This past week, I had the honor of attending a global conference that focused on creating media with more positive representations of women and girls around the world. After being introduced to the concept of feminism just last year, and hearing that Geena Davis would be speaking, I could not wait to attend.
Before going to the conference, I thought I already knew what I was getting myself into. I assumed that the day would consist of speakers such as Geena talking about the many ways that women are misrepresented in the media. Such as being sexualized, stereotyped, and or degraded. As I have seen for myself through the many movies and or television shows that I have been exposed to.
However, Geena and a few other speakers shed some new light for me on the issue: girls are nowhere to be “scene.”
Geena reminisced on a day where she was watching cartoons with her children. An innocent activity that brought her attention to an unjust normality: girls were missing in action.
As she was watching a children’s program with her kids, she took note of the lack of face time that female characters were receiving. Which is not only happening in television shows, but in the films continuously being released by the media.
The problem here is that because television shows and films are only presenting a few female characters in comparison to the numerous amounts of male characters, people today, including young boys and girls, are receiving the message that girls are less valuable.
Girls like me are being told that we are less important, that we have fewer options.
It is enough that women are missing in the world around us, such as holding equal roles in government to men, but that now we are being excluded from the public’s eye as well.
80% of the media that is consumed by the world is produced in the United States.
If people not just from the United States, but from all over the world, are not seeing equality between men and women, then it does not become ingrained into people’s minds.
After leaving the conference and becoming aware of the statistics and unbalanced percentage of women being misrepresented, I realized the hindering effect that the media has already had on me growing up.
This summer, I did a summer college program at Syracuse University. One day in one of my classes, my professor conducted an activity where he said a word or thing, and then asked us to stand up based on whatever connotations we had.
During one round, he said “Superhero.” He asked us to stand up if the image of a woman came to mind. Nobody, including myself, stood up. He then said, “CEO of a huge company.” He asked if anyone thought of a middle aged and overweight man. Almost everyone in the room stood up.
However, I stayed in my seat. Not because I thought otherwise, but because I was too ashamed to admit that I did not think automatically of a woman holding the position as CEO in a huge company.
The shame that I felt that day was not my fault. Now, I feel like I have people like filmmakers to blame for this. Filmmakers have the power to control how women are portrayed. This means filmmakers not only valuing girls and women for certain attributes through the roles that they play, but as well as putting more female characters on screen.
The conference held this week opened my eyes to the emphasis that filmmakers have to start putting on equally representing women. If more filmmakers were to put the effort into showing more female characters on screen and giving female characters more powerful roles, the perceptions that people have towards women can be changed.
Girl’s self esteem and sense of one’s value in the world can be changed.
Because for filmmakers, it is more than just creating a new hit in the box office, it is about making choices.
