Two girl crusaders who staged a mock red carpet show against TeenVogue said their meeting with the magazine's top editor was brief and chilly.
The two met with Editor in Chief Amy Astley for less than five minutes Wednesday,when they delivered a petition bearing more than 28,000 signatures after theirTimes Square protest near the offices of the magazine.
Astley did not talk to Emma Stydahar, 17, or Carina Cruz, 16, about theirrequest for Teen Vogue to declare in its pages that it doesn't digitallymanipulate images. Instead, the girls were given copies of Teen Vogue and toldto use them to learn more about the magazine.
"It was kind of shocking how rude they were to us," Carina said in astatement released by their all-girl activist group, SPARK Movement.
The tone was in contrast to a friendly and much longer chat a 14-year-oldcounterpart, Julia Bluhm, had in May with Seventeen's top editor, Ann Shoket,after she led a mock photo shoot and presented Shoket with a petition makingsimilar requests.
Shoket then promised in the August issue of Seventeen not to alter body shapesin photographs. Emma and Carina had been hoping for the same result.
"We assumed Teen Vogue would also want to hear what their readers thinkand do everything they can to help girls feel better about themselves and theirbodies," Carina said. "Instead, they sat with us for five minutes andtold us to do our homework."
Teen Vogue has a circulation of about 1 million, reaching teens and tweens asyoung as 10.
"We are always open to readers' feedback and were receptive to meetingwith Emma and Carina to give them an opportunity to discuss theirconcerns," the magazine said in a statement Thursday, a day after sayingit makes a "conscious and continuous effort to promote a positive bodyimage among our readers."
The magazine added that "we feature dozens of non-models and readers everyyear and do not retouch them to alter their body size. We will continue to showreal girls on the pages of our magazine."
Emma and Carina want Teen Vogue to put that in writing for all readers to seeas Shoket did in Seventeen, and to feature "diverse images of real girlsand healthy models."