Pia Guerrero — Founder and Co-Editor
Pia is a media literacy expert with a focus on body image, race, privilege, and representation. She has designed educational and media literacy workshops around the country for over a decade—directly presenting to hundreds of teachers, youth workers, and young people.
The goal of her work around body image is to raise awareness around young people’s over-identification with rigidly defined gender roles and beauty standards as portrayed in the media—proven to be a major cause of low self-esteem and consequently negative health and educational outcomes in girls and boys.
She is the author of Work of the Mind: Media Studies Curricula for Upper Elementary Age Youth. Commissioned by the Department of Education, this curriculum aims to increase academic achievement and self-awareness through media projects that promote cultural pride, cross-cultural understanding, inclusion, and respect. Some of Pia’s curriculum around body image appears in Body Outlaws: Young Women Write About Body Image and Identity (Seal Press, 2004). Pia’s work has also appeared in such groundbreaking magazines like HUES – Hear Us Emerging Sisters, AfterImage – The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism and Bitch. She currently is a contributor for loveisntenough.com.
Pia is Mexican and American, and splits her time between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Contact: pia@adiosbarbie.com
Sharon Haywood — Co-Editor
Sharon is a freelance writer, editor, and translator originally from Toronto, Canada now living in Argentina. Her educational background consists of undergraduate degrees in Psychology and Exceptionality in Human Learning from the University of Toronto. While living in Toronto, she was a regular guest on the radio program Life Rattle where she orated several of her short stories, many of which addressed body image and violence against women. Upon graduation she devoted her energies to a 15-year career in social work, in roles that included supporting families and individuals with intellectual and physical handicaps, co-facilitating eating disorder support groups, and acting as a literacy assessor and educator for homeless women.
In addition to her role as co-editor of Adios Barbie, she is also a member of the Any-Body team, part of the Endangered Species/Bodies local-global initiative, which challenges the culture that teaches women and girls to hate their own bodies. She contributes articles to Any-Body’s website and also organized Endangered Species in Buenos Aires, one of five international body image summits held in March 2011. She has since established Any-Body Argentina, a grassroots movement part of the Endangered Bodies campaign that focuses on battling sizeism and promoting healthy body image for Argentine girls and women.
The rest of the time you can find her writing articles, essays, and fiction that deal with the subjects of body, self-image, violence against women, and feminism. Sharon currently lives in Buenos Aires with her husband and two cats. Contact: sharon@adiosbarbie.com Twitter: @Sharon_Haywood
Ophira Edut — Founder and Executive Advisor
Ophira co-founded AdiosBarbie.com with Pia Guerrero in 1998. The two friends shared commitment that women of all walks of life feel safe, powerful and free in their bodies. Prior to that, she founded and published HUES (Hear Us Emerging Sisters), an internationally-distributed magazine for women of all cultures, shapes and sizes. HUES was in publication from 1992-97. Ophira is the editor of Body Outlaws, an anthology of stories by multicultural women and men about the journey to love their bodies.
Ophira has been widely featured in the media, including The New York Times, E!,and MTV. She has traveled the country as an advocate for women loving their bodies “through thick and thin,” speaking at colleges and conferences. Her mission is to expand the body image dialogue to include race, class and sexuality, issues that are often overlooked in the conversation.
When she’s not talking body-love, Ophira writes astrology columns for 50 million readers a month. She and her identical twin sister Tali are known as The AstroTwins. Their horoscopes and predictions can be found on MyLifetime.com, Elle.com, SIRIUS/XM and on their website, Astrostyle.com. Contact Ophira by email.
Valerie Kusler — Contributor
Currently a master’s candidate in Social Work at the University of Texas in Austin, Valerie’s background is in writing, public relations, and media. For her graduate internship at a southeast Austin high school, she does one-to-one and group counseling with at-risk youth. Valerie also received her undergraduate degree at UT Austin in Communications with a focus on Radio-TV-Film and Media Studies.
Valerie regularly volunteers with GENaustin (the Girls Empowerment Network), where she leads body image workshops for girls ages 10-18 and promotes GENaustin’s mission to foster healthy self-esteem in girls by engaging them to explore and define their personal values. She has also been a mentor with Big Brothers Big Sisters since 2008.
In November 2010, Valerie participated in the first-ever NEDA Walk (National Eating Disorders Association) in Texas, where she led the highest fund-raising team, “Freedom is Beauty.” When she’s not doing marketing, grad school work, or sleeping, Valerie loves singing, writing/reading/learning about body image issues, and hanging out with family, friends, and her two cats.
Tami Winfrey Harris — Contributor
Tami writes about race, feminism, politics and pop culture at the blog What Tami Said. She is co-editor of Love Isn’t Enough, an anti-racist parenting blog. Her work has also appeared online at The Guardian’s Comment is Free, Newsweek, Change.org, Huffington Post and Racialicious. She is a graduate of the Iowa State University Greenlee School of Journalism. She spends her spare time researching her family history and cultivating a righteous ‘fro.
Ashley-Michelle Papon — Contributor
Ashley-Michelle is a Kansas transplant to California’s North Bay area. From an early age, she developed a keen interest in social activism, particularly where women’s rights are concerned, ultimately choosing a career in journalism and law to establish change in the world. Her articles have appeared in The Kansas City Star, Feministing, and Crooks & Liars, but she cultivated her voice as a feminist commenter through the now-defunct GlobalShift.
A survivor of sexual violence, Ashley-Michelle is a vocal anti-rape activist. She has worked as an organizer for Take Back the Night, and served as the keynote speaker at Emporia State University in 2007. She has also assisted in moderating AfterSilence, a message board dedicated to providing survivors with a virtual support network. She has also volunteered with the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network’s Speakers Bureau, raising awareness and telling her story across college campuses.
Ashley-Michelle’s has been in recovery from an eating disorder since 2008. She is married with a step-son and daughter, Persephone. She has added breastfeeding activism to her collection of interests.
Sayatani DasGupta — Contributor
Sayantani was raised by immigrant activists and grew up during the women’s and anti-violence movements. She’s a parent, a teacher, a writer, and a doctor. Originally trained in pediatrics and public health, she teaches in the Master’s Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University and the Graduate Program in Health Advocacy at Sarah Lawrence College, as well as in Sarah Lawrence’s undergraduate writing program in fiction. Sayantani’s academic work is in the field of feminist health science studies and she speaks nationally on issues of narrative, health care, social justice, race, gender, and medical education. She is the co-author of The Demon Slayers and Other Stories: Bengali Folktales (Interlink, 1995), the author of a memoir about her medical education, Her Own Medicine: A Woman’s Journey from Student to Doctor (Ballantine, 1999), and the co-editor of an award winning collection of women’s illness narratives, Stories of Illness and Healing: Women Write their Bodies (Kent State University Press, 2007). Previously a writer of creative nonfiction, she is currently working on middle grade and young adult children’s novels based on Indian myths and folktales, and spends a lot more time than she should thinking about pop culture. In an ideal world, she would create an Institute for Barbie Studies, where she could critique all things Barbie all the time. You can learn more about her work at her website, her blog, Stories are Good Medicine, or via her eclectic twitter feed, @Sayantani16.
Melanie Klein — Contributor
Melanie Klein is an Associate Faculty member at Santa Monica College, teaching Sociology and Women’s Studies. She attributes feminism and yoga as the two primary influences in her work. She is committed to communal collaboration, raising consciousness, media literacy, facilitating the healing of distorted body images and promoting healthy body relationships. She has worked with the new citizen journalists of the LA Academy of Global Girl Media and the peer-educators of J.A.D.E (Joint Advocates on Disordered Eating) on ways to tap into the power of their own voice. She is an expert contributor in the areas of media literacy and body image issues for Proud2Bme, a newly launched NEDA project. She is the adviser of the Santa Monica College Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance and founder and co-coordinator of WAM! LA. Her work may also be found at Feminist Fatale, Elephant Journal, Ms. Magazine’s blog and WIMN’s Voices. She is featured in the forthcoming book, Conversations with Modern Yogis and the documentary, The American Housewife.
Jennifer Jonassen — Contributor
A performer, dancer, writer, activist, and clown: Jennifer is passionate about utilizing the arts to challenge negative stereotypes about weight and age. Brooklyn-born and raised but now based in Los Angeles, she is also the Arts & Entertainment Editor of Plus Model Magazine where she has interviewed Leonard Nimoy, Martha Wash (The Weather Girls), Lila Lipscomb (Fahrenheit 911), and the Cirque du Soleil’s Botero Sisters.
As an actress and performer, Jennifer has appeared in many independent films including Julian Dahl’s documentary on size discrimination: FAT. Onstage she has tackled everything from Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams. She has been dancing with R.A.I.D. (Random Acts of Irreverent Dance) since 2008 and most recently, has become a member of the Improv Dance Company. Additionally, she can be seen featured as a dancer in many music videos, stage, and circus productions. For more information visit her website: www.jenniferjonassen.com
Quinn Davis — Contributor and Intern
Quinn Davis is a writer living in Ann Arbor, Mich. She was the award-winning editor of The Washtenaw Voice and writes for Damn Arbor, Ann Arbor’s fastest growing blog and Current’s Reader’s Choice winner for Best Local Blog of 2011. She works with JSTOR as a User Services Specialist, and is an alumna of Kalamazoo College where she majored in psychology. She also studied aspects of Thai and Burmese politics, agriculture, language and anthropology as they relate to sustainability in Thailand at the International Sustainable Development Studies Institute.
Davis volunteers with Ann Arbor’s Take Back the Night, where she gives her fellow survivors of sexual assault and their supporters a safe platform to congregate, speak out, fight back and raise awareness. She grew up in Traverse City, Mich., where she first developed an introspective relationship with her body through dance.
Her experiences abroad, as a dancer, as a survivor and simply as a person in society have contributed to her passion toward body acceptance. She is honored to be a part of the Adios Barbie team, and revels in the idea that she might help someone start to love their body – or at least make them laugh.
Sheena Vasani — Contributor and Intern
Sheena’s commitment to promoting positive body image for girls began as a teenager after battling her own self-image issues. Her strong passion for feminism and social justice inspired her to create and lead various student initiatives devoted to empowering women. Although she is originally from India, she was born and raised in California and London, England. Sheena is currently studying for her BA at UC Berkeley and is excited and grateful to be a part of the Adios Barbie team!
