"WAM! It Yourself"

The campus team urges you to check out the Women, Action, and the Media conferences happening across the country this weekend. These "WAM! It Yourself" conferences aim to raise awareness about sexism in media and promote action on gender justice in the media. WAM's vision, and the goal of the conference is to attain, "Gender equity in media access, representation, employment and ownership — and a world in which a just media is considered essential to a just society."

The conference will be led by activists, educators, journalists, and media-makers, giving attendees some insight on why gender justice in the media is so crucial. With technology quickly changing and evolving, media in all its forms has become an important tool for activism, education, and entertainment. The conference will touch on important issues dealing with intersectional identities, body image, beauty, online media, and much much more. The conference will give a second look at the pervading messages media gives us and stress the importance of having a diverse, inclusive, and real representation of gender. Check out this video!

Why Gender Justice in Media Matters from Jaclyn Friedman on Vimeo.

WAM! It Yourself is happening in Los Angeles this weekend at Santa Monica College and the West Coast Campus Team will be tabling at the event on Friday. On Saturday, our colleagues at Ms. magazine are hosting a workshop about feminist online media and giving their reflections on the first year of the Ms. magazine Blog.

The conference will have video presentations, lectures, workshops, a poetry slam, discussions, presentations, and lots of information that will keep your feminist heart beating.

To attend WAM! It Yourself in Los Angeles, be sure to RSVP on the Facebook event page. Be sure to check out the WAM! website and Myspace for more information on other locations.

Normalizing Violence: Have We Gone Too Far??

We're approaching "sweeps week," you know, that lovely week when television shows fight for ratings with extravagant tricks of plot twists, celebrity guest stars, girl-on-girl make-out scenes or musical numbers. Growing up, we've learned that this is to be expected and is "perfectly normal."

As a culture, we've accepted the message that sex/violence sells and may be have even encouraged it with our nation-wide viewing records. I would be a hypocrite if I were to say I've never been sucked into a Law and Order SVU marathon. Ice T and Mariska Hargitay aside, it has felt like these images have gotten worse and worse over the years.

Proving that I'm not an old lady, reinventing the perfection of "when I grew up," a new study by Parents Television Council/Women In Peril shows that we have, in fact, gone WAY too far. Over the past five years, there has been a 120% increase in the television depictions of violence against women and a 400% increase in the number of victimized teens!

While beatings were often the scenario of choice at 29%; stabbings, rape, torture and threats were not too far behind. The study also found that if the character did not consequentially die from the violence (19% of the time,) the graphic consequences were made visually explicit to the viewer (92%) rather than just implied or described (8%.)

Using these themes to lure an audience may be good for the network marketing director, but the effects of such extreme, normalized violence on a person and a culture goes far beyond the time in front of the tube.

Women In Peril describe short-term and long-term effects of viewed violence by saying that:
Short-term exposure increases the likelihood of physically and verbally aggressive behavior, aggressive thoughts, and aggressive emotions. Recent large-scale longitudinal studies provide converging evidence linking frequent exposure to violent media in childhood with aggression later in life, including physical assaults and spouse abuse. Because extremely violent criminal behaviors (e.g., forcible rape, aggravated assault, homicide) are rare, new longitudinal studies with larger samples are needed to estimate accurately how much habitual childhood exposure to media violence increases the risk for extreme violence.

Do you want our generation/the generation below us to become the next set of "data samples" needed for the extreme violence study? I sure don't!

Moral of the story:

Correlation is key: any country that on a whole actively watches young women victimized day-after-day is bound to be negatively effected. Please don't zone out to the tube, numb to what you are watching. Make your friends, family and networks aware that you will not stand for this trend to continue any more!

chart credit: Parents Television Council
photo credit: sternenrauschen on flickr.com

OMG! Breasts on TV!

Don’t get your panties in a twist just yet. We’re not replaying Janet Jackson’s ‘accidental’ over exposure during the Superbowl. WJLA ABC 7 aired a news segment called “Touch of Life” which was aimed at educating women on the importance of self-breast exams and how to do them. Breast Cancer is one of the leading killers among women and ABC 7 has set out to inform women on how to fight it, in a “full frontal” news report.

A portion of the segment was dedicated to instructional footage of a woman, partially nude, doing a self-breast exam. The segment was done “tastefully, very clinically… everything is instructional” according to reporter Gail Pennybacker. However, the news report was not without criticism.

Critics of the news report claim that it is “exploiting women to exploit the audience.” Give me a break! I’m with reporter Julie Parker on this one: ““There’s nothing sexy about this, it’s a self-breast exam.” Other critics find that this was more-or-less an attempt to boost ratings at the beginning of “Sweeps” month, a period when news channels air their most eye catching reports in order to increase ratings and, thus, attract more advertisements. WJLA’s General Manager Bill Lord responded to these comments by saying that “Yes, this is an attention-getting story, but it's also an important story.” (Washington Post)

Important indeed. Surprisingly enough, most women don’t know how to do a self breast exam. In order to effectively educate women, WJLA decided to “bare all.” General Manager Bill Lord said that after consulting with medical experts, WJLA decided that news reports on breast-cancer detection “haven't offered enough detail” to be an effective educational tool.

Health Insurance doesn’t cover routine mammograms until the age of 40 and so for those in their 20s and 30s, self-exams are absolutely vital; breast cancer knows no age. Those who are criticizing WJLA for his report need to take a step back and think about what the message of this report is. This was not a distasteful attempt to increase ratings, it was purely an attempt to educate and inform. I’m proud of ABC 7 for airing this report and realizing how important it is to be educated and truly understand Breast Cancer and how we can prevent it. Furthermore, ABC 7 plans to air the remaining segments of the report; Lord says that “"The public benefits of this will outweigh any criticism."

If you're like most women and do not know how to do a self-breast exam, click here to watch the segment and get educated! Warning, this video contains adult content. View discretion is advised.

Women Held Captive on Turkish "Reality" Show

I know this is a little late, and you've probably heard about it already, but better late than, never, right? Last Monday, nine Turkish women finally left a villa in Istanbul where they had been “filming” what they thought was a reality show, similar to the U.S. show Big Brother. (For those who do not watch a lot of reality TV, the show is just as Orwellian as the name sounds; participants are isolated with only one another as companions and filmed 24/7).

Essentially, the women were held hostage. “Producers” told them that if they wanted to leave the villa and break their contracts they would be fined 50,000 Turkish Lira (equivalent to $33,000 US dollars).

Pictures of the women exercising and posing in bathing suits were posted online through a website that allowed users to vote on their favorite woman and look at pictures of all the women, for a fee. The “producers” claim the women were not forcibly held. Subsequently, eight out of the nine women formally complained they were held against their will.

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I’ve delayed in posting because I struggled with how to form my opinion about this matter. Clearly these women were held against their will, which is unacceptable. But what I grappled with is, why they would sign up to begin with. The mother of one of the women, who declined to be named, is quoted as saying: “ We were not after the money, but we thought our daughter could have the chance of becoming famous if she took part in the contest.” Why does everyone have to be famous? This incident is the perfect example of a larger cultural issue: reality TV and women. A lot has been said about the way women are portrayed in the media (think Hillary’s “cleavage” incident), and the stereotypes we have to wrestle with.

I’ll admit I used to watch the occasional episode of The Hills, but then it really started to bother me. The women/girls were constantly portrayed as back stabbing, selfish, whiny, and promiscuous. Then I began to notice a trend – think about the show Real World- the cast always includes a 'skanky girl,' an 'airhead,' a 'b****,' etc. Like Miranda complains in the Sex In The City movie, “There are only two choices for women- witch or sexy kitten.” Reality shows, at least in my opinion, really seem to perpetuate negative stereotypes of women; it always comes down to either the witch or the kitten. (Ex. Jon & Kate Plus 8, Laguna Beach etc).

In reality, women can be both strong and sexy; the “witch,” the “kitten,” neither, or both. We should be allowed to love our bodies AND flaunt them!

What are your thoughts?

Photocredit: flickr.com/angelravelor

Diane Sawyer to anchor ABC World News

ABC just announced that Diane Sawyer, currently the host of "Good Morning America", will be the new anchor of "World News" when Charles Gibson steps down at the end of this year.

Sawyer's ascension and Katie Couric's place as the anchor of "CBS Evening News" means that 2 of the 3 major networks' news programs are now anchored by women. How amazing that something so novel only a few years ago is now the norm.