Hollaback!

I can’t remember where I heard about Hollaback!, but I checked it out today, and I’m really glad I did.

Hollaback! is a movement dedicated to ending street harassment using mobile technology. Street harassment is one of the most pervasive forms of gender-based violence and one of the least legislated against. Comments from “You’d look good on me” to groping, flashing and assault are a daily, global reality for women and LGBTQ individuals. But it is rarely reported, and it’s culturally accepted as ‘the price you pay’ for being a woman or for being gay. At Hollaback!, we don’t buy it.

This movement is amazing! I began to click some of the points on the map and read through the stories about others’ experiences with street harassment. I was reminded of the hundreds (that is in no way an exaggeration) of disgusting, rude, and totally despicable comments (not “compliments”) that I’ve endured throughout my own life. From having a man pass my friend and I at the mall when we were 13 and say to our faces “Mmm pusssyyy” to walking anywhere given day being catcalled, asked my name, my number, being told I’m beautiful, sexy, being yelled at from cars, from stoops, being approached, etc etc etc. Many of these individual experiences came flooding back into my mind.

I remember all of the times when I felt helpless, disgusting, and most of all angry. I was angry when all I could reply to the two immature turds driving beside me for three blocks yelling “firecrotch” on Passyunk in South Philly, was “Really? Are you serious?” or that I was literally speechless when two disheveled “homeless” guys downtown Santa Cruz approached me and asked for spare change one night a few years ago, and when I said “Sorry…” they just called me a “stupid whore” and walked away. But it’s not only helpless, disgusting and angry that I’ve felt. I’ve also very often felt scared. And so have many women I know. My sister and I have shared our stories and fears, like the period of time when she was repeatedly followed walking home after leaving the gym, and it’s been helpful to get these things off our chests and give advice to one another. But it’s also really important to try to actively end street harassment.

What is so great about Hollaback! is that while reading the stories is simultaneously depressing (and difficult), it is also empowering. It also offers women and LGBTQ people a place to hold those who harass accountable.

I encourage everyone to check out the site, share your stories, and donate to the movement.

I really like this post from the San Jose chapter:

In order to avoid being harassed, have you ever:

• Avoided walking at night or alone?
• Dressed differently?
• Avoided eye contact with strangers?
• Stayed away from certain areas?
• Driven or bicycled instead of walking?
• Hunched your shoulders, tensed your body, or otherwise changed your posture?
• What else?

Imagine if we didn’t have to do that anymore when we went out in public.
Imagine if we had real freedom of movement.
Imagine if our family and friends no longer admonished us to stay inside in order to avoid being hurt or degraded in public.

We can end street harassment in San Jose and make this a reality.

Also check out RightRides, a service that offers “women, LGBTQ and gender nonconforming individuals a free, late-night ride home to ensure their safe commute to or through high-risk areas.”

Enlightened Sexism

I started reading Susan J. Douglas’ Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism’s Work is Done on Monday. The read will be slow-going because I am reading it alongside all of my required coursework. Though I may be able to incorporate it into one of my courses…I’m considering writing a paper on it. Already it’s offering a really interesting and nuanced look at the representation of women and feminism in the media over the past few decades. It’s really focused on my generation, too which makes it doubly interesting and relatable.

From the introduction (which is as far as I’ve gotten):

“Many producers insist that the mass media are simply mirrors, reflecting reality, whatever that is, back to the public. Whenever you hear this mirror metaphor, I urge you to smash it. Because if the media are mirrors, they are fun house mirrors. You know, the wavy kind, where your body becomes completely distorted…This is the mass media–exaggerating certain kinds of stories, certain kinds of people, certain kinds of values and attitudes, while minimizing others or rendering them invisible.”

This particular part stuck out to me, and then I realized it was not only because it’s a great metaphor to understand and reject the way in which people in positions of power claim the media is simply mirroring society’s wants and needs, but also because Jenn Pozner quotes this same passage in her book! I knew it seemed eerily familiar. Douglas attributes the fun house mirrors idea to Todd Gitlin, who wrote The Whole World is Watching, so I should mention that.

“So how did we get here, to this ironic pass, where the media has both exaggerated female achievements and, at the same time, resurrected misogynistic stereotypes of yore?”

I’m excited to find out.

On a related note, I bought my mom Peggy Orenstein’s new book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture a couple weeks back. I’ll check in with her to see what impressions it made on her.

Pop Culture Pirate

I have been excited about Elisa Kreisinger‘s work since I readabout it in Reality Bites Back. She’s a feminist video remix artist who spoke on a panel at NCMR titled “Copyright, Copyleft, Copycenter: Can Copyright and Remix Culture Co-Exist?” along with other amazing panelists, including documentary filmmaker Byron Hurt, director of the Center for Social Media at American University Professor Patricia Auferheide, New Media Rights founder Art Neill, and moderated by director of Outreach and New Media at Public Knowledge Mehan Jayasuriya.

Copyright, Copyleft, Copycenter audio file

The amount of links in this post is already overwhelming even me. So I am going to just focus back on Elisa for this one. I will do subsequent postings about each of those awesome organizations/panelists. In the session, she urged that women should create more narratives about pop culture.

Her remix work is at Pop Culture Pirate, and she also blogs there.

Here is her queer remix of Sex and the City, referred to as Queer Carrie:

and here is Elisa discussing her practice:

Happy Birthday, Max Weber.

Happy 147th birthday, Max Weber!

“The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so… In Baxter’s view the care for external goods should only lie on the shoulders of the ‘saint like a light cloak, which can be thrown aside at any moment’. But fate decreed that the cloak should become an iron cage.

Since asceticism undertook to remodel the world and to work out its ideals in the world, material goods have gained an increasing and finally an inexorable power over the lives of men.”

from The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

UCSC News

I’m really excited about all the positive feedback I’ve gotten since writing brief report (click screenshot above to read) about NCMR on UCSC’s news site. Thanks to Guy Lasnier for helping me out with the piece. Thanks also to Free Press for awarding me (and hundreds of others!) with the scholarship and opportunity to attend; I really wouldn’t have been able to without their generosity!

In the intro, there is a little mention of an amazing, amazing arts organization in Providence, RI where I had the privilege to hang out with awesome people at when I lived there called New Urban Arts. To clarify, I didn’t make a documentary about their organization, but shot and edited (with Pete Ricci and Abe Halpert) a recap video for an inspiring conference they were involved in called Imagining Art and Social Change. And since I’ve been talking about a conference a lot, I’ll include the video here of the Arts and Social Change conference, too.

A New Kind of Merger

Malkia Cyril gave a powerful and moving speech at the “Better Media Starts Here” opening plenary on Friday at the NCMR.

From her bio on the NCMR site: Malkia A. Cyril is the executive director and founder of the Center for Media Justice. With more than 15 years’ experience as a community organizer, policy advocate and communications strategist, Malkia has led local and national campaigns for racial and economic justice and is the author of numerous essays and articles on media, marginalization and movement-building.

“It’s time for a direct-action strategy that clarifies that it is corporate greed and not civil rights that is the enemy of good.”

Dismal Numbers of Female Writers in Late Night

NOTES:

1) The host doubles as a writer on each of these shows but we did not include them in the counts.
2) Although Jimmy Kimmel only has one female writer, she is a co-head writer. None of the other shows hosted by men have female head writers.
3) Craig Ferguson’s only female writer is his sister.

All content above reposted from: http://statette.tumblr.com/post/4719501058/women-writers-late-night

I know  there are some really funny ladies out there, so why aren’t they on late night??

Check out http://statette.tumblr.com for more interesting graphs/stats on women in media “that will piss you off.”

Modern Lady

At the NCMR, I was really excited to get a chance to see this very funny lady, Erin Gibson. She is the host of a segment on Infomania (on current.com) called Modern Lady. She showed some of her work as part of the opening plenary, including this video:

I wanna be that funny!

And on that subject, here is another video from another very funny lady at The Daily Show, Kristen Schaal. I couldn’t figure out how to embed video from their site, but it’s here: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-february-2-2011/rape-victim-abortion-funding

Bringing it Home

After spending the past weekend at the National Conference for Media Reform in Boston, I am so refreshed and excited to engage with the discourse around media reform and media issues.

Media issues are women’s issues:  media issues are human rights issues.

I want to use this space for the next few days/posts to do a talk-back/re-cap about some of the highlights for me from the conference.

This blog was borne out of a need to fulfill a requirement for my Film and Digital Media Authors: Martha Rosler course at UCSC. I’ll post projects and my responses to the readings and screenings from class here.
However, I want to broaden the scope. The name of the blog itself nods to the fact that it will be an open letter, an exploration into feminisms — ranging from Martha Coffin Wright to Martha Rosler to Martha Stewart, as well as in between and beyond.

Some of the awesome and inspiring women I had the honor of meeting and/or hearing speak at the conference included Jean Kilbourne, Amy Goodman, Jennifer L. Pozner, Rinku Sen, Mara Abrams, Elisa Kreisinger, Sarah Jones, Erin Gibson, Serena Garcia, Lisa Bennett, Jamilah King…the list goes on.

Critical Readings

Thinking about my upcoming critical reading project, I found myself searching  “Martha Rosler Martha Stewart” to see if there was any work that combined the two in some way. I have some ideas that would do just that, (more of a remix project) specifically a play on Semiotics of the Kitchen, but I found something else interesting.

I hadn’t really considered that Stewart would have ever commented on the work of Rosler, but I found an article she wrote for a MoMA exhibit about kitchens last year where she does!

Her understanding of Semiotics of the Kitchen is bizarre. I’m not sure what she thinks of it, because she only mentions it in passing, but it is as if she is unaware of its content as well as context.

Here is the article: http://www.observer.com/2010/culture/martha-moma

And this is the excerpt about Rosler’s 1975 film:

Videos like Martha Rosler’s 1975 Semiotics of the Kitchen and film stills illustrating how Hollywood helped to celebrate and promote the modern kitchen and its labor-saving device further round out the exhibition.

Uh…huh? Is she saying that Rosler’s work is celebrating labor-saving devices, those that she uses to angrily stab air and forcibly cast off imaginary soup? Has Stewart actually seen the film? OR maybe I am just misunderstanding Stewart’s intent, which is to say that these two different perspectives (anti-housewifery and Hollywood) “round out” meaning broaden the exhibit. Either way, interesting to think of the Marthas in dialogue.

Annnd then I found this:

For your viewing… pleasure?