Wednesday 25 February 2015

Women in Film: The Bechdel Test


Maya Owen

The Bechdel test is a test which rates films based on three simple criteria. Its not a test of whether the film is a feminist one, or whether it is a good film, but simply if there is female presence in it.

Criteria: A film must have...
1. At least two (named) female characters in it,
2. Who talk to each other,
3. About something other than a man.

A film passes the test if all three are achieved which, looking at them, surely can't be hard?

You'd be surprised at how many films fail.

The films below are a small sample of those which failed the test.
- The Amazing Spider-Man 2
- The Grand Budapest Hotel
- How to Train Your Dragon 2
- The Boxtrolls

Both 'How to Train your Dragon 2' and 'The Boxtrolls' are children's animated films that portray women in a certain way.

And if young girls are presented with female characters who only talk to each other about men or who only ever interact with men then they will instantly connect this with reality.

If they are not shown that women can be as strong and as independent and as heroic as the other male protagonists that so many films show, then what is to become of their desire to do this themselves; to count themselves as equal to men?

Equally, if young boys are constantly shown these images of strong male heroes always saving the 'damsel in distress' then they will begin to judge and measure themselves against these images and expect certain behaviour or attitude from women.

You could say the entire film industry is built upon creating films that cater to and are about men, but this is changing.

Films like 'The Hunger Games' and 'Divergent' show strong female protagonists and have become so popular.

Evidently, the film industry needs to change its tune.

Women make up half of the world. Shouldn't their bravery and strength make up half the films as well?

Below is a link to the Bechdel test web page where you can see all the films that have been tested and whether they failed or passed.

http://bechdeltest.com/

Women's presence in STEM subjects

Olive Jackson
The imbalance of genders within STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) has been a long developed and well-known tradition. Whilst physics and mathematics are renowned for being more “masculine”, teachers and students alike see “softer” subjects such as art, music and English as a lot more “feminine”.
One study of Canadian secondary school children showed that 14% of girls said that art was their favourite subject compared to only 5% of boys, whereas 6% of boys preferred ICT versus a shockingly small 2% of girls. 
Although this is only one school, we can quickly see a trend forming and a separation between boys and girls towards school subjects. 
As this continues to sixth form and college and students have more freedom with their options, it’s seen that over half of the boys achieving A* in GCSE Physics will continue it to A level, whereas only 1/5 girls will. 
In A level mathematics, 60% of the students sitting exams last year were male, however in English Literature this was only 30%. 
 
Each subject is important in its own right, however the gender imbalance towards STEM subjects continually causes concerns for teachers and academics, and schemes to get women and girls to continue in subjects like the sciences haven’t had any lasting impact.
According to WISE, women still only make up 13% of the STEM workforce.
As an A level student hoping to go into the field of biochemistry (classed as a STEM subject) and although biology has a reputation for being the “girly” science, I am shocked at how little women are encouraged into these subjects – with an ever increasing demand for research, medical and scientific cures and new engineering techniques, isn’t the input of intelligent women essential to our world’s development?
How can we continue repressing the input of 50% of the population due to an age-old social stigma that should have been ousted years ago, when there may be a wealth of knowledge contained in women’s brains that we just aren’t allowing to be unlocked?
Out of the entire history of the Nobel prize for Physics (started in 1901), only 2 have been female. That’s 2 out of a total of 198 prizes, despite the fact that women make up 50% of the worlds population.


So what can we do about it? Encouraging women into the STEM subjects doesn’t seem to be working – a quick google search and you can find bursaries, funding and courses specifically tailored to getting women into science, yet there is still a significant lack of female input.


The way to combat this is to fight the social stigma, to educate children from an early age about gender equality, power and knowledge and allow them to choose for themselves what they are truly interested in, without the stigma of mathematics, science and ICT being a “boy’s subject” and making them turn to the more widely “feminine” ones.
Give women the choice and we may have the next Einstein arriving – and this time it’s a Mrs.

Friday 20 February 2015

Women in decision-making - what the Charlie Hebdo march photoshopping really showed us

Read the full article here
A HuffPost review - Annie Thomas

           This is a really interesting article. These publications were released following the Charlie Hebdo tragedy, and focus on the political identities featured in the Paris march. 

           Moving past the political elements of the separate publishers’ decisions to release the images, the pictures alone highlight the absence of female political leaders in governments and decision-making roles today.
           The troubling reality of the unequal and low representation of women is shown brutally in the first image, and truly highlights the problems faced by professional women in a male-dominated society.

           However, the controversial act of the HaMevaser Israeli newspaper cutting out the women from the photograph seems only to have drawn attention to the women’s cause, in contrast to what its image would have purported, that NO women have a role to play in federal legislation within governments.

           The satirical images that follow, in particular the one showing the ‘Million Merkel March’ is, in a feminist’s eyes, hyperbolic genius in protest to these narrow-minded newspapers, and fits the purpose of gaining ever-increasing support for the advancement of women’s professional and political involvement at higher levels.

           If you have a chance to read it, it’s an interesting visualisation of where women stand internationally in decision-making positions, and also gives an insight into different media’s interpretations on the roles of women to boot.

Monday 16 February 2015

Naserian - empowering Maasai widows and their communities

Gemma Welsh
The problem:
           In many places around the world, widows are one of the most vulnerable segments of society.
           In traditional Maasai culture, widows have very few rights. They become part of their late husband’s family and their property rights transfer to his family too. Originally this was for the protection of the women and their children. To some extent this is still the case.
           The lived experience of the women themselves however, attests to the pain of their loss both of their husband and their status as first wives. In polygamous cultures, the inherited wives become the lowest on the status ladder and lose their home and their belongings and often the choices for their children. Taboos against widows are often so strong that they are a hidden group.
            Naserian has found that once the widows start meeting and it seems acceptable to be a widow, more emerge and are ready to share their own experience.  Naserian empowers Maasai widows to uphold their rights and live fulfilling lives. 
See this link for the full original statement from Naserian
The solution: 
           Naserian is a grass-roots charity with a connection straight from fundraising done here, directly to funding its work in Tanzania.
           Projects are then set up by Alias, a Maasai tribesman who has begun to change things for widows in his tribe.
           By extension, the widows are enabled to support themselves and their families, lifting them out of poverty, and the message of equality is disseminated throughout their communities.
           His work, started in his own village, has been enabled to spread through the help of funding to the seven surrounding villages. It has even inspired a national conference due to the prestige which international recognition has afforded him and Naserian, which will spread the message of their work even further. 

What Naserian does:
  • educates widows about their rights
  • empowers them to earn a living through teaching them skills which provides the means to  support themselves and their families
  • supports them to rebuild their lives following this trauma
  • trains widows and members of villages to carry on this work and educate their communities
Click here to see specific examples of present goals and those which have already been achieved

 Two projects which we would like to specifically fund:
  1. Alias, the coordinator, is injured and has difficulty making the long journey to nearest villages (5 hours away), to which there are no roads. We have sourced him a motorbike as a mode of transport to continue this work, which will cost £400
  2. A three day training course in human rights for 5 widows in each of the seven villages has been planned. This would enable widows to train their entire communities, and thereby disseminate this essential work for a cost of just £540
The Plan:
          With our school FemSoc, we are currently planning a large fundraising event which we hope will enable us to fund these important causes, and more.
          We will keep this blog updated as we are able to, however in the mean time (as the sooner we can enable these efforts the better!) we would like to take the opportunity to share the opportunity to donate anything you may be willing to this cause!
          Just £10 would fund two days of training for a widow (and by extension, if you like, 1/5 of a village), or make headway to meaning that Alias can carry on his work.
          If you feel you are able to, please follow this link to donate £10, or visit this page to donate any other amount, or support the charity in any other way!


Monday 9 February 2015

The Imperfect Woman

Kathryn McGrotty
Nowadays it is a crime for women to be anything other than perfect, yet nothing short of being computer-modified is perfect by the media's standards. Images of women are composed, constructed and contorted to make them seem flawless, but can you really be perfect in real life?

A few weeks ago, I read an article about a woman who was criticised for being too “skinny”, her response was how she has always been naturally slim and eats healthily but has never needed or followed a diet to keep her slender figure.

I find it ironic; the media constructs images of women to make them thin, but when a woman is like that in reality she is abused and condemned for “being unhealthy” and “promoting dieting and eating disorders to young women”.

Unfortunately, if a woman is overweight they are presented as being lazy and unattractive.

There is no way for us to succeed in meeting the criteria.

Magazines, television, video games and even children’s media engross themselves in images of the “perfect woman” and this utter obsession with this portrayal of women, and men, is having a lasting effect on younger generations, who will soon grow up living a body-obsessed life.

81% of 10 year olds are afraid of getting fat.

53% of 13 year old girls are unhappy with their bodies, and this number increases to 78% as they reach 17.

These statistics are outrageous and things must change.

Why should we allow the media to construct the lives of women today? The “perfect woman”, apparently, has to be skinny, tall, tanned, toned, curvy, petite and elegant, all at the same time. In reality, this must make everyone imperfect, because no one can match up to the form that the media request.

The definition of perfect is: ‘having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be’

But who really decides what these ‘elements, qualities’ and ‘characteristics’ should be? The media has plucked imaginary ones out of thin air in order to create a standard for women to live up to in the 21st century, but personally I think it’s time for a change and time for a new rule-book of standards for woman.

Number one: being, not computer-modified, but simply yourself.

Sunday 1 February 2015

A New Media Image

Olive Jackson
            Trawling through images of women in adverts, from Gucci to Aldi, across the covers of Vogue and Cosmo, you can't help but question, "Who the hell comes up with this stuff?!"
Cosmo advertising a woman's body
              as the focus of their front page...
            The idea of a woman bending in a confusingly contorted position, wearing nothing but a thong, purely for the purpose of advertising this new fragrance or that new shampoo, is truly out of my grasp.
            Yet this seems to be the norm wherever you look - the objectification of women within the media has become commonplace, and, despite all the advances in women's rights elsewhere, we seem to be slipping in this essential area.
            As a feminist, a woman and an optimist for change, I see this as another area where women can and will strive for change.
            Women, as much as men, have equal rights to power, dominance and their own dignity. 
...whereas it's completely acceptable for a man
to be shown in a shirt and geeky bow-tie
            However this is not seen in the media, where women are seen for their bodies, whilst men are seen for their skills and intelligence. This, in turn, is having a poor effect on the younger generation, meaning girls are focussing on appearance over intelligence and skills.
            I'm not saying men aren't also subject to this prevalent objectification - the images of overly muscular bodybuilders are also rampant.
            My point is that the presentation of body, weight and shape is affecting the population, and not for the better. 
Even in 8-10 year-old girls, 80% admit to have dieted; a shocking amount at such a young age.

 But what can we actually do about this media barrage of the "perfect" look? Sit back as models get thinner, buffer, and more unrealistic?

  We, as a society and a population, must make a change. We must show the companies, the advertisers, the media barons, that: We. Do. Not. Agree.
  We need realistic standards for both us and the younger generations, and the freedom to look, wear and weigh what we want.

   We need change, and we need it now.