Comments are closed here, but open on AAUW’s blog, Dialog.

With that in mind, AAUW is excited to partner with the National Women’s History Project in its 30th anniversary year, which has the theme “Writing Women Back into History.”

There will be many ways for AAUW members and supporters to get involved this year, and AAUW’s Women’s History Month celebrations will include the following:

A Flickr stream of photos

If you have photos of a Women’s History Month event to share, please upload them to AAUW’s Flickr stream by e-mailing the photos to mess90zap [at] photos.flickr.com*. Please be sure to include a short caption for each photo in the subject line or in the text of your e-mail message and indicate that the photos are for National Women’s History Month. Women’s History Month-related photos will be available for viewing directly on the Flickr account.

A YouTube video campaign

AAUW staff members will be filming short videos about women they are honoring during Women’s History Month that will be uploaded to AAUW’s YouTube channel. If you would like to share a Women’s History Month-related video that you’ve made, just upload it to your own account and send in the link via e-mail. We will collect videos from AAUW branches and members and online supporters and share them through the blog and/or Facebook.

A discussion thread on Facebook

In addition to regular postings of videos, blog entries, and articles on AAUW’s Facebook fan page wall, there will be a discussion thread available on Facebook for members and online supporters to use to share Women’s History Month information, including, but not limited to

• Event information
• Women’s history facts
• Inspirational quotes by/about women
• Individual stories people would like to share
• Websites and/or online articles about women’s history

Tweeting about women’s history

AAUW will use the #wmnhist (Women’s History) tag every day in March instead of just on Wednesdays. And @AAUW, as well as our followers and online supporters, will be tweeting women’s history facts, quotes, links to Women’s History Month-related videos, articles about women’s history, relevant blog posts, and so on. To follow the women’s history conversation on Twitter, log in to Twitter and then search for the #wmnhist tag.

Blogging

AAUW’s fantastic blog team will be highlighting various women throughout the month of March. In addition, there may be some guest bloggers, including the filmmaker behind the documentary Seneca Falls. You can order the video for screening parties.

On March 4 AAUW will blog about Half the Sky Live, the CARE event that is related to Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.

AAUW will be blogging for International Women’s Day on March 8 and will be participating in the National Engineers Week Foundation’s 2010 Global Marathon: For, by and about Women in Engineering and Technology. The marathon will take place March 10–11.

As part of the part of the Red Pump Project, AAUW will blog for National Women and Girls HIV/Aids Awareness Day on March 10.

Finally, AAUW also has pledged to blog on March 24, which is Ada Lovelace Day, to celebrate women in technology and science.

Other ways you can get involved:

Host a screening party

A number of movies are great for celebrating or recognizing Women’s History Month, including Seneca Falls and Iron Jawed Angels.

Commenting

Another way to help celebrate National Women’s History Month and add your perspective to the conversation is by having your say in the “comments” section of the AAUW blog. Please comment on the blog to share more information about the women and topics that will be written about during this month.

How else will you be celebrating National Women’s History Month? AAUW would love to hear your ideas and looks forward to your participation in our Women’s History Month activities.

*To send an email to this address, delete the brackets and add an “@” symbol in their place.

Comments are closed here, but open on AAUW’s blog, Dialog.

Incorporating these kinds of campaigns within social media helps to supplement on-the-ground support and action and allows online supporters to express themselves. Individuals on Twitter can promote their support of a certain cause while recruiting their friends or others to join them. And it all starts with one little image.

Why add this Twibbon to your avatar? In addition to supporting AAUW’s efforts to see true pay equity laws enacted, you’ll become part of a larger movement that supports social equality. Equal pay is only one of the issues AAUW addresses, and it has wider repercussions because equal pay issues aren’t just women’s issues—they affect everyone.

We can work to enact change and ensure equal pay for equal work. Contact your senators and urge them to co-sponsor the Paycheck Fairness Act. Then, get your Twibbon and let your followers on Twitter know why you have it. Tell them just how important pay equity is—it affects their short-term earnings as well as their long-term economic security and retirement, not to mention the overall economy. That’s why they should contact their senators and get their Twibbons, too!

Stay tuned for updates. AAUW’s last Twibbon campaign, Stop the Stupak Amendment, received four “Twibutes” and 648 supporters. C’mon, tweeps, let’s build on that success!

Comments are closed here, but open on AAUW’s blog, Dialog.

The article goes on to be a regular crime-reporting article, and then it hits you like a ton of bricks:
“Police said the girl left the dance and was walking to meet her father for a ride home when a classmate invited her to join a group drinking in the courtyard. The victim had drank a large amount of alcohol by the time the assault began, police said.”

WHAM! She was drinking—underage, no less—so there’s an implication that the attack was her fault. No, it’s not an outright statement of blame, but an implication. This sort of coverage may lead people to believe that she “had it coming” because she participated in “risky” behavior. This discourse shows how the media uphold the status quo regarding sex crimes. We, as a society, place blame on those taking part in what is perceived as risky or promiscuous behavior. In this case, that behavior was consuming alcohol.

Rape is never okay. It doesn’t matter how much she had to drink, because that didn’t directly contribute to the personal motivations of the perpetrators to participate in a gang rape for more than two hours. The alcohol she drank wasn’t responsible for the 10 to 20 bystanders who didn’t call the cops. When reporters mention a fact like that in their reporting, they contribute to this misplaced blame. Sometimes blaming the victim is subtle, and sometimes it’s not. Regardless, it happens all too often. Look for it when you read these crime reports. Any time a survivor’s wardrobe, substance use, or even sexual history is mentioned in the article, it may be a case of victim blaming, intentional or not. But intent does not dictate how the public will interpret the report or what conclusions they will draw from it.

The opinion piece that appeared on CNN about this case mentions increasing safety precautions (such as police patrols and students identifying “hot spots” for crime and danger on school grounds, etc.) rather than focusing attention on the horrific bystanders’ behavior. The author recognizes that these are preventive measures, but they’re still superficial. The suggestions are good, but they do not solve the problem of assault. Instead, we need to get at the root of the problem to enact greater social change by shifting society’s perceptions of women, sexual violence, and power.

Sexual violence is a pervasive social problem across the globe, and we need to treat it as such by integrating greater sensitivity and accuracy into reporting about sex crimes. This is just one way of increasing public awareness about the problem and how widespread it is. I suggested in my thesis that covering sexual violence as a disturbing trend rather than as isolated incidents could hit home for many people. Getting victim blaming out of the media and public discourse around sexual violence is the first step. Consistently providing a narrative that allows for victims and survivors to feel guilty about the heinous crime committed against them is wrong. Despite what news and popular media would have you believe, sexual assault is never the survivors’ fault—never.

Comments are closed here, but open on AAUW’s blog, Dialog.

The workshop, sponsored by Working Films, The Fledgling Fund, and Chicken & Egg Pictures, was intended to help these filmmakers reach out to organizations and get their work incorporated into ongoing (and possibly future) public engagement initiatives.

The films highlighted during the workshop included

Body Typed by Jesse Epstein and Trish Dalton
Body Typed is a series of three short films about the perpetuation of the idealized beauty image, including photo retouching, creation of mannequins, and plastic surgery.

Going on 13 by Kristy Guevara-Flanagan and Dawn Valadez
This film follows four girls on their journey from childhood to adolescence. It’s a film about what’s happening right now for young girls and teens.

It’s Not About Sex by Jessica Cele and other youth producers from the Educational Video Center, advised by Miriam Neptune
This film addresses the pervasiveness of sexual assault and looks to the root of the violence.

Saving Jackie by S. A. Burks
This short documentary looks at how addiction and abuse can affect families. It is a story of the filmmaker’s damaged relationship with her mother and the reconciliation process.

Seneca Falls by Louise Vance
This film follows a group of teenage girls who attend the 150th anniversary celebration of the first women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls. It highlights the need for more women’s history education.

Wo Ai Ni Mommy by Stephanie Wang-Breal
This documentary focuses on the issues surrounding international adoption, particularly Chinese adoption, and on increasing cultural awareness.

These projects are all powerful and unique. I hope you will take the time to watch these films and start a conversation about the questions they raise. I also think it’s pretty neat to be supporting women filmmakers who are striving for a better life experience for women and girls everywhere.

Comments are closed here, but open at the posting on AAUW’s blog, Dialog.

The Shriver Report – A Woman’s Nation includes a chapter entitled “Where Have You Gone, Roseanne Barr?” and it’s refreshing to read about more than just the offensive depictions of women or the lack of women’s representation in the media. While the author, Susan J. Douglas, does talk about those issues, she goes right at the root of the problem:

Why should policy makers pay attention to media images of women? Because the media—and especially (although not exclusively) the news media—may not succeed in telling us what to think, but they certainly do succeed in telling us what to think about.

This is particularly a problem when you only see super-thin, emaciated models (such as this infamously retouched Ralph Lauren model), glorified depictions of violence against women, or, as Douglas points out, the overrepresentation of women in high-level, high-power positions.

There is a stark contrast between women working in the real world and what is represented on TV. As AAUW said in an announcement back in June, “In 2009, women made up more than half the U.S. labor force; yet, the number of women CEOs in Fortune 500 companies stands at 13. In Fortune 1000 companies, only 25 women hold that position. At the current rate, it could take 40 years for the number of female CEOs to equal the number of male CEOs.”

Additionally, as I mentioned in a previous blog post, women’s representation in employment and their ownership of media is pretty dismal. True, while improved representation in employment does not necessarily mean there will be an improvement in how women are depicted and talked about in both the news and popular media, it still would be a progression for women in our society. Female experts are not being consulted, and women’s voices are not being heard. According to The Op-Ed Project—an initiative that works to get more women represented as op-ed contributors, columnists, and general experts accessible to the media—men control 85 percent of the “national conversation.”

What all this boils down to is the issue of accurate representation. As Douglas states in her chapter, “These distorted reflections contain and perpetuate significant class biases by either ignoring or silently ridiculing most women who make less than $100,000 a year and aren’t media perfect in appearance.” We need those accurate depictions to show what life is really like for all women, not just those who have successful careers and are wealthy.

We need to see more of those women who may or may not be in relationships, those who may or may not have a family, those who may or may not be caregivers, and the list goes on. It’s about giving a voice—and representation!—to a multitude of experiences rather than seeing and hearing from a select few.

Comments are closed here, but open at the posting on AAUW’s blog, Dialog.

What were these forged letters lobbying Congress about? Clean coal! That’s right — as AAUW mentioned in our statement on August 6, “An agent of Bonner & Associates — through its work with the Hawthorn Group and the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity — forged one or more letters from AAUW to members of Congress. Other well-known organizations were similarly targeted. The goal was to further the coal industry’s lobbying efforts against the Clean Energy and Security Act, also known as the ‘cap and trade’ legislation.”

This “AstroTurf” (or fake grassroots) campaign, an act of blatant fraud, has caught the attention of Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-MA), chair of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, who had scheduled a hearing today to further investigate the fraudulent letters. (It has been rescheduled for some time next week.) AAUW supports investigations into this matter and urges Congress to take action against deceitful tactics.

What’s really ridiculous about this incident is that AAUW does not lobby Congress about energy policy — we focus on issues affecting equity  for women and girls. AAUW staff and members are indignant and outraged that our name and reputation would be co-opted to oppose an energy issue that we do not even advocate. Fortunately, it seemed as though some environmental bloggers were just as shocked and upset as we were.

It’s important to note that these acts defying our democracy may happen more than people are aware. This time they were used to lobby against energy policy, but other issues could fall victim to fraudulent, AstroTurf-style practices as well. AAUW empathizes with the other organizations affected by these forged letters, and we will  certainly  be on the lookout for these kinds of activities in case  there are any attempts to wrongly use AAUW’s good name again.

Comments are closed here, but open at the posting on AAUW’s blog, Dialog.