Ria Desai

Surprise: Women in Media are Sexualized and Underemployed

by Ria Desai The Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media’s latest findings are out, and boy, are they looking bleak. There’s nothing like hard data to really hit home about how few women we see in media. The institute analyzed media by breaking the numbers down into three categories: films rated G, PG, and…

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Duke It Out pt. 2: Debating Online Without Losing Your Mind

by Ria Desai Earlier this week, Sariel gave us all some pointers about debating in real life. But what do you do when you’re faced with arguing online? I like to think know just a little about online debating, especially because my first-ever foray into feminist debate was on a online-debating app that someone at…

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Does it make me a bitch to turn him down?

by Ria Desai In the midst of last year’s prom frenzy, as I was pulling my car out of the parking lot and waiting in line to leave, one of my friends popped into my car for a chat. He was irate: “Have you heard about Alex?” Before I got the chance to respond, he…

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Teen Vogue HW #4 + how you can help!

Our fourth Teen Vogue homework assignment comes from SPARK blogger Ria, who analyzed the March 2008 issue of Teen Vogue. Seem kind of in the distant past? NAH–when we met with them, they gave us issues dating back to 2008 to study up on, so we figure this is fair game! Here’s what she found,…

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Why do love triangles need to dominate in kids' TV?

by Ria Desai In my whirlwind journey through the cartoon The Legend of Korra, I found that the show, while exemplary in featuring strong women as its leads – and strong women of color, at that – fails to empower those women. Instead, the female characters, as is all too common in media, fall victim…

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