Two funny posts in one day... oh my!

A friend passed this one along to me (thanks Chels) and it is too good (and too true) not to share. Here's one take on the world of advertising: 

http://contexts.org/socimages/2009/07/12/humorous-clip-on-gendered-advertising/

Heeeeelarious!

I can't believe I didn't think to post this right after I saw it, but for a funnier take on the French burqa ban, check out Kristen Schaal on the Daily Show: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-july-1-2009/burka-ban

talk.in IV - A title change and a press release!

Ah, what we've all been waiting for.  If you're interested in the specifics of the September 21st show, including how and where to attend, here it is.  Join us for what is sure to be an exciting night:

TALK.IN FEMINISM TODAY RADIO SHOW COMPLETES PILOT SEASON WITH
INTERNATIONALLY CELEBRATED AUTHOR AND HUMANITARIAN
MARGARET (PEG) SNYDER, UNIFEM CO-FOUNDER

“Global issues are women’s issues, and the two are interwoven as threads in a fabric.” 
(Peg Snyder, SIGNS, 2003)

Maya Friedler and Jamie O’Reilly, Women’s Media Group, Chicago
In Collaboration with Human Rights Watch, Chicago
And UNIFEM, Chicago Present
talk.in feminism today Radio Show

GLOBAL SISTERHOOD: THE NEW FEMINISM
Recorded Live
Monday, September 21 7–10 PM
SPACE
1245 Chicago Ave Evanston, IL 60202
(PH)  847. 492. 8860
www.evanstonspace.com
Women’s Media Voicemail:  312. 458. 0822

With Guest Host June Sochen, PhD
Panelists: Peg Snyder, PhD, Author, Co-Founder UNIFEM
Jobi Petersen Cates, Director, Human Rights Watch, Chicago/Midwest
Anne Elizabeth Moore, Author, Media and Cultural Activist, SAIC

CHICAGO— In the fourth live program event of the pilot season of talk.in, a radio show, podcast online by Women’s Media Group, Chicago, discusses the role feminism plays in the global landscape. “Global Sisterhood: The New Feminism”, features celebrated feminist scholar and humanitarian Peg Snyder, and focuses on how American women over these 40 years, have worked with, and learned from, women across the globe.

GLOBAL SISTERHOOD, with historian June Sochen at the helm, looks at global activism as we hear from Snyder, Media Activist and Artist Anne Elizabeth Moore, and Jobi Peterson Cates, Director of Human Rights Watch, Chicago.

Panelists will report on the grassroots, cultural and economic programs they have been part of that empower women and girls. In an exchange with a live audience, they will address changing and expanding roles for women in the world, and the challenges that come with working for human rights. The devastating effects of violence experienced by women, as both citizens, and as refugees in this country, will be one of the primary focuses of the program. Documenting abuses, and the role of the media in that effort, will also be a topic for discussion. Talk.in Producers Maya Friedler and Jamie O’Reilly facilitate the audience talk-back.  

The program begins at 7 PM.  A short musical program and reception follow the live talk.in taping.  
The SPACE venue is handicapped accessible. Parking is available in the city lot across the street. Reservations required. For information, please call  (312) 458.0822. OR Email: talk.in@wmgchicago.com   

Out with the old (white dudes), in with the new

There's a lot of reasons why Frank Rich is awesome, but among them is the fact that he managed to find something of interest in mind-bogglingly boring and repetitive Sotomayor confirmation hearings:  

"The hearings were pure “Alice in Wonderland.” Reality was turned upside down. Southern senators who relate every question to race, ethnicity and gender just assumed that their unreconstructed obsessions are America’s and that the country would find them riveting. Instead the country yawned. The Sotomayor questioners also assumed a Hispanic woman, simply for being a Hispanic woman, could be portrayed as The Other and patronized like a greenhorn unfamiliar with How We Do Things Around Here. The senators seemed to have no idea they were describing themselves when they tried to caricature Sotomayor as an overemotional, biased ideologue."

Read the whole article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/opinion/19rich.html?em

Just another reminder that the times, they are a changin', and WMG is excited to keep the ball rolling.

"Iran's Second Sex"

Speaking of worldwide feminism (which, in case you haven't noticed, is the big topic on WMG's mind these days), Roger Cohen recently wrote a great op-ed for the New York Times about the role of women in Iran, and in this particular election (/revolution):

"Yes, it’s simple. From the outset, the regime targeted women, calculating that the patriarchal culture of the country would embrace the idea of an Islamic diktat that 'put women in their place.'

But then again nothing in Iran is simple. One benefit of the massive show of resistance to a stolen vote, and future, has been to awaken Americans to the civic vitality of Iranian society — a real country with real people rather than a bunch of zealous clerics posing a nuclear problem."

Cohen gracefully dissects the complexities of the war between tradition and modernity among Iranian women, and leaves us with some good old-fashioned ambiguity.  Read the full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/opinion/27cohen.html?scp=4&sq=roger%20cohen&st=Search

Big, scary, global questions. What are your thoughts?

Yesterday I had a meeting with Maya to work on her opening comments for the September 21st show, called "Global Sisterhood: Women Helping Women," which I thought would be a piece of cake.  After all, even for people who are skeptical about feminism and it's modern implications in this country (don't worry, we'll convince them otherwise), it's tough to argue that  some girlpower wouldn't do wonders around the globe.  After all, how do you defend practices like stoning women for committing adultery, or performing cliterodectomies?  As they say (okay, I actually heard this from Bill Maher, but I believe there was a more significant "they" before him), "Don't get so tolerant that you tolerate intolerance."

But ending these practices and mobilizing women toward their own liberation is not so simple as calling out the injustices and telling women to fight.  After all, when we put on our feminist hats, does that enable us to remove our American ones?  If we tell women that they want the right to choose, the right to dress and marry and divorce and bear children as they please, take whatever career they please, is that not perhaps just another way of imposing our "enlightened" American culture on a "third world" culture?

On the other hand, if we say that cliterodectomies are acceptable because they are a deeply engrained cultural and religious rite of passage which many women want to experience, are we not denying basic human rights?  Are we not condoning one of the most violent forms of female oppression possible?

These are extreme examples.  But how about this one: President Sarkozy of France recently announced that he would be backing the movement to outlaw burqas in his country, because they were a symbol of women's "enslavement" (read the full story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/world/europe/23france.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=sarkozy&st=cse).  Personally, I agree with his analysis of the symbolism of the burqa.  But I cannot help but see his move as more strongly motivated by his anti-immigration, xenophobic attitude, rather than his passion for women's rights.  So do I fight for the religious rights of Muslims, or the symbolic freedom of women?

These are the kinds of questions that we must address when we discuss the meaning of global sisterhood.  Do we choose the liberation of women when it implies a disregard for cultural differences?  Can we promote the freedom (religious, social, political, emotional, reproductive, etc.) of women without disrespecting the fundamentals of their culture and religion?  Or does a fundamentally patriarchal and oppressive culture deserve disrespect? 

Okay, now my head is actually spinning.  Have any thoughts on these questions?  Please, comment!  Give me clarity!  Make my head spin more!  Or, if you have brand new questions swirling around in your mind, please send them my way so that perhaps our panelists can help to answer them.

Global Sisterhood

It's that time: time to start getting ready and excited for the next talk.in episode.  We're all feeling especially energetic about this next episode, and about the panelists that are coming together.  Plus, the taping itself is going to be our first major fundraiser.  Hopefully a little info about the title, and one of those remarkable panelists, will whet your appetite for all the good stuff to come:

The September 21 talk.in feminism today show "Global Sisterhood: Women Helping Women",
will focus on how American women, over the past 40 years, have responded to-and learned from- women across the globe. 
Panelists will include Margaret (Peg) Snyder, Feminist Author, and Founder of UNIFEM. 
Peg is a Board Member and Treasurer of The Green Belt Movement International, www.greenbeltmovement.org, as well as a Board Member and Vice President of the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Market Women's Fund, www.smwf.org  

More info will be here soon about our other panelists, and how you can get involved with the fundraiser.  In the meantime, be sure to check out the podcast of our third talk.in episode, now online: http://www.wmgchicago.com/podcast042709.htm