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

[Fiona York]

Thanks for circulating this - it was written by an intern at West Coast LEAF
(where I am the communications director) and we coordinated the
collaboration with BWSS.

Fiona

On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 5:34 PM, Lindsay Miles <lindskmiles at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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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>
>
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