I think an interesting topic for
the Living Newspaper Project would be the contemporary women’s movement and the
struggle against sexism and a male-dominated society. I think this topic is
important because it is something that affects not only women, but also any man
who has women in his life that are important to him. Sexism is far-reaching and
has social, economic, and political effects. It can affect the way that women
are treated in their everyday life, be a factor on whether or not they are
hired for a particular position and how much they are paid, and influence
legislative decisions such as those concerning reproductive rights. It is for
these reasons that I believe that this is an important topic deserving of
consideration.
For possible media we could use a
vast variety of possible sources. These could include songs, poetry, and art
that carry feminist messages. The Kate Nash song “Rap for Rejection”
immediately comes to mind with the lyrics “You’re tryna tell me sexism doesn't exist?/ If it doesn't exist, then what the fuck is this?” There are countless
other female musical artists whose songs include feminist messages that
demonstrate the fervor of the contemporary women’s movement. The Brooklyn
Museum website has an entire section dedicated to feminist art that we could
utilize. Another media source we could utilize because this is a contemporary
issue is social networking sites, as well as blogs. One possibility is the
feminist blog Modern Feminist which
displays writing and other media forms that illustrate the struggle against
sexism in today’s society.
All in all, I think the modern
women’s movement would make a fantastic topic for our Living Newspaper Project.
It is something that affects a large amount of people, is current and relevant,
and there are countless sources that we could utilize. I believe that these
factors make this topic something that we should most definitely consider
doing.
We have similar ideas about what our topic for the final project should be. I found this to be very interesting and nice. I feel as if I like this topic so much because there is a lot of information that goes along with it as well. I like the idea of solely focusing on the modern women's movement but I feel like we should also incorporate some information from the past in the project to demonstrate how long this struggle and problem has truly lasted.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that I did not think that this topic was something that would be that interesting to cover for our project. However, I feel like you bring up many good points. There is evidence that it affects a large amount of people. It would be very interesting to look into music and blogs to cover feminism.
ReplyDeleteBoth you and Catherine bring up a great issue, feminism is an excellent field of study and would be great to pursue further. Patriarchal societies lead to a lot of issues within society. Essentially the whole master/slave mentality is wrapped up and has origin in this mentality of dominance of one over the other. One of the earlier feminist thinkers, Simone de Bevaior makes an interesting correlation between sexism or the controlling of women and agriculture in her book the Second Sex. Basically putting woman with nature (because of the birthing process) and nature as something man can control and dominate...As already mentioned it is a highly relevant and important subject that effects us all even though we may not be aware of it.
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