if you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change.
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Strangers with the same blood
Silently and simultaneously struggling in separate silos
Same home, secret livesJust speak up
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Let me take this moment to passive/aggressively say I disagree with your choice. You prioritize your vanity over your opportunity? A rare, and highly coveted opportunity that people risk so much for. All for the benefit of marginally improving your already beautiful outward appearance?
Can I remind you of one of the current hot topics across the country? You are privileged. Please help me to understand your choice to delay your status.
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Negotiating my ideas of freedom of expression. I know music is expressive and photos are art, but at what expense? I hesitate to infringe on your “rights,” but what about the young girls and boys growing up around mass/social media that teaches them that a nice ass is what they need to strive for? You perpetuate this idea that a woman is nothing more than her body and that a man should not learn to love her for who she is.
This doesn’t just result with a young woman focused on her physical flaws; it affects her mentally and socially. She becomes blind to her real value and self-worth. It influences her to resign to the idea that her body is the only thing she has to offer the world.
It also results in a young man learning to disrespect women, to think it’s okay to objectify women, to be blind to the reality of what he is doing. It creates unrealistic images in his mind of what beauty is and who he should aim to find. He learns to dismiss a great girl “unless she got buns.” Yes, I get that people seek out attractive people, but how often do people realize that those definitions of attractive are just constructed by their environment?
Maybe I should go back to being dormant on tumblr. I’ll have more ammo to fight for our future unborn daughters when I get my public health perspective.
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Competition has been part of our existence since many of us Pinays were born. Because our parents pushed us to be the prettiest, the smartest, the most virginal, the fairest skinned, and the most accomplished, we have internalized their ideals as reasons to compete.
– Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, Pinayism -
wag mong sasabihin
Don’t tell her she’s beautiful.
She’ll focus on her make up, clothes, and body.Don’t tell her she’s smart.
She’ll push to get the right answers whether or not she learns to learn.Don’t tell her she’s kind.
She’ll try to make everyone else happy but herself.Tell her she has the power to change the world, however she chooses.
Watch her bring out the beauty of life through fashion, art, or food.
Watch her become a scholar, educating herself and her community.
Watch her inspire kindness through her actions.
Watch her become empowered.
Watch her love herself.
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/present Voice: Sadia Arshad
Every month, we feature a different member of our blog team as a /present Voice to formally recognize their commitment to the blog and the value of his/her voice.
We are so excited to introduce Sadia Arshad, our /present Voice for April 2013. Sadia has not only been impressively active in the Gates Scholar community, she’s also gone above and beyond expectation as a blogger for re/present. So here’s Sadia, an empowered woman who means it when she says she is “striving for change by helping others in need” —
Tell us about yourself.
My name is Sadia Arshad, and I am a second-year student at Boston University, studying psychology and public health. Exposed to several cultures in addition to my own as a kid, I never felt my ethnic identity as face-to-face as I do in Boston. From this, my decision to pursue graduate school in public health emerged in my interests to help reduce health disparities in women’s health and mental health for women of color and Muslim women, in addition to understanding society’s expectations and stereotypes of people of color.Source: apiasfrepresent
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I’m dangerous.
I have an unhealthy tendency to want to be right and to keep pushing on an issue until I’ve been proven otherwise or—lately—until I understand where the other party is coming from.
How do you let go of convictions?
It’s not always a pride thing. It’s a ‘this is how I see it, why can’t you?’ thing.
In high school, we had to read 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. One of the habits was to seek first to understand then to be understood. X years later, I’m still trying to learn that one.
In a culture/society/family where being correct/right/accurate is so important/ingrained as a value, how do you just let it go? How do you see the bigger picture and just let things be?
My anal retentive nature gets rewarded at work. Detail oriented is thought to be a good trait. Once it finds itself out of the workplace and into the personal realm, I find it nearly impossible to turn off.
Help me…
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Elevator
Hi. My name is Erin Manalo. I’m interested in developing multi-level interventions for second-generation Filipin@ Americans that promote positive self-image and healthy relationships. I bring my passion for the community, years of consulting, and personal experience to the table.
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The power of image…
From buzzfeed:
Source: buzzfeed
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A version for tumblr that can be read without opening a new tab, since plenty of people would scroll past this story otherwise.
(via ishnamedkarl)
Source: sigfodr
