[Day 13] Arts & Entertainment
One hundred and sixty one years ago, a group of women and men drafted the Declaration of Sentiments, stating that "The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman..." Their immediate goal of equal voting rights for women in the United States has long since been met, but this statement still rings with a tragic amount of truth.
Three years ago, when rageprufrock first began the project that would grow into 14 valentines, she spoke about how women are praised and worshiped, torn down and degraded. We live in a world where our bodies are revered for the ability to give life and derided for leaving behind the appearance of adolescence, where we can rise to the highest offices of power in some countries and are deprived of basic rights in others.
We are told to be strong, to stand up for ourselves, told that we can do anything, be anything - but only to a point, always to a point.
Around the world, women die from lack of basic medical attention, from infanticide, from starvation beyond their control, from starvation inflicted upon themselves in a twisted attempt to be beautiful. We are beaten, raped, murdered, told in so many horrifying ways that we are lesser that we don't matter.
Forty years ago we declared that Sisterhood is Powerful, and it still is. We must remember that, must continue moving forward.
It's 2009 and we've come so far, but there is still more work to be done. We deserve better, and we can do more. We're strong. The next fourteen days is meant to remind us of that. It's our time to take back our bodies.
V can stand for vagina, like Eve Ensler's groundbreaking monologues. V can stand for violence, under whose auspices all women continue to make a home.
V can also stand for victory.
Arts & Entertainment
A great portion of a person's life is spent watching TV or movies, which makes it hard not to notice the representations of women that exist in such media. Often we are relegated to the sidelines, or made into a two-dimensional stereotype. Other times, we are used to affect male protagonists, our identity seemingly important only in how it relates to male characters.
If we look, we can find female characters who are strong and independent, who exists in and of themselves, and who represent who we truly are. It's certainly easier to find these characters than it used to be, but it can often times still take effort. Considering that the average girl will watch 5,000 hours of television before kindergarten, we need to have more, better and positive representation in the medial.
Organizations like Media Watch, The Women's Media Center, and the girls, women + media project strive to increase and improve the representation of women in all media.
[Today's essay is courtesy of idyll]