Note: The blog Fair and Feminist held a “This is What a Young Feminist Looks Like Blog Carnival” last Friday. The carnival was in response to a recent

As I wrote in my first guest post for Girl-Drive, I am very grateful for the concept of feminism because it has allowed me to not have my life path dictated by my gender. I self identify as a feminist and at this moment, I’m still fairly young.  So I am what a young feminist looks like.

There are thousands of us who self identify as feminist and not only take on the title, but take on the mission. As a women’s studies major, employee at a women’s equity nonprofit organization, and an online feminist activist on issues like street harassment, I am surrounded by strong women and men who are fighting for the rights of women. And many of them are young. It is a shame when the work we do every day is negated or made invisible because people with power and a voice (such as New York Times writers) wonder why we don’t exist.

In addition to the negation of the work of young feminists, I am frustrated by the obsession with rumination about whether or not people use the term feminist. Does it really matter if someone calls themselves a feminist if they support and actively work for women’s rights? Why waste time squabbling about titles when we have the same goals?To expand on that, let me share my experiences from the National Conference for College Women Student Leaders, a conference cosponsored by my employer AAUW each June. Five hundred college women from around the country (as well as a handful of international students) come together to network and learn how to be better leaders on their campus (photo to the right).

In the opening session, all attendees can stand up or sit down if they agree with various statements. Microphone-spotters help a few of the women share their reason why they have that stance. I’ve attended this session for the last three years and one of the questions always is, “Do you identify as a feminist?”

Each year only about half or a little over half of the room stands up. I learn the most from those who say they do not identify that way. While one year, one common theme seemed to be an inability to coincide religious teachings with feminist goals (e.g. women made comments like, “As the Bible says, I believe that men are the heads of the household, so no, I’m not a feminist”), the other two years I found myself sympathizing with the women’s reasons.

One common reason for not identifying as a feminist was racism and exclusion. Young women of color were the primary speakers. They felt that the racist history of feminism excluded them and made them uncomfortable taking on the title. Totally understandable; in the overall feminist movement there has been racism (and in some ways it continues) and too much focus on the issues that solely impact white women.

Another common reason for not identifying as a feminist was a dislike of labels. Women would say, “I don’t want to be tied to a label,” or wonder, “What does a title like ‘feminist’ really mean?” Others felt that taking on that label alienated them from people who otherwise support feminist goals and so it was better not to identify as a feminist in order to have more allies in achieving those goals. Again, I support and get that perspective.

Then, throughout the conference, all of the women who identified and did not identify as feminists worked together to discuss their common goals: helping more women run for student government, addressing body image issues, sexual assault, and a better inclusion of LGBQT students on campus, advocating for more reproductive rights and fair pay, strengthening self empowerment, and figuring out their life goals and career aspirations. The energy at the conference is intense and by the last day, many young women feel their life has been changed and they are more committed than ever to helping improve the rights of women and to make the most of their life.

It never matters that some of them called themselves feminists and others didn’t.

So while I write this post to say, “hey, young feminists are everywhere and we do exist,” I also write it to say, “I’ve never met a young woman who wasn’t interested and engaged in some women’s rights issue and improving the opportunities and happiness of women.” So if the question, “Where are all the young feminists?” was expanded to ask, “Where are all the young people who care about women’s issues, women’s rights?” the answer would be much more obvious, because they are everywhere you look.

My older sister was born with severe disabilities and because of her, my parents raised me to be sensitive to the needs of those who are discriminated against and treated unfairly and to not be afraid to stand up for human rights.

It took me a while to realize that I was part of a group that faces discrimination, too: sex discrimination.

I was raised in a Mormon household. When I was growing up, a high-ranking church leader declared feminists to be one of the three biggest threats to the church (and to families). While my parents were in many ways open-minded for Mormons, the anti-feminist beliefs of our religion were still part of the context for my upbringing. For example, I was not given a middle name because I was supposed to marry, take my husband’s last name, and turn my birth last name into a middle one. I was expected to have children, probably not work outside the home unless circumstances required it, and obey my husband.

Fortunately, I was raised in various states outside the Mormon stronghold of Utah, so I saw other ways to live. By my early teenage years, I was questioning the gender roles and restrictions I was increasingly being forced into. I did not delve into feminism, however, until I chose to leave the religion at age 17.

For me, feminism has come to mean that women can and should have the same opportunities to live and thrive that men have (though of course both women and men can face other forms of oppression that prevent this). Feminism means people should not have their life stifled or dictated by their gender or sex.  Women and men are equally intelligent, capable, and worthy of respect and so the laws, societal attitudes and customs, and division of labor should reflect this.

For several years I thought my life’s mission would focus on helping persons with disabilities, but my older sister’s death has left me emotionally incapable of this; I miss her too much. In high school I thought I would become an architect and in college, an historian. But then during college, volunteer work with domestic violence centers, summer internships with women’s nonprofits, and women’s studies classes led me to another path.

Today I work as a program manager for AAUW, one of the oldest and largest women’s organizations in the country. I volunteer with RAINN, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. And I spend a lot of my free time addressing women’s unequal access to public spaces through my website and blog Stop Street Harassment (you can share your story for inclusion on the blog). This month my first book Stop Street Harassment: Making Public Places Safe and Welcoming for Women, is available.

I’m 27 and I have most of my career ahead of me. I don’t know if I always will devote my full time to feminist causes. But I do know that feminism helped save my life by opening up the number of paths I could take and ensuring that my sex would not determine my destiny. And for that I am grateful.

When I came home to St. Louis for Thanksgiving break last fall, I found my sister’s copy of GirlDrive sitting on the coffee table in the living room.  I flipped through a few pages and quickly got hooked on the idea of traveling, woman-focused journalism —marauding through the country in search of women’s stories.

I was living in Arkansas at the time, in a house with eight fellow students – all young women.  One of them, Ashley, was in my Gender and Sexuality in American Politics class.  We’d spent all our free time that semester sitting around the house, discussing our readings and asking our roommates all sorts of brazen questions about womanhood, femininity, sexuality, love, faith, self-esteem, and sex.  Inspired by the book and by our roommates’ openness, Ashley and I decided to take on our own GirlDrive: Southern Edition for two weeks in January.

I sent out a flurry of Facebook messages to friends from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee, asking for connections.  Although Ashley and I called our plan the “Southern Feminist Road Trip,” we didn’t seek out feminists.  In fact, our only qualification was that the person be a woman raised in the South who was willing to talk with us.  And with little more than the promise of a free hot beverage and a thoughtful conversation, more than a dozen women in ten cities and towns across the South agreed to meet with us.  We started in New Orleans’ famous Café du Monde and ended in a series of Starbucks, with a few local coffee shops in between.

My classmates had warned me that Southern women are famously prudish and private; they’d make my Missouri upbringing seem like a beacon of liberalism.  In a way, the friends were right.  I was blown away by the sexual and social conservatism of many of the women we met with.  But the interviewees were generally receptive to the broad range of personal questions we posed.  The women were also strong, independent, thoughtful, open, and likeable.  Most were deeply, deeply religious, and although their faith unsettled me, I felt connected to each of them by the time our conversations ended.Here’s a snapshot: A gorgeous, quirky journalist made us turn off the tape recorder before she admitted, hushedly, that she supported abortion – although not divorce.  Two tennis teammates from a community college discussed their marriage prospects.  A 29-year-old virgin told us how her family’s harsh religious views led her to believe, until age 16, that having a boyfriend was a sin.  A misfit at Ole Miss explained that her gay male friends served as her chastity belt.  A sorority sister from Mississippi told us that the best thing about Southern men was that they were expected to “take care of” their wives and daughters – by paying for frequent manicures and hair colorings for them.

Our conversations were like speed dating in a way, or CouchSurfing: moving past the BS of everyday chit-chat to discuss deep issues with people from vastly different backgrounds.  As the trip wore on, Ashley and I found ourselves in lengthy, personal conversations with practically everyone we met, male of every gender.  At a dinner stop in Starkville, Mississippi, our Mexican-American waiter told us his life story, by way of explaining his unexpected Minnesota accent.  It was like Ashley and I flicked on an internal empathy switch and started emitting high-frequency “tell me everything” signals.

Our interviewees’ candor was an honor to us, even when they told us things we didn’t like to hear.  (The classic, from one of the tennis teammates: A woman can’t be president because she would get PMS and be unstable.)  We relished the conversations, even when we they said things that didn’t make sense at first, like the Mississippi woman’s definition of “care”.  It took three full minutes of explanations, with Ashley’s cultural translation services, before I understood that the kind of “care” in question was primarily financial and aesthetic.  But having the opportunity to discuss grooming rituals with a true Southern Belle – and to discuss abstinence with a 29-year-old virgin, and to discuss liberal politics with a closeted Democrat – let me get a peek behind the wall of stereotypes that guided my understanding of the South.

Our trip was funded as an experiential learning project by Hendrix College, so our lodging and food – not to mention all the cups of coffee we bought during interviews – were paid for.  But I would have waited tables and scrounged pennies (as it sounds like Nona and Emma did) for months in exchange for those conversations.

Cross-posted at Women’s Glib

You might have heard about the Reproductive Health Act. In fact, I hope you have, because I’ve been writing about it incessantly since the creation of my blog. It’s an awesome and necessary bill that I, personally, me, this person right here who is in high school and not a paid lobbyist, have been invested in for the past two years.

The bill will update New York State’s abortion law for the first time since Roe. It will remove abortion from the criminal code, where the right to choose is stated as an exception to homicide, and put it into the public health code where it belongs. Perhaps most importantly, the bill will permit late-term abortions not only if a woman’s life is in danger, but also in cases where her health is threatened. When the RHA is passed, New York’s women will no longer have to rely on federal legislation to protect our fundamental right to choose; no matter what happens on the national level, our rights will be covered.

People have been talking about the RHA a lot recently because the state legislative session is likely to end soon, as soon as the state budget is passed. (Once the session ends, the senators won’t come back to work until January.) Though the budget is top priority, the senators have been discussing and passing other legislation in the meantime, so it’s not unfeasible that the RHA might be introduced before the end of the session.

There’s another layer of complexity with this bill: different advocacy groups have different ideas about the most effective lobbying methods. Some groups, like NARAL Pro-Choice New York (which — full disclosure — I volunteer with and love), are calling for the bill to be introduced as soon as possible, even if it doesn’t get passed during this session. The idea behind this is that pro-choice organizations and voters will know where their representatives stand on choice issues, and hold accountable those who say they are pro-choice but vote otherwise. This is especially important because this fall is election season. Other groups, most notably Family Planning Advocates of New York State, would rather wait to introduce the bill until it is very likely to pass.

Interesting, yes! Very political, slightly exhausting, undeniably nuanced.

Nuance! It is great. Here is something that is not nuanced: the title of Nicholas Confessore’s New York Times City Room blog post on this issue.

Abortion Rights Supporters Squabble Over Bill.

Squabble.

Squabble.

Here, if you are wondering, is a reliable dictionary definition of that heinous word, squabble: “to engage in a disagreeable argument, usually over a trivial matter.” Fascinating! Because do you know what is not, in fact, a “trivial matter”? WOMEN’S AUTONOMY AND CONTROL OVER OUR OWN BODIES. And do you know who, in fact, might agree with me? MORE THAN HALF THE POPULATION OF THIS FINE STATE.

Fuck this shit.

The media loves to focus on “squabbling” women because it is so easy! It is so fucking easy to get a reader’s attention by writing “Hey! Look at these silly catfighting ladies!” instead of delving into complex political issues. That’s lazy journalism, and entrenched sexism. It’s part of a larger social pattern of framing conflicts between women as desperate and catty, while positioning male conflicts as stoic and totes serious. It’s part of a widespread attempt to delegitimize women’s extremely legitimate political frustrations.

I find this article absolutely hilarious. Because do you know who is actually squabbling? The fucking State Senate! You know, the people who we pay to get important shit done, like, you know, the budget for the entire state of New York. And who we rely on to keep their shit together, not, you know, act like “feuding junior high schoolers.” Have people forgotten about that outrageous, embarrassing, and illegal COUP that happened last June? I remember. I can’t forget.

New York’s women have waited long enough for the Reproductive Health Act. We’re not squabbling. We’re demanding what we deserve.

Aphra’s note: As a guest blogger on Girldrive this week, I’ll share an interview I did with three young women that I met at our last Guerrilla GALa – the annual networking event for women in theatre in New York City.  They are playwright Mariah MacCarthy; actress and producer Chance Parker; and performer and director Drae Campbell.

APHRA: I’d like to get a sense of your background – Do you have a degree in theatre and if so, do you think having a degree helps?

MARIAH: I have a BS in theater from Skidmore College. A degree in theater isn’t a must, but pretty much everything I’ve done in New York was as a result of the connections I made at Skidmore (mostly with alumni who graduated long before I attended) and my training definitely affected my style – for the better, I think.  Also, most of the plays I’ve had professionally produced started as projects at Skidmore.  I think college is important for theater as long as it gives you an environment to take risks without the monetary/time constrictions of professional theater. But not many people will give a crap about your theater degree once you’re out, so if you’re just doing it for your resume, don’t bother (unless you’re going to Yale or something).

CHANCE: I have an advanced diploma in acting and theater from The National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in Washington, DC.  I don’t know if a degree is 100% necessary, but having a strong foundation is.

DRAE: I have a BFA from the University Of The Arts in Philadelphia. I don’t think a degree is a must if you’re serious about learning, listening and paying your dues. But I think some kind of degree is practical and helpful.APHRA: When did you move to New York City?  Why did you come here…was it to work in theatre?

CHANCE: I moved to NYC in 2003.  I moved here to “make it” as an actor.

DRAE: I came to New York to perform, yes. I moved here in 1996.

MARIAH: I moved here in September 2007. I came here for theater, and because I always kind of knew I’d live here at some point.

APHRA: What’s been the hardest thing about theatre in New York City for you so far?

DRAE: Not getting paid. Having to do everything yourself has been good and bad. It’s exhausting, but you learn a lot and have more control over what you’re doing.

MARIAH: #1 = NYC is expensive.  #2 = Networking.  If you’re doing it to the fullest it’s practically a full-time job.  #3 is really #1 + #2.  I mean there is no time to actually do the work I came here to do (write). I’m too busy seeing my friends’ plays, emailing people about my plays, and making a living.

CHANCE:  For me the hardest thing has been finding roles as an artist of color.  It has been very difficult.  Making myself take all of the necessary steps to get those few roles (i.e. – mailings, workshops, etc.) hasn’t been easy either.

APHRA:  I’d like to hear about some surprising successes or failures since you’ve been here.

DRAE: I had a bad experience with a theater company once, but most of the people I’ve met have been my trusted collaborators and artistic community.

CHANCE:  I got a chance to tour the US for 3 months with a show and that was amazing.  It’s a little unfortunate to say, but failures, or setbacks, are part of the game, so they really aren’t that surprising.

MARIAH: I was shocked at how well my full-length NYC debut, THE ALL-AMERICAN GENDERF*CK CABARET, went. We sold out every show, and even with only a two-week run got several rave reviews. I think the short run/small space allowed us to sell out and we had an awesome PR rep (Morgan Lindsey Tachco).  Also, people like sex and shows with bad words in them. I knew most of this ahead of time, but still didn’t expect the response we got.

APHRA:  The annual Tony Awards are coming up (on June 13^th) so let’s talk about Broadway for a moment.  What do you think about Broadway with regards to women?  Do you think women are well represented on Broadway?

MARIAH: As far as parity in number of female playwrights/ directors/ designers/ composers, no, women are absolutely NOT represented on Broadway. Yes, the men who dominate Broadway write good roles for women from time to time for which I thank them. But we’re plenty capable of writing those good roles ourselves and it’s a shame we aren’t given the chance to do so more often.

CHANCE: For the most part, no, women are not well represented on Broadway.  As actors they are but in all other areas they are not.  And that’s sad, because we are the one’s buying the tickets.

DRAE: Not enough women are really represented in most of the arts on a large scale. I tire of seeing women raped, violated and oppressed…There are just too many other stories for those to be so prevalent. Obviously, there are important stories about women being oppressed, but well…. you know? I’d like to see more women of color being produced and represented.

APHRA:  Are any of you going to watch the TONY awards?

CHANCE: No.

DRAE: I tend to miss them. I usually read about them the next day.

MARIAH: I don’t have a TV and since Broadway isn’t affordable, I often haven’t seen most of the nominees.

APHRA: What advice would you give to young women in theatre coming to New York City for the first time?

DRAE: Don’t be afraid to make your own stuff using whatever resources you have. Encourage talented women that you know, try to avoid the jealousy thing. You’ll probably work together some day.  Many people, often men, have a sense of entitlement.  Develop that as much as possible.  Take risks within reason. Know when to say no – there will be other opportunities. Allow yourself to make mistakes onstage.  Change your mind about stuff sometimes.

MARIAH: If you went to college, hit up as many fellow theatre alumni as you can and ask if they need any help with projects. People love free labor. Find theatres that match your style/groove and help with mass mailings, help with load-in and strike, usher (which also means seeing the show for free), offer to read scripts, etc. Eventually you’ll run out of energy and time to offer free labor, so offer as much of it as you can now; you’d be surprised how many connections you can make by just showing up and working for no money. Also, remember that networking is often as simple as making friends.  Chat up your fellow minions, because you’ll probably collaborate with them later. Yes, still try to chat up the artistic directors and literary managers, but if they’re too busy/ snobby/ whatever for you, don’t sweat it; go get coffee with a fellow intern and fantasize about the great art you’re going to make together.

CHANCE: Create your own theatre company and be supportive of each other.   Write plays and produce plays written by women.  Direct plays written by women and attend theater written and directed by women.  Also, audition for EVERYTHING!   Even if you don’t fit the criteria, audition for it.  It helps to break down stereotypes.

APHRA Are there any resources that have been helpful to you in your career?

MARIAH: Yes!

WomenArts

En Avant Playwrights

Playbill (occasionally)

NYC Playwrights: http://www.nycplaywrights.org/

NYFA Classifieds: Jobs in the Arts

NYC Theatre Spaces:

and the aptly named Playwriting Opportunities

CHANCE: Backstage, of course.  Attending the Guerrilla Girls On Tour’s annual Guerrilla GALa was one of the best career moves I ever made.

DRAE: I hate to say it, but Facebook. Also YouTube, nowcasting.com and Myspace back in the day. And Craigslist. I got jobs and interest from all of those. I booked a SAG commercial through Craigslist. But you know you have to be a bit wary too.

APHRA: If you could change one thing about theatre for women in New York what would it be?

DRAE: That if something happens to be about a woman or women, that it’s not ghetto-ized. . I wish that in general there was even more diversity.

CHANCE: I would change the minds of people who believe that women cannot create amazing theater by scheduling a season, on Broadway, of plays created only by women.  Who knows?  That one season may lead to a gender equal Broadway.

MARIAH:  That more of us would be doing it (particularly directors/ designers/ playwrights), and would be treated with the same respect/consideration that our male peers get.

APHRA:  How do you feel about the fact that when you get to the highest paying jobs in theatre you find the smallest number of women?

MARIAH: I feel pretty crappy about it, but feeling crappy isn’t going to fix it.  For now, I’m so far from the highest paying jobs in theatre that I’m just grateful that at the level where I currently work – indie theatre, that is – there isn’t nearly the same gender disparity, and therefore I’m getting something closely resembling a fair shake. When I get to the point where I can expect, and deserve, one of those highest-paying jobs, I’ll probably pound my fist and gnash my teeth if I don’t get it; but, for the moment, I’m just concentrating on paying my rent.

CHANCE: I think that it’s a shame that we have to work so hard with so little recognition.  But every oppressed group of people has had to work extra hard.  Unfortunately, the playing field is never level.  We have to be that much stronger for it.   Patience, positivity, and persistence are key.  We have to be supportive of one another, not fight against our sisters.  I have hope that there will be equal representation of women (50/50) by the year 2020.

APHRA: Are there any specific things that the theatre has led you to discover about being a woman/feminist/person?

CHANCE: Through theater I have learned how to be less introverted and stand up for what I believe in.

MARIAH: 1. Doing, not whining, makes the biggest impact. The Lilly Awards are a perfect example.  2. Not every feminist has to use her art as a place to make the social change she wants to see in the world, but it’s what I’ve found to be the most gratifying.  3. Yes, there’s a glass ceiling but it’s not impenetrable. While I know it’s not fair that I have to work harder than some men in my field have to I believe strongly enough in my work and in myself to work as hard as it takes to get my work out there; and hopefully I can set some precedents that will make some woman in the future not have to work as hard.

DRAE: That I can use my talent to do all kinds of different things. That being an artist is important and relevant to our culture.

Thanks to Drae Campbell, Chance Parker and Mariah MacCarthy for participating in this article.

In 2001, the anonymous/activist group Guerrilla Girls, founded in 1985, split into three new and independent groups. One of the groups that resulted in the “banana split” is Guerrilla Girls On Tour! With two other theatre artists (Hallie Flanagan and Lorraine Hansberry *) I formed Guerrilla Girls On Tour!  As members of Guerrilla Girls and we had initiated actions against sexism in the theatre with sticker campaigns, fax blitzes, street protests and posters like “Oh! The Joys of Being a Woman Playwright.”

To continue that mission, Guerrilla Girls On Tour became a 26-member touring comedy theater company of diverse women who travel the world with new performances that taking a hilarious look at the current state of women in the arts and beyond.  A good portion of our touring takes us to college campuses where we host workshops with young women on creating street theatre and performance art.

As a guest blogger on the Girl Drive site, I’ll talk about the current state of women in theatre by interviewing young women in New York City, our home base; share with you some stats on current sexism in theatre and end with thoughts about the TONY awards (airing on CBS June 13) and how they point to discrimination in US theatre.Last year, an amazing and brilliant young economist, Emily Glassberg Sands, did a study about discrimination in theater. I was thrilled when I learned that playwright Julia Jordan had inspired this study by suggesting the topic to Emily for her final thesis at Princeton.  Finally, what Guerrilla Girls On Tour! have been saying for over 10 years (that the theatre world was infected with raging sexism) would be proven true in an extensive 173-page study.

Emily actually did several studies, one of which involved submitting plays written by women with both male and female names attached as authors.  She found that when women artistic directors and literary managers read the scripts, they rated those written by women as less likely to “fit with their theatre’s mission statement” than the identical play when it had a male pen name attached.  She concluded that while women would like to produce the work of men and women equally, they felt their hands were tied when it came to plays by women.  Thus, a bizarre phenomenon that can only be described as “prophetic discrimination”  happens in the theatre world today.  Women producers read plays by women and like them but won’t produce them because they think people won’t respond to plays penned by women.  Women playwrights can’t fit in because they are women.

In contrast, Emily also found that on Broadway women wrote only 11% of the shows but that those shows earned 18% more revenue than their male counterparts and sold 16% more tickets. We know that 65% of all Broadway show tickets are purchased by women and that women make up the majority of the audience.  If plays by women make more money, why are producers afraid to take a chance on them?  For years now, it’s been acceptable for theatres to reserve one slot per season for a play by a woman or writer of color.  Emily concludes her study by suggesting that theatres produce more plays by women to increase their revenue.

Wait…did I just write that correctly?  When sexism in theatre ends, the theatre industry will thrive?  I hoped that this fact would spread like wildfire across the theatre community.  Since Emily’s study, I have noticed an ever-so-slight shift in attitude towards women in theatre (not as seismic as I would have expected given the results of the study). Articles about women in theatre began popping up along with more press for women directors, designers, etc.   The study also produced some very negative responses from both men and women.  The suggestion that women do discriminate against other women was jumped on by some, (including me in a letter to the NY Times) as a sad conclusion of the study.  Later, when the dust settled, women were able to organize around the hard facts of the study and call on both men and women to work towards ending sexism in theatre.

What is it like for women today who come to New York fresh out of high school or college to work in theatre? From the 5 minutes of research we do at every college campus we visit I can tell you that there are just as many women getting degrees in theatre as there are men. The Dramatists Guild (a national playwrights organization) membership is pretty evenly split with female and male members.

Young women say it is the same as it was when I came to New York 30 years ago: you begin by auditioning, sending out resumes, interning and are soon fed up and much too talented to wait for opportunity, so they create opportunities for themselves.  You start your own theatre company and self produce your own work.  You meet other creative theatre women and join forces to organize theatre festivals. You form collectives, writers groups and support each other as you go.  But does producing your own plays because if you don’t they won’t get produced solve the problem of discrimination in theatre?  Does the large numbers of women working off-off-off-off Broadway point to equality?  Does it matter that when you get to the highest paying jobs in theatre you find the smallest number of women?

In the next post I’ll interview several young women in the NYC theatre scene and share with you their thoughts on this and other topics re women in theatre.  Now we cut to Act I, Scene 3 from Guerrilla Girls On Tour’s play “Feminists Are Funny.”

“From the east coast to the west

Women are the best

We can write a full length drama on the page

So why are we not listed?

Why is theatre twisted?

When it comes to putting women on the stage?

* In order to put the focus of our work entirely on the issues, each member of Guerrilla Girls On Tour! performs under the name of a deceased woman artist and wears a gorilla mask to conceal her true identity.

Julie’s note: A while back, I wrote a post (my first, in fact) concerning the multiple teen pregnancy-related storylines on TV. Around that same time a show first aired on The CW: Life Unexpected. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a show — a modern day fairy tale, really — about a teenage foster child who tracks down her birth parents in order to become emancipated, and via an institutional deus es machina, winds up in their care. As of yesterday, it has been picked up for a second season.

The show took me by pleasant surprise. Not only does it hearken back to the WB’s earlier, rose-colored days when young adults built non-traditional families, but it has a risk[ier than most] depiction of real, flawed women and tough situations. A welcome television oasis, one would gather, from the One Tree Hills and 90210s that sandwich it on the young network.

Liz Tigelaar, Life Unexpected’s showrunner, agreed to sit down with me a few weeks ago and talk about the show, its gender (politics?), and her experience as a female showrunner.

Julie Block: What was your inspiration for Life Unexpected?

Liz Tigelaar: It was a lot of things. On one hand I would think about my life: I’m kind of scared of babies and I would love if a teenager was just dropped on my doorstep. And I also had a long relationship with someone from high school and always thought, “What if we had a baby in high school?” So I was thinking about my own life. And I love coming of age stories and the idea that the parents are the people who need to grow up because of the kid. On a deeper level, I’m adopted and always had this fantasy of finding my birth parents … It was only in doing the show that I realized how I grappled with it. So I guess you could say it’s pretty personal, but I didn’t think of it that way [originally]. In retrospect a friend who read [the script] said, “Hey, this is kind of about you!” And I was like, “What?”

JB: So how then, for a story so personal, do you separate yourself?

LT: It isn’t my story. The themes and ideas [are], but I wasn’t a foster kid, I wasn’t a kid who didn’t get adopted, I have great parents who wanted me, who are amazing people. So it’s not my story, but I may see myself in my characters, like Cate, obviously. I never wanted to write a story about myself, it’s more that I can see myself in this fictional story.

JB: How do you feel about how you handled the foster care stuff?

LT: There’s always more research that can be done, and there are things you do for television, so I’m not claiming that we’re any more accurate than Grey’s Anatomy or any other medical story [chuckles]. But I read a lot of memoirs, so even if we haven’t been able to get the facts and logistics right … we’ve tried to be really true to a character’s emotional state, and obviously there’s only so far we can go on the CW.  People will say like, Lux is a brat, Lux is unlikeable; there’s this idea that you’re going to have this perfect kid with no damage who’s just grateful and allows you to love them when they’ve been through awful stuff. We’ve really tried with all the characters to not think of them as good or bad but just as people, who are flawed, who are trying.

JB: I’ve read a lot of hateful responses to Cate’s character … I’m wondering if you think that’s symptomatic of how we view the mother/father dynamic.

LT: Of course! I never sat around fantasizing who my birth father was. It’s completely different, a birth mother vs. a birth father: You were in your birth mother’s body and she gave you up. With Lux, in a way, her anger is still directed at Cate. And Baze is less important because in her mind growing up, he wasn’t even a thought. I think she always fantasized Cate was her mom, that person on the radio, and I don’t think she sat around fantasizing who her dad was. I always thought that was true, as was that theme of being a parent vs. being a friend.

Whether in business or parenting, women and men can behave the exact same way but be conceived completely differently. A guy is powerful, strong and won’t back down, whereas a woman is a bitch. And it’s the same on TV. You could never have the character House be female. It would be like, “That character is totally unlikeable!” We like the female characters who have babies and get married! We like the ones who don’t take their anger out on other people. That’s true for parenting, too. When I was little, my dad would do my hair before school when my mom was out of town. It would be the worst job ever —

JB: With braids and poofs going everywhere —

LT: Right! But if your dad did it, that was so cute! But if your mom sent you to school like that? “She needs to be taken away from her.” It’s an entirely, completely different standard, which I wanted to also explore. And I think we’ll keep exploring.

JB: So, I read that originally you wanted Cate to be a bike messenger …

LT: Originally she was going to be having an affair with a married man … more screwed up, basically. The way it panned out, it [now] made sense to have her on a pedestal, and it probably relates more closely to the way I put mother figures on a pedestal. But when I originally conceived it, I wanted it to be more inconvenient [for Cate] to have a kid. But I realized (well, obviously, the CW helped me realize) that … she and Baze would be in the same boat [financially], so it’s nice they have different challenges. But at the time I thought: If she’s living in an apartment with two roommates and she thinks her married boyfriend is going to leave his wife, and she has a whatever job …

JB: Have you gotten any responses from people involved in the foster care system?

LT: The responses have actually been pretty good. I mean, when you’re tackling an issue like this, you always get nervous that you’re not going to do it justice. And there are things that we could always do better. We always call and ask [our consultants] specific questions and really try to honor the truth of the situation. But there’s a website called “Birth Mother, First Mother,” and I always get linked there about the show and I think that it resonated that way. A foster care documentary about easing out of the system contacted me and I did a little endorsement of it. It’s definitely made me want to get involved [with foster care] in some way, and I think it’s also only led to more ideas for stories. Not only with Life Unexpected–I have another pilot that I really want to do that’s kind of in a different direction. But I don’t, I try not to read TelevisionWithoutPity. I always want to go on so bad because I think the people who write on there are really smart and know a lot about TV, but I’m afraid to go on there because …

JB: You’re not sure what they’re writing about the show?

LT: Well, honestly, I’m just afraid that I will get so paralyzed. It’s hard. There’s so many debates that go into everything that people don’t know [about] … To do this job and this show you have to have confidence in yourself and your decisions or you will not be able to do it, so I tried not to be obsessed with what undermines it too much, but I do get really curious. I know what I think of as a fan of something, and I tell the writers all the time: If I was on my own staff, I would be revolting all the time … It’s been shocking to me, once the weight of the show and the responsibility is on your shoulders, how your storytelling changes. I haven’t seen the wide response, but from the articles, I’ve been pretty happy.

JB: One of the great things about the show is that the characters are complex, but the characters get a lot of flack. And I was wondering if female characters get more of it.

LT: Definitely. Look at how much people love Baze, who’s no worse, no better, than Lux or Cate. One thing I loved in the evolution of Cate’s character: I feel like at the beginning, people did find her a certain way, but people have really come to understand her and relate to her … I’m a lot like Cate, and I don’t think I’m that [I’m so different]. I think a lot of people are like me. I remember with the first draft I handed in, they said, she’s unlikeable, a woman who doesn’t want to get married and have babies is unlikeable, a woman who takes her anger out on others rather than turning it inwards is unlikeable, all these things that make a woman unlikeable. A man would never get these notes.

And so I would always push Cate further, and I’m happy that she gets to be as broad and real as she is. When we were watching the finale together, my dad laughs and goes: “She’s just always herself. No matter what.” And I love that he said that, because I always thought Cate is who she is despite herself. Even if she sometimes wants to be different, she can’t help but be herself for better or worse.

JB: You definitely touched on that in the early episodes when Cate questions the perception where the female radio jockey is crazy and abrasive, and the guy jockey is funny and cool. I think a lot of women really connect with that …

LT: It’s the reason that Liz Lemon is so loved. All of us see ourselves in her.  With the women from Sex and the City, maybe we saw ourselves in that we have those conversations with our girlfriends, but I don’t think that most people [really] saw themselves. But Tina Fey’s character is so popular because people feel like floundering basket cases. Especially now …  You prioritized your career over personal life and it creates a whole set of issues. Cate’s done that. She’s a character I really love, she’s really easy to write, I love making fun of her, I love Shiri [Appleby]’s quirks, and she just embodies her. She gets it. And it’s really fun to see.

JB: You’ve said that Life Unexpected is the unsexy show on The CW.  So what might young women take from Life Unexpected that they wouldn’t take from … Gossip Girl?

LT: It’s a love story, it’s not a sexy love story because it’s a love story between a family. It’s about family and trying and wanting to be better than you are, and how it’s easier to tell somebody to do something but harder to follow yourself. We have this image of how women should be, if we opened magazines and we just saw ourselves, if we turned on the TV and just saw ourselves … not to say that we sit around comparing ourselves to every woman, but I think it’s a truer representation of what’s going on … [The characters] don’t strive to be perfect because they know they’re not. There’s no standard of perfection. But, I think it’s just more real.

The stories we tell are going to be more emblematic of real situations. We’re not going to have two girls kiss because it’s hot. It’s going to be because one person is really struggling with something, something real, [for] the kids watching who might also be struggling with it. We’re not doing anything for shock value or sex appeal. Not that there’s anything wrong with those, it’s fine, but it’s not us. If we tried to be that, it would be inauthentic. We have to stick to what we do.

JB: What are the things that Lux is struggling with? Clearly not all her issues are tied in a bow…

LT: Well I haven’t pitched second season yet [Note: this interview took place in mid April] so I don’t know what they’ll like or what they won’t like … Once she’s been adopted, all the push-pulling goes away, and what it becomes is, I want to live up to whoever you expected me to be. I don’t want them to know they got a lemon.  I don’t want them to think they got a dud, but inside I kind of feel like a dud. I think that’s the story, and what’s really amazing and heartbreaking.

JB: How does sex come up in the writers’ room, or with the network?

LT: We haven’t had a lot of it, probably because the show’s so not sexy. We did have this question in the beginning, was Lux a virgin or not? And I see that it’s a good story, Lux losing her virginity, but personally I feel like I’ve written that story. I haven’t, but I feel like I have. And I’ve seen it a million and one times, and I just don’t believe that she’s a virgin. I don’t believe that Bug was the first person she had sex with. I believe that a kid that’s looking for love, looks for love, and … takes sex for love … In the episode where she’s just lying in bed with Bug in her underwear, we [didn’t] have to make [a thing of it]. We obviously did a story with Baze hoping she’s a virgin, but “My boyfriend’s name is Bug. I was going to live with him. Are you kidding me?!” I think that’s more fun. I like taking stories that you’ve seen and then turning them because we have a more adult character.

JB: I think you handled well the part where she’s like “I know how this [sex] happens.” There was an article in Time about the anniversary of the pill, which argued that abstinence education is partly behind the foster care epidemic.

LT: Someone was just telling me that the number of abortions are way down, and I don’t know if that means less people are getting pregnant or fewer people are getting abortions … That’s why we always said Cate and Baze used a condom, it just broke. I didn’t want to represent them as careless people. I also never meant to represent Cate as anti-choice …

JB: Is that what people think?

LT: With Gilmore Girls and with this show. If you look at things through that lens, it’s easy to say. With Gilmore Girls, the message could be, “Hey! You should get pregnant and have a baby! Because you guys will be best friends!” With Cate, maybe it’s a little different, but close. People put their belief systems onto [the characters], but I always had my own theory about Cate. And actually, kind of like with my mom, she didn’t know she was pregnant until she was about six months pregnant. She was, but they told her she wasn’t …  Cate was in denial for a long time and then it was past the first trimester and [an abortion] wasn’t going to happen. But our intention wasn’t to send anti-choice messages.

JB: What’s your experience being a female showrunner?

LT: I read an article that looked at the ratio of men to women, and said it wasn’t that great for women. That’s not my experience. Julie Plec, who does The Vampire Diaries, is one of my best friends; my producing partner’s a woman and she does everything; I’m surrounded by so many empowered women. But it’s much harder. We’re just built differently, for instance: I was having this horrible day [a few years back] and I did this pitch and I don’t [remember] what happened. But as they were talking I could feel myself welling up in this room full of men, one woman, thank God, and I was … really frustrated. And I just started crying! And I was so mad at myself, I was being such a girl. But I wanted to say, I cried, I’m not ashamed of that. That’s what I do, I don’t punch people, I don’t take it out on someone. I just get a little weepy.

It can be hard because that’s not acceptable, and while it’s not everyone’s nature to cry, it’s mine, and obviously if you’re crying at work you’re seen as weak. So then I have to fight my personal nature. It’s not the best example. But I feel like my whole show is that too, in a weird way. There are really strong women on the show and I like it that way. We think differently but we’re not desperate to be right, we really want to collaborate. It’s not about our egos–we just want to make it good.

Dear Lil Wayne,

I am sorry to hear about your recent incarceration, but I think that providing your address online and encouraging your fans to write you letters while in prison is a fantastic idea. Not only will it make you feel less alone, but it is also a smart way to gain feedback and use it in a productive manner.

My purpose for writing is to let you know that while I don’t respect some of your words, lyrics and metaphors, I really do enjoy your music. I can’t remember taking a joyride around my hometown without jamming out to “Something You Forgot” or “Go DJ.” And most of your tracks from “Da Drought 3” are among my most frequently played songs on iTunes. Admitting my love for rap music, however, complicates my political and social views regarding feminism.

You have tremendous influence over your fans even though you’re in jail. You have the power to improve the status of women in your songs and music videos by no longer degrading females. By doing this, you would be inadvertently embracing feminism.

I may not be considered an expert on feminism and hip-hop, but my critique and analysis comes from my accumulated awareness overtime due to my personal experiences with the two movements. I can recognize the comparison of my experiences versus someone more involved in the hip-hop culture, but as an outside spectator and avid listener I am still able to examine the flaws.

I know that I’m judged on my choice of music because of my self-proclamation of feminism. Frankly, sometimes I even judge myself. Like most aspects of modern popular culture viewed through a feminist lens, hip-hop is a complicated subject matter due to its chauvinistic tendencies. This leads me to inquire if and when double standards are acceptable or considered inappropriate: What makes my enjoyment of rap music any different from supporting other sexist venues, and should I feel guilty about the special attention I pay to one of the most chauvinistic genres of music?

It’s difficult to separate race and gender into two separate categories because they are so intertwined with each other. It’s impossible to examine women’s issues without disregarding what it means for members of different races and ethnicities. The beauty of hip-hop is that it encompasses numerous facets within this one musical genre. It can be pure entertainment and extremely political at the same time.

Hip-hop is informative. It’s political. It speaks to people. Your lyrics make a difference in the lives of millions of listeners, and there’s a great opportunity to make a difference with your individual choices within your music. If you lead by example, you’re capable of doing what the pioneers of rap in the 1970s and ‘80s did for racial barriers — use your influence to break down boundaries and create change.

In an ideal world, rap would stop objectifying women in music videos and lyrics; it would start fusing together with feminist ideals to enable a more comfortable medium. We’re not quite there yet, but I don’t see why the most influential rappers in the game, such as yourself, can’t use their power to create a mutual space for feminism and hip-hop to coincide, therefore sparking more innovative ideas and concepts.

Feminism and equal rights don’t have to be a scary concept — it could mean eliminating the possibility of the objectification of your daughter and even her daughter. The hip-hop movement has made valiant strides in terms of diminishing racism, and there’s no reason why it can’t do the same for issues relating to gender.

Progress and change are relevant in the hip-hop movement and culture as a whole, but maybe it’s time to specify the kinds of issues that still need to be addressed. I’m challenging you to keep an open mind to something new — make your next album less sexist and more “female friendly” (I also wouldn’t be too disappointed if you decided to take a page out of Billy Joel’s book and write a song titled “Krystie Lee”).

Wayne “Lil Wayne” Carter is currently located at the Eric M. Taylor Center in East Elmhurst, N.Y. Check out http://weezythanxyou.com for further details if you want to write him a letter.

As an undergraduate Woman of Color, I spent four years fighting for change within my college institution and had little time to think about my needs outside of my race and gender. As a result, I was often seen by the administration as the voice of Female Students of Color. Administration and faculty members recruited me to assist them in generating lists on how to better the environment for Students of Color and, eager to help, I happily obliged.

It was only after graduation – with time to breathe and the gift of retrospect – that I began to ask myself: Why didn’t the administration simply ask my fellow Students of Color and let them come up with plans of action that fit them best? In other words, why was the administration asking one or two Students of Color how to fix the problems of an entire group of people?

Although it wasn’t until I had time to recover from college life that these questions started to crystallize in a productive manner, I experienced certain realizations while still a student. By my senior year I fully understood what my fellow classmates meant when they said, “They (colleges) know how to recruit us (Student of Color) into their fancy institutions but have no idea what to do with us once we get here.” It seemed obvious to us that the college’s ability to deal with the needs of a growing Woman of Color student population, trailed behind its zeal to publicly proclaim itself a “diverse” campus.

This imbalance, which continues with little sign of change, may very well be the root of the problem. These institutions don’t know how to listen to the stories of Women of Color students, nor do they understand their experiences. While they continue to give Women of Color scholarships, venues to speak out, and even cultural houses to live in, they fail to give them a microphone to be heard.

And it would seem that therein lays the answer; when I looked back as a graduate and thought, “What could we do to help these women be heard?”, I realized a simple, but grossly overlooked, approach to dealing with issues of Women of Color in academic settings: “We should let them tell us.”

And so I started Refuse The Silence, a growing multi-media project that captures the honest experiences of Women of Color currently enrolled in elite liberal arts colleges throughout the United States. It is a space for Women of Color to tell their own stories using their medium of choice, be it through film, essays, music, poetry, etc. The stories are being compiled with the goal of presenting a suggestive plan of action to these institutions.

A few weeks ago, I returned to my alma mater, Middlebury College, to interview Women of Color on campus about their experiences. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, perhaps to realize that I had made a mistake and should stop before I got carried away. But when I listened to them, I knew that their story had to be told.

In an interview, one student told me,

I think there are major concerns on campus with women of color. However, I think one of the biggest problems is lumping them all as one major concern because we all come from very different backgrounds and everything that affects us is different. To some people their religion is a very important factor, to some people their skin color is a very important factor, to others its their culture and way they grew up… so its very different things that affects all of us.

One of the biggest problems that women of color on this campus do face is that… we are seen as similar. We are seen as having, umm, you know, one issue… so I think women of color face a lot of problems in being able to stand on their own. In the same breath [they have a hard time] having the campus see them as individuals and not just as one huge loaf of color.

…[T]here is a huge issue of generalization [at Middlebury]. And, I understand that, you know, you being able to make connections in your mind and categorize people makes it easier for you, but it makes it very hard on people to be themselves and to have their own personality. There is a lot of de-individualization that is going on… There is a huge difference between listening to someone and hearing them… [I] think that many of my classmates are hearing me but they are not listening to what I am saying.

Students continue to feel as though they are not being understood. They have to keep fighting, and be the voice for change on campuses. “If we don’t fight, who will do it for us?” another student wrote in an entry.

Another concern that a handful of Women of Color have referred to in their submissions is the influx of discussion groups on campus to address issues of race. Unsupportive forums on institutional diversity on college campuses and the visible lack of action taken angered the majority of students I spoke with.

Is it possible the colleges’ attempts to bridge racial divides are making things worse?

Refuse The Silence isn’t just about changing our education system. The focus is on giving these women a microphone to speak out. It’s not always about the right or wrong action to take, but about Women of Color knowing that they can speak, and that someone will listen.

So, today I ask: How can we better assist those who are currently in such institutions, including students, faculty, staff and the administration, understand the issues that need to be addressed if we don’t even listen?

I have found that academic institutions still have the conception that a publicly touted liberal idealism means that we live in a world without racism. I can only hope that Refuse The Silence will raise questions about how we deal with race issues in regards to Women of Color on elite college campuses. Furthermore, I hope that we will be able to understand the significance of their individual experiences.

If you would like to learn more and/or you are interested in submitting your story, click here.

During my undergraduate career, I had been actively interested in American visual culture and its affects on American women’s identities. The issue of visual culture’s influence on identity was always a contentious one for me, as I think it is for many young women. How can it not be when you’re constantly bombarded with images of unattainable beauty standards? As my research on visual culture accumulated, I began to wonder about visual culture in other locations. Because of my Italian heritage, and the opportunity to study abroad in Rome in 2006 for five months, I knew immediately that I wanted to talk to Italian women about visual culture and how it may or may not have influenced the shaping of their identities. I interviewed women from various backgrounds and ages.

“[Italian women] feel how American women felt in the 50s,” said Angela, a 34-year-old architect and Ph.D. candidate in 2006 living in Rome. This response was startling to me. Angela continued, “When my friends and I go see American movies, we see how brave and independent the American women are. Even though it is better for Italian women today, we still haven’t reached where American women are.” Antonella, a 35-year-old manager in Milan echoed this sentiment, when I interviewed her recently. She said, “To represent the current woman, who lives in 2010, I suggest discussing the working woman, who has a lot of dreams, ambitions, and hobbies. When I say dreams, I don’t mean wedding dreams, but dreams for themselves, like career, travel, and why not a new sports car?” Both Angela and Antonella felt pressure from their society’s expectations, usually expressed through visual culture.

When I questioned how Angela felt about Italian advertisements, she commented, “Of course I’m affected by it to some extent. I think everyone is, but you can’t follow it—you’ll go crazy.” Likewise, Antonella said that she didn’t feel like Italian visual culture represented her. She stated, “Unfortunately, women don’t speak or say anything special in most of Italian advertising. They often appear bare-ass, from food advertising to car advertising.” This is, of course, similar to representations of women in American advertisements, however, in Italy many ads involve nudity. The billboards I saw in Italy typically presented half-dressed women, occasionally nude, in poses that seemed all too explicit for the general public. This had the effect of overshadowing the commodities being sold, to the point that many of these billboards seemed to be simply selling women. The production of this visual culture is entirely for men by men. Nudity is generally more accepted in Italy than the U.S., which is, in some ways progressive, but can border on exploitative.Italian media was new to me, though I was used to seeing the unattainable aesthetics that went into most commercial media. The television shows I watched in Italy exuded a fetishized, commodified female sexuality constructed for the male gaze; stronger than what I had seen in the States. Women in scantily clad garments passed on the screen with gyrating hips. The women were generally there to act as decorations, or ornaments. One young woman I interviewed found this to be problematic. Elisa, a 22-year-old student in Milan said, “Of course, I’d like that this purely ornamental function had an end; women are not only objects or bodies that can be shown, but they are also people endowed with intelligence, with their own thoughts and opinions. This effort should be taken upon media, but also upon women themselves, and public opinion.”

The women represented in visual culture, at the time of my visit, were often blonde, blue-eyed, and waif-like. Even Miss Italy (in 2006) exhibited these traits. For the Italian women that I spoke with, this felt confusing since these models were not representative of them. In Italy, most blondes are seen as non-Italian. They are considered “exotic.” There is a definite hair-color hierarchy in Italy. Blondes are seen as sexy, easy, and exotic, while brunettes are common and prudish. When I would walk around with my blonde-haired, blue-eyed friend, she would receive more attention than I would. We would be at a café or in a clothing store and my friend would be helped first, whereas I wouldn’t even be spoken to on most occasions. However, sometimes this hair-color hierarchy had its downside. For instance, since many blondes are stereotyped as “dumb” some Italians wouldn’t talk to my friend, because they assumed she wouldn’t understand them, whereas because I’m Italian American and look as such, they would often ask me for directions and/or help. This inconsistent behavior was confusing and annoying. I would often wonder, “How will I be treated today?” I began to feel ugly and unimportant in Italy, as I was constantly reminded that I was “average” and looked like everyone else.

One woman, who definitely stood out to me during my stay was Marilena. At the time, she was a 64-year-old single woman who had never been married and never had children. She dressed like she was in her twenties, had a tanning bed in her apartment, dyed her hair blonde, and kept numerous framed photos of her younger self throughout her apartment. When asked if she was affected by visual culture, she stated, “No, I am not fixed on it.” For me, it was difficult to let Marilena get away with this comment when it was all too clear that she was extremely affected by the imagery imposed on her. This was evident by the things in her apartment. As I spoke with Marilena further, she began to state her insecurities: “I don’t think I was beautiful. I’m not sure of my beauty.” She continued, “My mother, father, or grandmother never told me I was pretty.”

The last four interviews I did were with young women in their twenties. I spoke with Erica, a 23-year-old student in Milan, and when asked what she thought of American women, she replied, “I think they are like Italian girls, but maybe more opened mentally. Although, I see that the problems they have in America are similar to the problems we have.” I questioned Erica on what she meant by this and she said that she believes American women to be more susceptible to letting visual culture bleed into their psyche. When asked how she felt about representations of women in popular culture, Martina, who was 21-years-old, said, “The women are introduced like empty containers.” Women in visual culture are completely devoid of voice, strength, and retaining any sense of authenticity.

Alice, a 24-year-old, discussed the dominance that American culture seemed to have in Italy. She said, “[In Italy] it says that in America the girls are all wonderful, like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Hillary Duff, and Paris Hilton…One thing that seems taken very seriously is their physical appearance.” The women I spoke with all discussed their dislike of the current visual culture that was being presented to them. When asked how she would change this, Paola, a 24-year-old office clerk, said she “would change the image of the [woman as] object that is presented exclusively on television programs and commercials. To begin, the woman would no longer be insufficiently dressed and she would speak.” Women are repeatedly silenced through visual culture. When will it be our time to speak?

None of the women I spoke with were able to identify with the commercialized representations of them. I’ve spoken with other women from various backgrounds informally about this as well. The response is generally the same. We don’t feel that our physical and/or intellectual selves are represented accurately in today’s media. Each woman I spoke with was aware that visual culture shaped her identity to some extent, and still does. The women I interviewed all stated that these types of advertisements were detrimental to their physical and emotional health.

I often question, “Will things ever change?” And if yes, when? Visual culture has only increased its ability to alienate and silence women. Those who continue to produce these advertisements seemingly don’t care.

Women must be heard. They must be allowed to speak their own culture and identity.