"You're fat."

"You should dye your hair blonde."

"You need more makeup."

"You need a boyfriend."

These are just a few messages directed at teen-age girls through the media. But participants in Girls Get the Message, a pilot program at Girls Inc., are learning to ignore them.

Y-Press interviewed two groups of girls who participated in the program, which examines media portrayals of women and the messages they contain. Jaree Goodwin, 15; Amanda Maderic, 15, and their director, Meaghan Nichols, were interviewed by phone from Schenectady, N.Y. Stacie Fox-Edwards, 11; Verena Vogel, 11; Haley Vogel, 9, and Kelly Richardson, 14, were interviewed at Girls Inc.'s Fountain Square office in Indianapolis.

The New York girls were in the program for more than 10 weeks; the Indianapolis girls were involved for about three weeks.

The girls already knew something about media messages but signed up because they liked the teacher and "it was a new program," said Stacie. They also liked the topic. "We learned about what stereotypes were, and I like to learn about stereotypes, so I kept going," Haley said.

The program looks at magazines, TV programs, movies and advertisements and examined the ways females are represented.

"We did music videos and how the words and the music do not explain what's being shown in the video. Like you've got girls dancing around in the video, but the music's about something completely different," Nichols said.

Once they examined some music they listen to, the girls discovered that the lyrics weren't exactly what they want to hear. "I never knew about how the music could fool you by making those videos and having you singing the songs, buying the music, but once you know what they're really saying, it's different, and sometimes you don't want to buy it anymore," Amanda said.

The girls also looked at the way people are portrayed in magazines and movies. "(We'd) point out how they showed girls and how people really are in the world," said Kelly.

For example, one activity was counting the types of people in a movie. "When we looked at the movie, we had to mark how many women and handicapped people and men there were. . . . And there was only about one person handicapped in say 60 women and 20 men," said Haley.

That seemed unfair to the girls. "They need to give different people a chance to be in different shows," Stacie said.

They also looked at their choices in movies. That's when Kelly realized "most movies that I like to watch are about young, blonde, happy-go-lucky rich girls that are like in their teens."

The girls found the same thing in magazines. "They always show young, pretty girls, and they're never any different; they always look the same. . . . They show a lot of blonde girls with big lips and skinny waists, with cute clothes. And that's not what it's all about," Stacie said.

In addition, the girls found some advertisements degrading, such as an Herbal Essence commercial that bothered them. "I don't like that shampoo commercial where they show the girl, 'Ah, ah,' doing all that," said Jaree.

Nichols said they also found accurate portrayals of women. "We did poster boards, one of positive women and one of negative women, and the girls went through magazines and they cut out their idea of positive women, and then their idea of negative women, and then we discussed why they saw the positive, why they saw the negative."

The girls aren't totally influenced by all the images they see. They have their own ideas about beauty and style. "Girls don't have to wear makeup or wear (certain) stuff to look pretty," said Stacie.

They also believe in being themselves. "If you're wearing clothes that you don't like, but other people like, you're just not being yourself ," said Verena.

Haley agreed. "I think it's bad when girls wear like short-cut tops and stuff because they just want to have the men like them. I think we should just be ourselves."

Although they didn't all change what they watched and listened to, they became aware of the messages they could be receiving so they could block them out. "I read Jet and YM and Teen magazine, and I never knew how much girls were just out there, like with little bathing suits on. I never really paid attention to it 'til I started taking the class," Jaree said.

Some of the girls never read magazines that focus solely on youth and beauty. "I read an American Girl series . . . because it does show real live girls and what they do and how they look. They don't show just pretty girls but talented and useful girls," said Stacie.

Some of the girls didn't just learn; they were motivated to try to stop some of the degrading and mean messages. "Recently we have been fighting against a (radio) station being allowed on school buses that is oppressing to women and talking about them in negative ways, and I think we're gonna get that voted off soon," said Kelly.

Members of the Schenectady Girls Inc. -- some of whom appeared on the Today Show to talk about self-esteem and body image -- hope to write letters about some of the images they dislike.

"I'd want to know why are the girls (who are) always on the TV always thin. I'd want to know why do they always have good hair. And you don't ever see a lot of dark people in magazines, like dark-skinned girls," said Jaree.

ASSISTANT EDITORS: Mackenzie Flynn, 18; Becca Wyrick, 15.

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Y-Press is a nonprofit news organization located in The Children's Museum. Stories are researched, reported and written by teams of young people ages 10 to 18. For more information, call 1-317-334-4125 or send an e-mail to ypress@in.net.

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Summer edition: If you want to read more about this topic from a child's perspective, check out www.ypress.org. Y-Press also invites students' response to a poll question and wants your comments about student-written movie and book reviews.