, GENaustin talked to Barb Steinberg, LMSW, a clinical social worker & teen life coach.

The University of Southern California has just released a study analyzing the Top 100 Grossing Movies in 2009, and their findings reveal that significant gender inequality still exists both onscreen and off.