Status of Women committee  It's funny because we regulate all sorts of things. We regulate cigarette boxes. I don't see why we can't regulate that kind of imagery. There is an argument to be made that it's a deceptive trade practice because there are some wonderful educational videos on the Internet where

Status of Women committee  I suppose what I heard from the girls is that there's a very narrow kind of femininity that they're supposed to emulate online. It's very white even if you're not white. We know there are rising rates of plastic surgery among Asian Canadians, or Asians as a whole actually, to hav

Status of Women committee  I've got two quick thoughts, and I know that we don't have a lot of time. One is that, yes, that happens. The girl who starred in the The Hunger Games,what's her name? Do you know who I mean?

Status of Women committee  Yes, Jennifer Lawrence, was closer to real body weight. Kate Winslet was closer to body weight. And yet both of those actresses have lost a heck of a lot of weight over the 10 years. They're trying to say, look, I don't believe in dieting, I'm not going to lose 40 pounds, I look

Status of Women committee  My response to the question of whether these sites are risky is that when you sit down with kids and ask them that question, they go, “But look around you. It's everywhere. It's not just online. It's in movies, it's in TV, it's in the ads when I walk through Bayshore.” It's every

Status of Women committee  I'm talking about 11-year-olds to 17-year-olds. They will articulate that quite clearly. My project is focused on social media, but at the same time I think it's important to recognize that social media provides a snapshot of teen life that we wouldn't necessarily be able to see

Status of Women committee  Yes, I think there are some best practices and some sites that are particularly useful. Certainly some campaigns have been started by young women to push back against this. One thing we see through social media is that it becomes a snapshot to see the kinds of responses they enco

Status of Women committee  I would just add that we have a Canadian centre of excellence that excels at this type of outreach and education, and that's MediaSmarts. It's one of the largest media literacy and digital literacy organizations in the world. They have phenomenal education initiatives that are ge