Course Description

At the core of the course is the question how feminism has become a demonized and ridiculed “F-word” in an age when issues of gender and sexuality are at the center of constant, often explosive political debates. These debates often connect media representation and political representation but tend to do so in simplistic ways that bypass or distort decades of sophisticated feminist theory and practice. We will trace back such representations through the decades around case studies that encompass film, video, television and new media practices. The case studies come from the United States and beyond, taking into full account the global interconnectedness of media production and consumption as well as the transnational travel of feminist ideas. The main goal of the course is to evaluate how useful feminist thinking is to understanding the relays between media and political representation; and to develop a lasting critical apparatus to analyzing the politics of gender and sexuality in the media.


Wednesday, December 4, 2013

#FeminismIsForPeopleOfColor

In one of the recent blog posts somehow wondered how Feminism could be considered a White woman's thing when it is essentially about achieving equality for all woman. And while I definitely agree with that point, I'd like to direct any and all of you interested to the twitter phenomenon of #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen. It was spawned on the social network as a response to a perceived lack of concern on the part of mainstream White feminists for the issues of women of color. If anybody is interested in learning more about it here's a link to an interview with Mikki Kendall,  the woman who helped start this movement:

http://www.bustle.com/articles/3612-qa-with-solidarityisforwhitewomen-creator-mikki-kendall

Also related: Out of this exposure to the needs and issues specific to women of color, came another controversial hashtag: #BlackPowerIsForBlackMen. This aimed to critique the way men of color, including some of Black history's most revered figures (Martin, Malcolm, I'm looking at you) were/are complicit in oppressing women as well. Here's a link to a Jezebel post on the topic.

http://groupthink.jezebel.com/black-power-is-for-black-men-1131072274

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