A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
In Australia 25 per cent of our children currently experience bullying and 33 per cent experience an online threat. We see the extreme outcomes of cyber bullying, in cases like the tragic death of Amy "Dolly" Everett, but what exactly are these kids going through? One case I've worked on involved a teenage girl who [...]
A 14-year-old girl from a well-known Northern Territory cattle family who took her own life last week has been remembered by her family as a "kind, caring and beautiful soul" as they launched a social media campaign to raise awareness of bullying and harassment. The family of Amy "Dolly" Everett, who was once the face [...]
Girl Mag Watch Opening Up About Self-Harm: Dolly August 2013 Melinda Tankard Reist As is often the case, I find the most helpful offering for girls in teen girl magazines can be found in the shared experiences of the girls themselves. A passion of mine is opening up safe spaces for girls to talk about [...]
Stamping out bullies, stress and child labour: Dolly May issue gets a tick (mostly) ‘Operation 1 less Bully’ is a four-page case against bullying, featuring personal stories of celebrities who have joined the movement to stop it. Some were bullied, others stood up to bullies, and one recognised she was a bully in the past [...]
I think Dolly may be improving (if only it would drop the model search!) Forty eight pages into Dolly’s April issue and I was beginning to wonder if there was anything worth commenting on. Yes there was a promotion of the Dolly model search, but I’d already gone to town on that in the last [...]
You Only Live Once. Why not change the world? Dolly February 2013 As always, I’m confused about teen girls’ magazines approach to airbrushing and photo-shop (see here for a past example of my confusion). This issue contains an explanation of the ‘Retouch Free Zone’. “DOLLY is all about healthy body image – that’s why we [...]
We give talks at schools about body image and there are always girls in tears. They come up to us afterwards and confide that they compete to see who can eat the least number of calories at lunch. Even those who present as confident reveal they can feel ''like a pig'' for eating an apple [...]
While there appeared to be a more ‘retouch free zones’ in this issue of Dolly (you may recall I said I’d like to see more of these), there also seemed to be even less body diversity. I couldn’t see one girl who didn’t fit the mould. Dolly has so many pages of fashion and shopping [...]
Dolly’s March issue is awash in shopping, fashion and beauty content. There’s a comp to locate “Shopper of the year.” The big story in this month’s issue is the return of the Dolly Model Search after a 10 year hiatus. “You can be the next Miranda Kerr!” girls are told. While Dolly told me [...]
By Melinda Tankard-Reist. For many girls, the magazines they read are their lifestyle bibles. How should they look, dress, act and relate? What's important in life? Who should they look up to? My analysis of the November issues of Girlfriend, Dolly, Girlpower, Disney Girl, Little Angel and the October and November issues of TotalGirl shows [...]
