media

This is not a pic from a Dr. Seuss book but rather a shot of MIT’s Ghery-designed Strata Center, where this weekend’s Women, Action Media conference took place. In addition to my posts on the Hillary panel (here and here), I wanted to share additional highlights, for those who weren’t able to attend. Some summaries, as filtered by other bloggers who were there:

Hugo Schwyzer on Helen Thomas’ keynote from Friday night and on a handful of the Saturday panels–“Breaking the Frame: Revitalizing and Redefining Reproductive Rights Media Coverage,” “Beating the Old Boys’ Club,” and “Sex Workers and Media Representation.”

Jessica Valenti at feministing on the session called “Battling Backlash: Strategies for Fighting Back, Rising Above and Making Progress”

Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon on the “Breaking the Frame” session. (I poached the photo of the Strata Center from Amanda, btw.)

I know there’s a site that live-blogged the whole darn thing and if I find it, I’ll let you know. If anyone finds it first, please post the url in comments. And if you were there and blogged about it, send us your links in comments as well!

This just in: Rachel Kramer Bussell, along with her fellow Cupcakes Take the Cake bloggers, will be appearing on The Martha Stewart Show this coming Monday, March 31st, to kick off Cupcake Week on the show. As Rachel notes, that’s not (yet) a national holiday. They’re on at the top of the hour (1 pm ET on NBC). Click here for local listings.

Now, I’m just waiting for the moment Rachel, who also blogs at LustyLady and edits these amazing sex anthologies, slips sex toys into the conversation with Martha.

Rachel also just passed along a great link to me–an article by Violet Blue about how women are treated online, over at SFGate. Read it and weep. And then, go eat a big fat cupcake. For reals.

So I return from my traveling bubble to find headlines here ablaze, of course, with Eliot Spitzer (why can’t these powerful men just keep it in their pants?) and Geraldline Ferraro’s comments about Barack Obama (why oh why). Meanwhile, The Guardian reports this morning that for the first time, the four key members of the Treasury committee that is working with chancellor Alistair Darling to shape the budget are women. The article begins with a cutesy little zinger:

“After Blair’s babes, meet Darling’s darlings.”

Guess the US ain’t the only one with issues around women taking charge. You’d think they’d be used to it, with all those queens. The rest of the piece is great, but why must we start with babes and darlings, I ask. Sigh. I was really enjoying my temporary news blackout yesterday.

The Independent Women’s Forum finally responds to that woman-hating oped by Charlotte Allen that ran in The Washington Post. (Allen was later ID-ed by Katha Pollitt in her lively takedown as associated with the IWF; she used to work there.) Writes IWF’s Carrie Lukas:

I agree with the critiques that she took it too far (and lost me on the humor), particularly with the ending: “Then we could shriek and swoon and gossip and read chick lit to our hearts’ content and not mind the fact that way down deep, we are . . . kind of dim.”

Allen responded to the furious response to her piece in a live question-and-answer session at the Post, and feministing posted some highlights. I loved the questions, including this one:

“Can I have some of whatever wacky antifeminist week that you’re smoking?”

Hehe. Sing it sister.

Many democracies–the United Kingdom, Argentina, India, Israel, the Philippines, Pakistan, Liberia, France, and Jamaica, to name a few–have or have had women heads of state, and other countries–oh, like Peru and Bolivia–have elected presidents who are members of racial minority groups. Not so much here in the US of A, which is why, of course, it is rightly Such a Friggin Huge Deal. And the scholars are rightly getting busy.

On September 26-27, 2008, the Ronald H. Brown Center for Civil Rights and Economic Development at St. John’s University School of Law will hold a symposium entitled Making History: Race, Gender and the Media in the 2008 Elections at their Queens campus to explore it all. They’re inviting proposals from scholars from all relevant disciplines (law, media, political science, gender studies, race studies, ethnic studies, sociology, economics, history) and activists engaged in “developing concepts, analyses, methods, or data relevant to race, gender, media and elections.” Any takers? The deadline for submissions is March 14, 2008. More info available here.

Quick–pass it on!

This week Miss Courtney Martin and I penned a joint rebuttal, of sorts, to dear Charlotte Allen’s oped and to other divisive pieces by women about divides among us around this election of late. And it’s going to appear in Sunday’s WaPo, in the Outlook section. Please visit, leave comments, and let us know what you think!

My first national oped was placed with the help of Kathy Vermazen at the Women’s Media Center, and my dear friend Heather Hewett, who shared a contact with me. Thank you, ladies! Needless to say, Courtney and I are damn ridiculously thrilled.

Tonight! On WNBC (local NYC news station) sometime between 7-7:30pm, I’ll be on talking about the new study from the Council on Contemporary Families that I blogged about this morning. I got the call this morning and (Courtney will appreciate this!), I dashed off to buy a cheap dress at The Gap near Rock Center because I was wearing ratty jeans and inappropriate boots. Fortunately, the producer promised me, you won’t see my boots.

And on Sunday, March 16, I’ll be appearing on WCBS (again, local news) in a segment on feminism as part of a women’s history month special series. I hear Linda Gordon was interviewed too, and that Courtney Martin will be on it too. I feel so honored to be in their company. And grateful to the Women’s Media Center for the use of their office for the shoot.

Are you sick of turning on the TV, tuning in the radio, or opening a newspaper and asking yourself, where are the women? The Women’s Media Center created Progressive Women’s Voices, an intensive training and support program to develop a new class of women to take on the media, and I’ve been a beneficiary by participating in the first class. Applications are now available to take part in the second class.

The WMC is looking for, in their words, “talented, informed, progressive women who are willing to speak out about the issues that matter; women who are interested in joining an amazing group of dynamic, engaged women who are interested in changing the world as we know it through the lens of the media.” In case you’re wondering, they’ve delivered, connecting their participants with decision makers in the news industry who can help make our voices heard – from the opinion pages of the nation’s top newspapers to the producers an reporters at the national news networks.

So, whether your expertise is war or peace, leadership, health care, or technology, chances are you follow the news, and realize that progressive women’s voices, like yours, are missing. Click here to learn more about the current class of Progressive Women’s Voices and how you can apply (http://www.womensmediacenter.com/progressive_womens_voices.html).

And please pass it on. If everyone who reads this passes the application along to at least one other great woman whose voice we all should know, just think how things could change.

Personal hero Gloria Feldt–who is also on the Board of the Women’s Media Center, where I’m part of that first class of Progressive Women’s Voices–is about to hit #11 on the New York Times Bestseller list with her new book with Kathleen Turner, called Send Yourself Roses.

I met Kathleen at their book party earlier this week and was appropriately star struck.

But what I want to share via Gloria this morning is something she shared with us at PVW a few weeks ago. She was asked about the lessons she learned leading a social movement where she worked a great deal with the media and messages as vehicles of social change. And she told us about the importance of embracing controversy–something I’m still learning. I seem to keep playing it safe when reporters contact me to talk about intergenerational divide among women around the election. I’m working on how to respond without fueling a notion of “catfight.” Still working on it. Meanwhile, Gloria’s general comments to us are now posted on her blog, here.

In a nutshell, the 6 C’s of Embracing Controversy:

Controversy is the Courage to risk putting your Convictions out there to the world, using the controversy strategically, because controversy is a Clarifier—it gets people’s attention so you can use your platform to present your Case at a time when people are paying attention, and therefore controversy is a Change agent—because to make change you have to make people think differently, learn new things, and clarify their values.

May we all learn to follow Gloria’s example, I say. The woman knows from whence she speaks.

In the latest Women’s Media Center Exclusive, Sara Voorhees reports on the findings of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Children in the Media (GDIDM). Here’s the summary:

“For actress Geena Davis, who had galvanized women with movies such as Thelma and Louise and A League of Their Own, and her recent television role as the first female president of the United States (Commander in Chief), ‘where are the girls?’ was a question that needed to be answered. She started her own non-profit, and with the help of USC Annenberg School of Journalism professor Stacy Smith, Davis began research to assess portrayals of males and females in children’s media. On January 30 and 31, 2008, at the University of Southern California, under the auspices of GDIDM, she presented the findings at a forum for studio heads, writers, educators and students.”

Findings available here.