Moderator: Margot Friedman, Dupont Circle Communications
- Veronica I. Arreola, Board Member, Women In Media & News, Blogger, Viva la Feminista
- Sarah Granger, Managing Director, FutureCampaigns
This panel will focus on media in terms of magazines, newspapers, online media outlets and blogs. It will discuss the impact of news media coverage on women’s rights (linking inaccurate and sexist content with political realities for women), the impact of representations/stereotypes/typecasting of women in entertainment media on cultural/social perceptions of women, and the ways women can and are working for media justice. It will also look at how best women’s organizations can partner with bloggers, including how the relationship can be respectful of each other’s time, how best to pitch bloggers, and how different kinds of media can best use their voice. In this immediate news cycle we live in, how do institutional organizations react in a timely manner without finding themselves always reacting to the news?
Interested in hearing who the panelists are (I know that Veronica will be an excellent moderator). Wish I could be there to bring the conversation to a big-picture place, re.:
– impact of bias and inaccuracy of media coverage of issues of concern to women
– ways women are working for media justice on a structural/institutional level
– independent media and feminism
and more, but I know that Veronica will bring it there.
If there’s video, we’d like to post it to WIMN’s Voices.
We are interested in addressing the gap between rural women and feminism. “Rural feminist” is not a contradiction in terms.
One reason we created The Rural Womyn Zone web site was to overcome the geographical and cultural barriers that separate rural feminists from one another and the larger context of the movement. A quote from our website:
“One challenge faced by scholars involves how to avoid colonizing the voices of rural women, and how instead to seriously face and understand the different contexts of rural women’s lives. . Feminist theorists.. ..remain caught in a bind. We call for marginalized groups of women to add their perspectives to feminist discourse and practice in order to enable subjects to speak for themselves, but we realize that the academic and literary worlds are closed or alien to many of these women.” – Carolyn Sachs, Gendered Fields
Although the Rural Womyn Zone has been online for many years, at this point most of our work is behind the scenes. We would like to transition from a web site to a blog format so our members have direct access to expressing themselves publicly and we would like rural women’s voices to become part of this feminist agenda.
This is a great suggestion, though I think your plans to move to a blog format is an even better one that will help you (and all women!) get farther faster. One of the main themes of this conference is that the Internet allows us to communicate with each other beyond the constraints of space and time. I’m sure your life is very different from mine (I live in the ex-urbs of Washington, DC), but I’m sure as feminists we have much in common. Yes, create that blog and let’s all get to know one another so we can work together for change!
Thanks Jane.
I had a similar discussion with the President of Southern IL NOW a few years ago. We talked for a long time about the differences we have in organizing, recruiting, and interacting with media. So yes! yes! Let’s keep rural women in mind. And yes, a blog may be a great way to get your members engaged from their homes. I know there are places in this country were people are hours away from each other, yet share resources (hospitals, work places, schools).
Even though my name hasn’t made it’s way onto the list yet, I was so excited that Veronica has asked me to be on the panel, as well!