Click here to view the embedded video.

This documentary film, written and directed by former actress Jennifer Siebel Newsom, seeks to expose and question the representation of females in the media—particularly modern American culture. So many people grow up without media literacy—truly understanding the political economy of mass media.

Modern mass media in the USA (and consequently Canada) is mainly dependent upon advertising revenue, whose sole objective is to sell a product. These advertisements rely on making people feel insecure and anxious as well as using sexual imagery.

Advertisers are not the only culprits of this act. American teenagers spend approximately 10 hours and 45 minutes per day on media consumption, including listening to music, browsing the internet, watching television and movies or reading magazines. There are so many choices available that movies, music and entertainment shows consistently resort to violent, sexual and demeaning imagery to break through the clutter. These messages influence predominant cultural ‘norms’ and political discourse.

Between interviews with famous and powerful women such as Jane Fonda, Katie Couric, Margaret Cho, Condoleezza Rice, Geena Davis, and Rosario Dawson, the film shows startling facts and statistics about the role of women in one of the most powerful countries in the world:

• Women hold only 3% of clout positions in the mainstream media (telecommunications, entertainment, publishing and advertising).
• Women comprise 7% of directors and 13% of film writers in the top 250 grossing films.
• The United States is 90th in the world in terms of women in national legislatures.
• Women hold 17% of the seats in the House of Representatives (the equivalent body in Rwanda is 56.3% female).
• Women are merely 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs.
• About 25% of girls will experience teen dating violence.
• The number of cosmetic surgical procedures performed on youth 18 or younger more than tripled from 1997 to 2007.
• Among youth 18 and younger, liposuctions nearly quadrupled between 1997 and 2007 and breast augmentations increased nearly six-fold in the same 10-year period.
• 65% of American women and girls have an eating disorder.

Interview clips with powerful scholars and feminists (including Gloria Steinem, Dolores Huerta, and Marie Wilson) shows how even pop culture’s “empowered” portrayal of women leads to self-objectification. Women in protagonist roles—such as Cat Woman, or Bridget Jones, or even animated characters in G-rated shows—are still objectified by being portrayed in short skirts and low-cut tops and depicted as “too fat” or “not pretty enough”. One interviewee (I forgot to write down who said it) described it as the “fighting fucktoy”. Popular culture also pits women against each other in catfights and almost encourages a competitive discourse between women.

In politics, the media belittles women’s accomplishments by focusing on their looks and not their views. Even Katie Couric mentions how she feels she may have contributed to the ‘sexy news anchor’ trend that’s happening at mainstream television stations. However, as Marie Wilson states, “you can’t be what you can’t see.” It is so important for the powerful and successful women of today to show young girls that you can be on television, or a news anchor, or whathaveyou.

This pressure is not only on girls and women to look and act a certain way, but promotes a patriarchial view of society as a whole. Men are supposed to be strong, powerful, in control, and emotionally constipated. Newsom and interviewees argue for better male role models in popular culture.

“The media can be an instrument of change, can [enforce] a status quo, reflect the views of society, or it can awaken people and change minds; it depends on who’s piloting the plane.” —Katie Couric

Nearly everything that was discussed I could directly relate to two classes I’m taking at the moment: “Mass Communications and Social Change” and “Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies: Gender Talks”. The communications course described exactly what we’re seeing in American media today as neoliberalism—the belief that the power of the market will shape the media. In this view, advertisers are simply “giving the public what they want to see” aka sex sells. (If you can’t tell, I think this is crap). In my gender studies class we’ve been talking about gender roles in society and culture (which tends to include pop culture).

The film and interviewees express a deep concern about the way society is headed if we continue to allow the media to push these ‘ideals’. The film concludes with a call to action—take the pledge to stand up against these portrayals of gender ‘norms’ forced on both females and males.

Overall the film saddened me, outraged me, disgusted me—all reactions I’m sure the director intended. These reactions will spur an action from the viewers, and hopefully bring about change, no matter how small. It all begins with questioning the things you see daily, the messages that mass media inflicts upon you. Being a critical consumer of media is the first step of media literacy and stopping this distorted cultural trend.

• MissRep on Twitter
• Miss Representation .org
• Review from Schema Mag
• Review from Persephone Magazine
• Article in The Province (includes quotes from Jennifer Siebel Newsom)

If you can’t make it to a screening of the film in your city (or host one), the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) will be screening Miss Representation on Thursday, October 20th at 9 PM EST.

SlutWalk Toronto is a rally that began in response to the victim-blaming that occurs throughout society in response to rape and sexual abuse. The tipping point was when Constable Michael Sanguinetti of the Toronto Police Service advised women at York University to “not dress like sluts” to avoid getting sexually assaulted. Unfortunately this is not an isolated incident. In Manitoba, Judge Robert Dewar sentenced a rapist only to house arrest attributing it to the way the victim was dressed and behaved.

If this victim-blaming occurs in Canada, where we have a strange reputation for ‘politeness’, I dread to think what is happening in other countries around the world. Many women have it worse than us living in First World countries, but I strongly believe that action starts at home. Blaming victims of a sex crime—in any country—just doesn’t sit right with me.

A fantastic article was circulated last week (I saw it on Facebook and Twitter) about what would happen if we blamed the victims of other crimes. Do we blame people who are robbed for having expensive items in their home? Do we blame people who are the victims of credit card fraud or identity theft? No! Because that would be ridiculous.

So, this Sunday, May 15, 2011, I will be participating in SlutWalk Vancouver because “whatever I wear, it is never an invitation for sexual objectification, sexual harassment or sexual abuse. Never.”¹

• cut foreign aid funding and peacekeeping forces (and subsequently were denied a seat to the UN Security Council for the first time in history)
• cut funding for women’s advocacy groups (43% cut)
• cut arts funding ($45 million)
• gives tax breaks to large corporations such as the tar sands industry ($1.4 billion… more than the entire budget of Environment Canada)
• neglected funding for the mentally ill and addicted (but committed $2 billion to expand prisons)
• cut childcare funding ($1.2 billion)
• cut public funding for science ($138 million cut, while the US invested $2.75 billion/year)
• becoming the first party in Canadian history to be guilty of contempt of parliament.
• prorogued parliament… twice
• tried to secretly eliminate the long form census (which would result in uninformed decisions)
• fires employees who try to do their job (such as Linda Keen who ordered the shut down of a reactor at Chalk River because of concerns about the emergency power system)
• if they can’t influence committee proceedings… they decrease funding for the commission in question to the point where they can’t operate.
• refuses to sign the UN Declaration designating clean water as a human right
• decided to buy 65 fighter jets ($16 billion) instead of search and rescue air crafts

And the most ridiculous ones:

• renamed the “Government of Canada” the “Harper Government” on all official correspondences
• redecorated the Prime Minister’s office with pictures of only himself (Harper) instead of former Prime Ministers

Think I’m just spitting out a bunch of rubbish? Nope… there are news stories and truth behind all these facts which is very unfortunate for us here in Canada. Here are the two websites that compiled most of the news sources: ShitHarperDid.com & So What Did I Miss? blog & Unseat Harper.

Tomorrow (Monday, May 2) is Election Day…. and all eligible Canadians need to get out and VOTE for anyone but Harper.

Problem 1: Calibre did not work on my Macbook (Calibre software not compatible)
Status: Fixed. I installed an old edition of Calibre in my late-2006-era Macbook. This worked and I was able to successfully add books to my Sony eReader. But remind me not to update Calibre when it tells me there is a new version available.

Problem 2: Adobe Digital Editions and DRM-protected books
Status: Previously I had started playing with ADE after issues with Calibre. As I had got Calibre working, I thought I would be fine without ADE. But then… (famous last words, eh?)

I got two free books as a “holiday gift” from Chapters-Indigo promoting KoboBooks. I went to Kobo’s website, registered an account, followed the instructions on my postcard, entered the single-use-codes, and downloaded the books.

The books are DRM-encoded so I selected the epub format to download, knowing my Sony eReader supported epub files. Kobo automatically wanted me to use Adobe Digital Editions to open the epub files. Okay, so I did that— I also discovered I had to authorize them with an Adobe account too.

In ADE I was able to save the epub files to my desktop, so I did that and then added them to Calibre (as I already knew I couldn’t use ADE with Sony on my Mac). I opened Calibre, added the Kobo epub files, and then synced them to my Sony eReader. So far so good, I thought.

A few nights later, I crawled into bed and picked up my Sony eReader. I decided to start reading one of my free Kobo books, The Bishop’s Man by Linden MacIntyre, who won the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2009. I clicked to open the book and got the following message: Content Protected by Digital Rights Management. Waitaminute!

I ended up contacting Kobo support to explain the issue (Mac vs. ADE vs. Sony) and basically the response was ‘too bad, read it on your computer’. Well, looks like I’ll not be a paying customer of Kobo any time soon….

Okay, now not to open a DRM can of worms, but seriously? I realize that corporations and companies are worried about everyone pirating stuff, like what happened to the music industry, and all the torrent sites for movies and television. But I just want content I buy (or receive) to work on my devices that I buy (or receive).

I bought my iPod, I bought my Mac, I installed iTunes. I buy CDs and want to put the songs onto my iPod via my Mac (all of which I paid for) so why can’t I? Oh right, apparently I’m going to steal the music and give it to others for free.

Don’t even get me started on lending books vs. lending ebooks. Right now all I have on my Sony are books downloaded from Project Gutenberg because they’re in the public domain.

Now, since my iTunes has crapped out for the second time in less than a month, I’m going to go read my paper book. Sound familiar?

Upon first playing with it, I found it a bit slow in response time, and my boss (who was testing the office device) expressed a displeasure at the black screen flashing when the pages were turned. I actually didn’t mind that, at least it was some indication that the eReader was doing something.

When I started to click into the settings and books, I experienced a huge lag time between the touch and the action being completed. By “huge” I mean 4 or 5 seconds. But by today’s standards, that’s quite a lot. I would often touch the screen again thinking it hadn’t registered the first one. This would make me select something inadvertantly on the next page as the eReader stored my clicks.

I hooked the eReader up to my computer (MacBook) to charge it (as it didn’t come with a wall charger) and to install the Sony Reader Library software. I did not have a fun time with this software! The PRS-650 has 2 GB of memory space, but as I tried to sync my ebooks to the device, it would freeze. I thought that perhaps I had filled the memory (with the 14 free books I’d downloaded from Gutenberg).

When I Googled it, I discovered Calibre which most people suggested for the Mac/Sony eReader relationship. I used Calibre successfully, but a couple weeks ago it prompted me to upgrade. I had forgotten I’d intentionally installed an earlier version of Calibre because I have an older MacBook (4 years old). Once I’d upgrade Calibre, I wasn’t able to run it on my Mac (doh!) which was totally my fault.

In the mean time, I’d gotten a free holiday gift from Chapters-Indigo for two books — The Bishop’s Man and Oryx and Crake if you’re curious. When I downloaded them, they wanted to open via Adobe Digital Editions. So I downloaded Adobe Digital Editions and started playing with it. It had a decent way to organize my eLibrary and I liked that I could make different bookshelves.

I then checked Adobe’s list of supported devicees to see if the PRS-650 was supported, which it was. Score! Then I looked to the help section to find out how to transfer my books to the device. I followed all the instructions but Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) didn’t recognize my eReader. I knew it wasn’t my computer because it was showing up on my desktop as a separate drive.

After more Google-fu, I discovered that ADE and Sony syncing doesn’t work on a Mac. My exact thoughts (after searching for more recent comments about the relationship): Fuuuuuuuuuuck you. Please excuse my language, but in total, I have spent at least 5 hours messing about with this damn device. That is precious time that I could have been reading a paper book.

I’ve been really impressed by the daily group-buy offers and have even purchased one (and nearly purchased a few others). I love receiving those daily deal emails from StealTheDeal, Groupon, TeamBuy, GoodNews, LivingSocial, and EthicalDeal. Another great experience: Once CW and I ordered an all-region DVD player but it arrived only being able to play Region 2. We emailed the eBay seller who was able to send us instructions to reset the region to 0. Fantastic customer service!

~~~

But since Saturday, one recent experience has been pissing me off. I really need to rant about poor customer service. Frankly, I don’t care if you’re at Comic-Con or on the other side of the world (hello World Wide Web…). I ordered this item a month ago and I just want a damn response regarding a replacement!

CW’s birthday is this Friday and he’s a fan of the online comic, VG Cats. He’s been laughing over this humourous Zelda-themed shirt sold by SharkRobot for a while. (View the VG cats comic it’s based on OR read a Game FAQ to find out why it’s funny). He hadn’t ordered the shirt due to the cost of shipping to the UK. Good for me though, since shipping to Canada was pretty reasonable. I ordered the shirt a month ago and it arrived last Friday (allow 4-6 weeks for shipping, fine).

But when I opened the package I was highly disappointed. As you can see above, the image is supposed to be large and wrap-around. It is tiny and only on the front.I replied to the “Order Shipped” email with my dissatisfaction and demanded they reprint the tshirt as advertised and reship it to me. I don’t want a refund, I want the product I paid for. I hadn’t heard anything by today (Tuesday) so I sent another message via their website and quoted my Order Confirmation number. As of this post, I still haven’t heard back. Grrrr…

~~~

Online Shopping silver lining: today I came home and Kim Werker had retweeted something from PoppyTalk about an online sewing class. I’ve been really tempted to take some of the clothing workshops and tutorials offered at local shops, but really don’t feel my skills are up to snuff. I realize that the point of a class is to learn, but if my basic skills aren’t honed, I might miss out on what I really want to learn about. What appeals to me about a local class is that with clothing, they can help measure me and teach me how to modify patterns to fit.

However, with this online Home Ec class offered by Leigh-Ann, Courtenay and Rachel, I’ll be able to practise some basic skills for a reasonable price! I ordered as soon as I finished reading the list of project and course description.

I’m sorry to bellyache here, especially after a week of quietness. But it’s my blog right? The summer hasn’t been a total bust. I love the job I’m doing … well the end result at least. It’s the 9-5 that’s bearing down on me. We’ve had lots of fun — my boyfriend and I have done lots of daytrips and some horseback riding too. It’s kind of that feeling that I’ve had no summer, but it’s mostly the terror that this is all the rest of my life will be — work and sleep. *sigh* I need to get out of this rut… starting with the blog!

Things to look forward to on the blog:

• yarn I bought this weekend
• 2 book reviews
• photos from the summer and Henry

For myself, if Critical Mass really was about being ‘part of traffic’, they would need to obey the street signs, including lights and other road traffic (pedestrians, cars, bicyclists, motorcyclists, scooters, etc.). I prefer to bike in less high-traffic area, but I still stop at the stop signs and for pedestrians. Instead they are stopping cars for maybe 30-40 minutes, forcing them to idle. If it really is about promoting cycling, how do they justify those carbon emissions by keeping cars on the road that much longer? Not to mention, how many people do you see wearing helmets? It’s the law you know!

One of the problems with Critical Mass, is there is no planned route because there are no “organizers”. You would think with the new bike lane on Burrard Bridge that it would be an obvious route to bicycle, thereby making an excellent statement. However, I heard on the radio that they biked across the Cambie Street bridge instead. As if Cambie Street hasn’t had enough traffic!

I read a blog post by Dave MacDonald about why people care now. I think his experiences from a ride in 2001 with Critical Mass are exactly why I don’t like it now. It’s no longer about all these issues he mentions; it’s not activism and taking a stand and being heard, it’s now more about causing a disturbance.

There has been a lot of uproar recently and a lot of criticism here in Vancouver regarding Critical Mass. Newspapers are chalking it up to the fact that in February 2010, Critical Mass (which takes place on the last Friday of every month) will be two days before the closing ceremonies for the Vancouver Olympic. Apparently this has brought into light the fact that previous mayor Larry Campbell “sold our freedom of speech rights” in 2003 with regards to the Olympic television coverage.

Then, I heard about Critical Manners on Twitter. Now this is something I can get behind! Critical Manners started in San Francisco as a civilized response to Critical Mass. Instead of taking over the streets and screaming “we ARE traffic”, the Critical Manners ride obeyed all the street signs and were model road-users. There are plans in motion for a Critical Manners Vancouver, which I would totally be up for. Cyclists and motorists need to respect both each other and the rules of the road!

*Photo taken during June 2009 Critical Mass Vancouver ride.

But over the weekend I forgot my laptop and left it at home not plugged in. It obviously had trouble keeping the harddrive alive because booting up yesterday I kept getting a “kernal panic” message which basically says you need to reboot for whatever reason. Booting up just now took about 20 minutes and I had to keep turning it off and on, off and on, until it booted up. Sometimes it would just sit there making the boot up noise a bunch of times, doing nothing.

So I’m looking at a 13-inch MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM (which I was considering updating on this computer anyway). It’s $1,749.00, with free shipping… but we also now have an Apple Store here in Vancouver, so I might go down and play with some of the new computers. Is 3 years too short of a lifespan for a laptop that I use every day, sometimes non-stop for several hours at a time? Have I got my money’s worth when I spent $1,600 on this machine?

• To kick off, let’s do some personal plugs: the BC Book Prizes will be kicking off the annual province-wide author tour on Monday, April 13th. Eight authors on tour legs throughout Northern BC and the Kootenays & Okanagan. Visit the BC Book Prize website to see full tour schedules, follow the On Tour author blog, and attend free readings. Oh and we’ll be tweeting all about it as they’re on the road!
• Did you know that the BC Book Prizes is part of BC Book and Magazine Week? BCBMW is co-produced by the BC Association of Magazine Publishers (BCAMP) and the Association of Book Publishers of BC (ABPBC) and it is a celebration of all things literary in BC.  The words festival occurs annually and events this year (April 18-25, 2009) include a Literary Tour along Main Street in Vancouver, and Magazine Cabarets in cities all across BC. Visit the BCBMW website/blog for details on events and to keep up-to-date with BCBMW news!
• The Alcuin Society has announced the winners of its 27th annual Awards for Excellence in Book Design in Canada. Of an astounding 233 entries, the judges selected 32 winning titles. Congratulations to all the Canadian authors, illustrators, designers, and publishers recognized by The Alcuin Society’s Awards for Excellence in Book Design. You can view the full list of winners as a PDF on the Alcuin website. They also now have a Flickr photoset of the judging process and a number of the winning designs.
• April is National Poetry Month: a lot of people across the blogosphere are participating in NaPoMo, but I’d like to highlight this page by the League of Canadian Poets. They have a very informative page on National Poetry Month including links to event listings, historical information, and the Poet Blog.
• Speaking of poetry, Vancouver poet Shannon Stewart, author of Penny Dreadful, has been covered in Weekly World News for her tabloid inspired poems.
• More poetry news: The Griffin Poetry Prize shortlist was revealed on April 7th, 2009. The judges each read 485 books of poetry, including 33 translations, received from 32 countries around the globe. From seven finalists — three Canadian and four International — the prize will be awarded to the two best books of poetry on June 3, 2009. View the list of seven finalists here.
• All the blog world is atwitter today regarding a post at Flavorwire regarding Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. First of all, go and read the article “How to Alienate Bloggers and Boost Book Sales” on Flavorwire, including the scanned letter. I would like to offer some insight from the other side of the fence:
  1. In the publishing industry, embargoed information is extremely important. When we were preparing for the release of the finalist list for the BC Book Prizes in March, we had to send embargoed releases to newspapers and magazines so that they had time to prepare. We specifically requested they didn’t release the information in any way, shape, or form prior to the date. While this may not seem important for book review copies, it could be if the publisher wants to create a sweep of information every where you look on exactly the publish date.
  2. The question of excerpts and quotations in regards to copyright is very touchy. It is difficult to get into (but I may go into it further at a later date), but a lot of people think with the quantity of information widely available on the internet, that copyright does not apply. In the USA, there is a “fair use” clause, and in Canada it is called “fair dealing”. It is always better to check (if possible) before reprinting any quotes without requesting permission. From the sounds of the letter, he is worried about people posting multiple paragraphs as an excerpt and it would probably be safe to just email him and as about one-to-two sentence quotes. As for images, chances are the letter-writer was refering to inside illustrations.
  3. Yes the letter was just downright rude. I’m not going to get into the details, but the person could have approached the letter in a much better way and I am surprised no one proofread his letter before it left the publishing house. Letters should end with a call to action, not a threat.
• Onto nicer topics, oh wait… I’m out of links. Okay time to go read.