Salon.com > Sara Libby

Is Forever 21 glamorizing teen pregnancy?

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:01:00 +0000

I recently marveled at the sheer ginormousness of the Forever 21 store that opened in downtown Washington D.C. this weekend. Occupying a former multi-level furniture store space, it is a far cry from the tiny mall outposts that used to comprise the chain. But, thanks to Forever 21's ability to feed teens' insatiable appetite for "fast fashion" -- pieces that replicate the most up-to-the-minute trends at prices (and quality) so low that they’re usually worn only a few times and discarded -- the chain has snowballed into a $2 billion brand that legitimately competes with behemoths like H&M.

Despite all of that success, Forever 21 is still looking to appeal to even more girls. Having already reached out to plus-sized customers with the launch of its Faith 21 line last year, the chain has unveiled a new effort aimed at the temporarily plus-sized, i.e., expectant mothers. Given that the store as a whole targets tweens and teens, dedicating a portion of the store to maternity clothes is understandably causing a stir. On top of that, there is the fact that the maternity line is premiering in five states, three of which carry the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country.

The other female victor in Carolina

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 19:59:00 +0000

Since South Carolina Republican Nikki Haley's runoff win last night is splashed across front pages across the country, it might surprise people to learn that another Carolina lady also declared victory Tuesday: North Carolina Senate candidate Elaine Marshall beat Cal Cunningham to become the Democrats' nominee to take on incumbent Sen. Richard Burr.

Haley's win fits nicely within the main narrative the media has chosen for this election season: the triumph of the "mama grizzly" candidate -- the conservative women, almost all of whom are backed by Sarah Palin, who have triumphed in contests around the country.

But Marshall, currently the North Carolina secretary of state, is no mama grizzly. In fact, she's more progressive than even Cunningham, the handsome establishment candidate who was hand-picked for the race by the leaders of the national Democratic Party. In this way, Marshall is a sort-of anti-Blanche Lincoln, the moderate Arkansas Democrat who Obama and company supported despite her having thwarted parts of the president's agenda -- particularly the public option in the health care bill.

All (abortion) politics is local

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 20:35:00 +0000

In the teen pregnancy tale "Juno," it only took a mention of her baby's potential fingernails and an oversharing clinic receptionist to turn the title character off of what she admitted was a "hasty abortion." In the real world, however, several states have recently passed measures making the scare tactics in "Juno" seem as trivial and clinical as a blood-pressure check, as the New York Times points out today.

Nebraska and Oklahoma have laws dueling for perhaps the most invasive and insulting assaults on a woman's right to exercise agency over her own body, as Broadsheet has previously reported. The Nebraska law criminalizes abortion at 20 weeks -- a measure justified by the belief that fetuses can at that point feel pain, an idea without scientific evidence to back it up. A separate provision requires women to get a mental health screening before the procedure. Oklahoma's recent laws are arguably even worse: One lets doctors willingly withhold information about fetal birth defects, and prevents women from suing providers who conceal such details, and the other requires a woman to view an ultrasound while having various features of the fetus explained to her.

From makeovers to makeunders

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:01:00 +0000

Once women's magazines have found a successful gimmick, count on them to stick with it. Recently, they seem to have found two, albeit ones whose messages completely conflict with each other.

The first: Girl-zines' penchant for making over "regular" women who become stars. That includes anyone who doesn't fit the mold that the publications themselves have created of females who are ultra-thin, creamy-skinned, young and beautiful. Call it the Susan Boyle Treatment. Harper's Bazaar took the famously frumpy British singer, and bestowed on her many appearance upgrades when it featured her in its pages. Ditto for Precious star Gabourey Sidibe.

What about the next great female pundit?

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 11:01:00 +0000

Late last week, Politico's Michael Calderone fretted over the fact that so many young, wonder-boy pundits were climbing to the top of elite publications like the Washington Post and the New York Times. In parsing whether journalists like Ezra Klein, Andrew Ross Sorkin and Chris Cillizza were "prodigies" or "pipsqueaks," Calderone spent most of his time fretting over things like Klein, at 25, having his own assistant (how dare someone who writes for the Washington Post and Newsweek, and who makes almost-nightly appearances on shows like "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" and "The Rachel Maddow Show" have an underling!).

What bothered me about Calderone's ranting wasn't so much whether any of these young men deserved to break into these famously stodgy, old-school institutions -- I find all their work refreshing and valuable; Cillzza, especially, is an incredibly tenacious reporter -- but that they were simply younger versions of what has long been an old boys club. Is it really that much of a surprise that pages typically populated with old, white men are now also occasionally featuring young, white men?

Teen pregnancy on the decline?

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 12:01:00 +0000

New figures from the National Center for Health Statistics indicate that teen birth rates are dropping -- welcome news that seemingly reverses the increase in teen pregnancies that took place between 2005 and 2007. The latest numbers, reflecting the period from 2007 to 2008, show a 2 percent drop in births among U.S. girls 15 to 19. Since numbers from 2009 aren't yet available, it's too soon to tell which fluctuation is the anomaly -- and, regardless, a one- or two-year blip in either direction is not enough to signal a full-blown trend (prior to the 2005-2007 spike, however, teen pregnancy rates had been steadily declining for more than a decade). One thing is certain: This development comes at a tense point in the battle over sex education.