"Worry about the size of your heart, not the size of your body." This is one of many  affirming messages greeting girls and women from a rather unexpected place...  dressing room mirrors.

Teenage girls have been designing and posting these colorful little cards as part of a  subtle, yet powerful movement called The Dressing Room Project.

The Dressing Room Project is the brainchild of Mimi Kates, founder and director of Emerging Women Projects, a non profit organization for teen girls' empowerment.  Kates, a singer/songwriter and educator, worked with a small group of teens in Montpelier, Vermont to launch the project back in 2000 as a local initiative for social change.  "We were concerned about how the media manipulates women to feel inadequate,"  says Kates. "We also noticed that eating disorders and depression were becoming  distressingly common in adolescent girls. The girls and I felt we needed to take some positive action to counteract these negative effects."

Since its humble beginnings, this "girl-powered rebellion to free girls and women from the bonds of media-imposed standards of beauty", has grown to include thousands with national exposure through Kates' traveling Dressing Room Project workshop as well as feature articles in publications like Lilith Magazine. In January of 2007, the debut of the project's web site finally introduced the movement to the global community.

One of the first card designers, Katherine Bittner, shares her enthusiasm about the  growth of the project emphasizing that, "It's very important for girls and women to stop letting themselves be degraded by society's beauty standards."

Dr Mary Pipher, critically acclaimed author of "Reviving Ophelia - Saving the Selves of  Adolescent Girls" calls The Dressing Room Project "revolutionary". She says it is "an  inspired idea that could change the ways girls   think about themselves when they look in the mirror."

Free cards and materials are available via the project's web site where people can print Dressing Room Project cards, send Ecards, shop for DRP gifts and register to form Action Teams in their own communities.

Join the rebellion! For more information please visit
www.thedressingroomproject.org