Month: April 2019

Advocating for body positivity among current and future generations of young women, I hope to partner with The Body Positive to encourage young women, especially those on social media, to embrace their personal, unique features, while encouraging them to limit the comparisons they formulate between themselves and seemingly “perfect” social media influencers and celebrities. Although my advocacy piece dominantly gears towards young women, bound to their insecurities due to social media, The Body Positive targets a larger audience, welcoming anyone seeking resources and programs to heighten their self-confidence and realize their self-worth.

Not only does The Body Positive aim to enrich one’s individuality and promote sufficient self-care, but in doing so, they also hope that their personal development will allow them to be more generous to the world as a result. Promoting these essential values, their detailed, online resources allows individuals to participate in numerous programs, explore different opportunities, and acquire additional information, including professional trainings, online courses, volunteer opportunities, internships, and books. Although their organization fails to mirror hotline services for struggling individuals and there aren’t as many in person programs, their strong online presence allows them to obtain the materials they need to improve their well-being without the stress of exploiting their insecurities to the world.

One prominent advocacy example that The Body Positive created is their “This is Beauty” campaign that publishes videos, photographs, poems, and stories within a gallery to showcase individuals’ personal stories that demonstrates their diverse definitions of beauty. In pursuing this project, they hope that others viewing it will ask themselves, “what is my own beauty?” and realize that everyone has their own varied perceptions of beauty and that the definition is infinite.

Website: https://www.thebodypositive.org/what-we-do

Campaign: http://www.thisisbeauty.org/about

Description: Why are photoshop and social media encouraging an unrealistic body image and increasing insecurity among young women? This opinion editorial addresses a number of tactics in improving self-confidence, simultaneously abolishing the current abuse of photoshop. Read about how you can establish a greater sense of self-confidence while exploring how influential figures today are learning to value their individual uniqueness as well.

Memo:

Currently, feelings of insecurity and anxiety are especially high in young women on social media. Due to the exposure of “perfect” bodies plastered on social media sites as well as celebrities’ use of photoshop, young women today struggle to feel comfortable in their own bodies. Forced to look consistently perfect to match the other females they follow on social media, the immense pressure ensues consequential effects on mental health, leading to high levels of insecurity, anxiety, and depression. Due to these alarming results of desiring perfection, celebrities and others in the entertainment industry have advocated against the use of photoshop in hoping that younger generations would view their own bodies positively.

Participating in the “Keep it Real” challenge, celebrities, Brad Pitt and Kate Winslet, refuse to use photoshop or allow advertisers to publish fixed photos of them. Similarly, photographer, Chuck Close, encourages the challenge of showcasing people’s natural imperfections in the photos he captures.

This issue is presented as an opinion editorial, aimed to offer a more personal perspective on the conflict. Further, because this issue targets celebrities and the common, young women on social media, an opinion editorial can be more easily accessible if published on popular sites. Infused with direct quotes from young women today and the implementation of the organization, “The Body Positive,” readers of the editorial will feel more comfortable reading about the prevalence of poor body image, devoid of the distraction of excessive facts and statistics. Likewise, because all people suffering from this type of insecurity experience different levels of it, statistics are insignificant in helping one realize their self-worth. Therefore, perhaps they will be more willing to change their perspective on how they not only view their own bodies but how they encourage others to do the same due to the personal aspects of the piece and the resources from The Body Positive. For instance, I deliberately wrote about Brad Pitt and Kate Winslet in order to connect the audience to high-profile people that condemn the use of photoshop. Due to their influence on a big audience, readers are given the chance to mirror their ideals and recognize that even popular people in society don’t wish to be perfect.

I hope to partner with The Body Positive to give young women the opportunity to optimize their resources in guiding them to an improved outlook on their self-worth and their vast, unique abilities and features. The Body Positive is an effective organization in addressing the importance of self-confidence and body positivity and is easily accessible. Due to their online presence, there are innumerable resources and programs offered to those who seek them including professional trainings, online courses, volunteer opportunities, internships, and even books. Not only is a strong, online foundation a sufficient way to acquire resources, but due to the gravity of the issue and the sensitivity of body image, being online allows women to seek help without exposing their insecurity to others.

 

• Topic:

In the 19th century, prisons were built in hoping to incarcerate criminals that deserved long-term punishment for inhumane acts and violating the norms of society. Further, the establishment of prisons manifested in the idea that their function would be an effective deterrent to crime. Prominent criminologists and philosophers worked to unearth the psychology and central reasons behind committing crime, in addition to tactics that alter the crime-motivated mind from functioning the way it does. As a result, prisons were created to threaten motivated offenders by punishment, hoping to discourage their criminal tendencies. In fact, Cesare Beccaria, one of the most influential thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment, believed that the certainty of punishment was more effective than the severity of punishment– with an effectively working criminal justice system, criminals would be less motivated to commit acts of crime.

Today, modern criminologists have concluded that prisons are not an effective deterrent to crime; criminals are actually more likely to reoffend after serving their prison sentence. Not only is this problem extremely significant as it counteracts the fundamental functioning of prisons, but overcrowding of prisons increases the likelihood of reoffending and mental illness due to extremely poor conditions. The number of prisons exceeding prison capacity is occurring in a least 115 countries and only continues to grow without reform. This issue results in lack of privacy, poor healthcare, and food, thus resulting in an increase in violence, mental illness, and suicide. Although prisons fail to provide luxuries to prisoners as many commit heinous crimes, however, overcrowding also presents the issue of cruel and unusual punishment and it affects less horrendous offenders to the same degree.

Due to the issue being that of the criminal justice system rather than the nature of crime increasing, there are policies that can be implemented to incite changes to the system. For instance, lowering prison sentences for drug offenders, giving judges more discretion during trial, assess misdemeanors or well-behaved inmates for chance of reoffending and establish programs that can help them return to society without threat.

• Hook:

Because prisons have already failed to be an effective deterrent to reoffending, today’s issue of prison overcrowding not only increases the likelihood of reoffending, but it makes offenders more violent to others and themselves.

• Working thesis:

Although the establishment of prisons isolate violent criminals from society, prohibiting their threat to society, it is essential for policy alterations in the criminal justice system to keep less violent offenders doing the same time as threatening ones, implementation of new laws to ensure that sentencing is fair, and the abolishing of current laws including truth in sentencing which establishes a minimum and maximum sentence and requires a substantial part of it to be fulfilled before possibility of parole.

• Policy:
  • Criminal justice policy makers at local and state levels of government
  • Congress
  • United states department of justice
  • National institute of corrections