Feminist Fare Friday: Edition #14
"You can't be what you can't see."~Miriam Wright Edelman
Last night I attended my first TEDx event called Landscape-Changing Women. It was organized by two ambitious women in Edmonton and was by all accounts a huge success. The highlight of the night for me was hearing and seeing my friend Joanne Minaker up on the stage talking about the importance of Care in our society-she was (and is) brilliant!. From December 4-6 the TEDWomen2013 conference is taking place in San Francisco and more than 58 countries are also joining in with independent TEDxWomen events of their own.
I said in my last post that the landscape is changing and that our time is coming for a more effective feminist revolution. I don't believe that I am wrong, and I am inspired by all the TEDWomen events happening around the world this week, but as you can see from the examples below, we have A LOT more work to do.
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1. Emilie Graslie is smart. Not a smart girl, not smart for a girl. She is just really, really, smart. And she has a great educational Youtube channel called "The Brain Scoop". On it she talks about all kinds of cool, interesting and amazing topics that she comes across through her work at The Field Museum in Chicago. Emilie also reads all of the comments on her Youtube page and has a few things to say about that too...
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRNt7ZLY0Kc&feature=share&list=UUkyfHZ6bY2TjqbJhiH8Y2QQ&index=1[/youtube]
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2. And while we are on the topic of women in media, the people at The Representation Project put together this video showing us where the media got it right and where they got it so, so wrong time and again this past year.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/NswJ4kO9uHc[/youtube]
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3. We all need to use some stock photography now and then (or you should be using and paying for it, stealing other people's photos is not good). I personally like istockphoto. The folks at NY Mag put together this somewhat hilarious slideshow of stock photos all meant to show us "how to be a feminist". Once again this serves to further prove the point about how women are misrepresented in all kinds of media. And clearly, I don't have enough boxing gloves, ladders, folders or X-rays in my feminist get-up!
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4. Take 5 minutes to watch this. And then know that literally 100% of the images of women that you see in advertising and in most magazines are altered. There is absolutely NO possible way for any human woman to "look just like {insert ideal perfect woman here}".
[youtube]http://youtu.be/jWKXit_3rpQ[/youtube]
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5. We are taking our kids and their cousins to see "Frozen" after school gets out for winter break. I am not sure who is more excited about this, me or them?! From what I have read about the movie so far, and from what the majority of my friends have said about it, it is a FANTASTIC movie! According to Amanda Rodriguez at Bitch Flicks, it is also Disney's first foray into feminism! AND, slight spoiler alert, it passes the Bechdel Test in the first five minutes of the film. I'll save my full review for after I actually see the movie, but YAY! for Disney (of all media outlets, really) for finally starting to get with the program!
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Have you read or watched something that you think I should include in an upcoming edition of Feminist Fare Friday? Send me the link via Twitter or on the Stay at Home Feminist Facebook page.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone!