We are super excited to announce the launch of our latest campaign, together with Miss Representation, LoveSocial, I Am That Girl, and Endangered Bodies: The Keep It Real Challenge!

We were so invigorated by the positive response to SPARK blogger Julia’s petition asking Seventeen Magazine to run one unretouched photo spread per month, but we were disappointed when the magazine essentially said “no.” So now, we’re calling on our community–you!–to create a firestorm of social media telling magazines that we’re not buying their idealized, retouched images any more. We’re telling magazines that we want them to Keep it Real.

Getting on board is easy! First, RSVP to the Facebook event and join a community of people who are pushing back on sexualized, objectified, unrealistic images of girls and women. Then, check out this brilliant toolkit we’ve put together–it contains images, facts, and figures for you to share and help spread the word, plus the Twitter handles of magazines and their editors for you to reach out to. Finally, on the 27th, 28th, and 29th, tweet, blog, and Instagram your heart out! (Don’t have Twitter? Leave your messages on magazines’ Facebook walls! Don’t have Instagram? No big! Send us your photo on Twitter, Facebook, or Flickr.)

What does it mean to Keep it Real? 

Here’s what we think: first of all, “keeping it real” means represent actual authenticity & diversity. Seventeen Magazine claimed to be excelling at both of those things, but as our partners at FAAN Mail and Sisters Action Media will tell you, they’re not exactly pulling it off:

Secondly, keeping it real means appreciating women’s actual bodies, not just digitized, CGI’d versions of them. That means no lightening skin, slimming down waists, tucking in tummies, lengthening legs, or smoothing out armpits and knees to the point that they don’t exist.

Finally, for us, keeping it real means not only knowing that what the media is selling us is harmful, but doing something about it. Refusing to engage with the problem won’t fix it–it’ll just make things worse.

So join us, and send a message to media: