[Wamvan] Miss Representation highlights youth efforts to fight sexism in the media

[Lindsay Miles]

Hi WAM!ers,

For those interesting in continuing the conversation around the film Miss
Representation, see the link or article below for a highly positive
review including quotes from Laura at West Coast LEAF and Angela at BWSS.

Cheers,
Lindsay

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/culture/film/2011/10/24/miss-representation-highlights-youth-efforts-fight-sexism-media

*Miss Representation highlights youth efforts to fight sexism in the media*

I recently had the pleasure of attending Jennifer
Siebel<http://www.jennifersiebel.com/bio.htm>’s
*Miss Representation <http://missrepresentation.org/> *at the Vancouver
International Film Festival.
<http://www.vancouverobserver.com/blogs/newmovies/2011/09/28/films-see-viff-days-1-2>
*Miss Representation *explores the  under-representation of women in
influential positions and how the mainstream media isn’t fulfilling their
role at providing positive images of females. Instead, the disparaging
images that we often see -- including over-sexualization or violence against
women -- contribute to the exclusion of women from powerful positions in
society.

In the film, Siebel details her own struggles with self-acceptance and
expressed hopes for her daughter to live in a world where her appearance is
not a determinant of her self-worth. The film highlighted 30 young people
attending a conference hosted by Siebel and several Californian
businesswomen. For Laura Track, the legal director of West Coast
LEAF<http://www.westcoastleaf.org/>,
the most outstanding part of the film was seeing the thoughtful and engaged
young women and men thinking critically about the stereotypes perpetuated by
media.

*Screenshot from Miss Representation*

The young women and men in the media each rejected the way in which media
dictates how they should look and behave. The youth were also key to my
enjoyment of the film, as their fresh insight was reflected in comments
addressing the blatant lack of appreciation for women intellectuals when the
body is valued more than the brain.

The political undertones in *Miss Representation* were a major point of
interest in the film. While women comprise 51 per cent of the population in
America, they only comprise a meager 17 per cent of the US Congress. Even
women like Hilary Clinton and Sarah Palin, who were front-runners in the
2008 Presidential race, faced a barrage of sexist comments in the press. At
one point of the movie, a commentator is asked what it would be like to have
a female president, and he responds:

"You mean besides the PMS and the mood-swings?"

“I found that I agreed with the women represented in the film, regardless of
their political affiliation,” stated Angela Marie
MacDougall<http://endingviolence.tumblr.com/>,
the executive director of Battered Women’s Support Services.

In Canada, the situation for women mirrors that of the U.S. People are
obviously affected by American media, and there is no doubt that the issues
in the film are applicable everywhere. One minor shortcoming of the film was
that it violence against women was under-represented. As MacDougall stated,
“If the media is playing a role in the violence in women’s lives, we have to
connect those dots as well”.

Everyone should see this film.  *Miss Representation has *screenings around
the country and these are listed on the official website at
missrepresentation.org. “Women have made some important gains in recent
decades, but this film was a wake-up call”, said Track. “We still have a
long way to go towards equal political representation and decision-making
power”
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