Video about Guatemala Genocide

This is a video done by Daniel Goldhagen, based on his book Worse Than War. In this video Goldhagen traces genocide through personal interviews with survivors and perpetrators. He starts with his father who is a Holocaust survivor, and meets with others from Bosnia and the Srebenica massacre, Rwanda, and Guatemala. He looks at what actions are necessary to get a mass group to participate in genocide, and what the psychological and social influences are. The most disturbing piece takes place about 1hr 29min into the video when he meets with Rios Montt in Guatemala. Here Rios blatantly states that there is no proof he committed genocide simply because there is no proof that he wiped out an entire population of Mayans. His cavalier attitude is really disturbing. Another interesting point is the watch his interview with Hutus now in work prison camps due to their partaking in the mass killing of Tutsis in 1994. What do you feel is the role of international democracies in persecuting Montt, or even getting involved with these situations to prevent them from happening again? If many of the actions were deeply rooted into the society, do you feel there is hope for preventing it from happening again in Guatemala?

Miss Representation Trailer, A Film By Jennifer Siebel Newsom, 2011 Sundance Film Festival

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any" - Alice Walker

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2UZZV3xU6Q
www.missrepresentation.org

The trailer alone is very powerful to watch, and made me think of the exercise we did the other day - when we got in groups and told stories about the first time we remember being aware of our bodies, or what people thought of us. Every woman in my group remembered a moment that we were awakened to our bodies and the way others viewed them, for better or for worse. That in itself is astounding, because like the one girl asked, 'when is it going to be enough?'

Women are faced with messages everyday, and I go in and out of being angry at times, wanting to fight for change and then feeling a sense of numbness. When you see images on magazines, on television, on blogs, discussed in class, across campus - the way society views women is everywhere and any female is constantly reminded about 'how she should look,' 'what she should wear,' and even 'who she should be' and 'how she should act.' How does this change?

I think this is a start. I wanted to share this trailer because I think everyone in this class would be interested in seeing this film - there are currently no screenings being shown in or around the Denver area, but maybe someone would like to organize this? I may --- this is a short blurb about the film:

As one of the most persuasive and pervasive forces in our culture, media is educating yet another generation that a woman’s primary value lay in her youth, beauty and sexuality—not in her capacity as a leader, making it difficult for women to obtain leadership positions and for the average girl to feel confident herself. Stories from teenage girls and provocative interviews with politicians, journalists, academics, and activists like Condoleezza Rice, Lisa Ling, Nancy Pelosi, Katie Couric, Rachel Maddow, Rosario Dawson, Jackson Katz, Jean Kilbourne, and Gloria Steinem build momentum as Miss Representation accumulates startling facts and statistics that will leave audiences shaken and armed with a new perspective. (Runtime 90 minutes.)

The film is doing more than just showing a documentary to people, they are organizing a social action campaign as well. The funds raised will support woman's leadership groups working on public policy and legislation, as well as those encouraging best practices in many fields such as media and the role media plays, further creating awareness and a foundation for change.

Change takes time, but how much? And how much more time are people willing to give? Films like this help spread awareness and get people thinking - but more importantly, the question should become, what can each of us do individually to change the way the media and society portrays women? Change starts small - so by sharing this, hopefully I started something, and it can only grow from here.

The Way They Dress

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703899704576204580623018562.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

This is an article that I found on the Wall Street Journal about a few weeks ago. I just recently remembered it and knew that it would be very relevant to our class. Last week, we were discussing girls and their body image. We read "Between body and culture: Beauty, ability and growing up female," and this reading talked about how many different women view their bodies based on how others perceive them due to their culture, race, age, weight, etc. In particular, for teenagers, they develop a sense of their body image not only from their peers but also from the media. Most of the time if they do not feel as though they fit the ideal image that the media portrays then they are not beautiful enough. This leads to a steep decline in self-esteem and unfortunately can lead to depression and/or eating disorders. It is amazing how the pressure to meet a certain idolized image of the perfect female can completely tear us apart.

My article mainly focuses on how teenage girls dress these days but does it from the perspective of older women in terms of how they see this younger generation. The mothers struggle with wanting to be able to give their daughters all that they want but not being comfortable doing so when it comes to allowing them to dress in certain ways. They want their daughters to fit in and not be ostracized because they are not allowed to dress the same way as their peers, but even so these mothers don't want to see their daughters dress in a way that strips them of their dignity.

My 14-year-old sister's friends are in this same position and some of them mirror the girls in this article from the Wall Street Journal. This issue of how to dress and body image is still very prevalent with teenagers, and I'm not sure that anyone has really come up with the best way to address this.

What would you do if you were a mother or a sister in this position, trying to mentor a young teenage girl? How can you be sure you are doing the right thing?

Mitochondria

The title of this post might be a little discombobulating, as this is a communications class, not a biology class, but anyway...

I'm currently reading this book aside from school called Power Up your Brain: The Neuroscience of Enlightenment. It was written by an MD and a PhD, the latter of the two a shaman who has travelled the world to seek out how people find "enlightenment." The book intertwines the scientific aspect of how your brain works with the spiritual journey of seeking enlightenment, while guiding readers through a program on how to (literally) rewire your brain to find this.

While there are many aspects of the book, one aspect I found most intriguing was about the mitochondria, a.k.a. the powerhouse of the cell and what shaman's call "the feminine life force." In case you don't remember from high school biology, the mitochondria dictate how every cell ages, divides and dies, as well as which genes are switched on and off, and how neural networks in your brain are formed. Without this vital but tiny piece of the cell, life wouldn't exist. With as many cells as there are in your body, mitochondria make up roughly 10% of an average adult's body weight. The entire book focuses on syngergizing your brain, making all parts work together so you can be enlightened, be compelled to create, be peaceful, and overall, inherently happy. (It almost sounds like a self-help book, but it's not, I highly recommend it for anybody!)

Anyway, what this has to do with femininity. All the mitochondrial DNA in your body is inherited from your matrilineage (your mother's family tree), meaning the source of energy that sustains all life on the planet is truly a feminine life force. Those who are enlightened (as described by this book) have gotten in touch with the feminine life force within them.

I wanted to post an excerpt from the book, or something, and this is the only one I could find that references the feminine life force of the mitochondria:

http://www.thefourwinds.com/newsletter/Aug_10/news_alberto.php

In case you are interested in this book (seriously, everyone in the world needs to read it - the world would be a better place for it!) here's the Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/Power-Your-Brain-Neuroscience-Enlightenment/dp/140192817X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302037707&sr=8-1

Video: "Pretty" by Katie Makkai

Katie Makkai - Pretty
This fits well with our discussion in the last class on body image.  Where do pressures about body image come from?  Are these pressures any different today than they were in the past for your mothers, grandmothers, great grandmothers...?  How have capitalism and marketing played a role, and the assumption that technology (surgery, pills, etc.) can provide the solutions (similar arguments offered for the environment, war, etc...).

Taking the Gender Fight Worldwide

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/world/europe/30iht-letter30.html?pagewanted=1&sq&st=nyt&scp=2

Michelle Bachelet has parlayed her experience as Chile’s first female defense minister and then as first female president into a new position. She now heads the newly formed U.N. Women agency. Always surprising, she threw traditional feminism a curveball when she said, “We need men. We need to obtain big important male champions.”

Not only are her appointments controversial, her agenda is as well. Her primary objective is focused on female empowerment, not female victimhood. She believes getting women into politics, business, military and peacekeeping roles is paramount to their gaining empowerment. She believes the quota system is a starting place for women but that alone will not get the job done. In advocating working with men within the system, she is seeking to gain support while expanding women’s roles.

While she has had great success in Chile, it remains to be seen if she can extend that success and those goals to a worldwide audience. The U.N. system of negotiation and compromise would seem to present a vastly different form of governance than Bachelet’s previous positions have entailed. Her challenge will be to make women’s issues a universal topic to many varied governments with many varied agendas. Her past success bodes well for predicting her administrative skills and hopefully her broad agenda will appeal to the world at large.

Do you think Bachelet’s approach is correct? Do you think female empowerment is the paramount issue for women?

Hard Labour in Hungary - Birthrights - Al Jazeera English

Hard Labour in Hungary - Birthrights - Al Jazeera English

I thought this story fit well with our discussion on the role of bodies and body image and is also an interesting twist to the general topic of a woman’s right to make decisions in regard to reproductive choices. In Hungary, it is currently illegal for women to be attended by a medical professional should they choose to give birth at home. Medical professionals who do so risk going to jail. It seems like an odd law (the video goes through a number of probable reasons for its continued existence) and once again suggests that women should not be entrusted with the control of their own bodies. One of the main arguments given by the authorities and the press is that “hospitals are the only safe places to give birth.” I wondered what Lucy might have to say, seeing as she’s “witnessed” the survival of the human race despite the fact that people have been born at home up until very recently in human history. Obviously, the advent of modern medicine, including hospital facilities, has much decreased infant mortality rates; however, the Hungarian women who are facilitating the homebirths are medical professionals and bring that expertise to the bedside, whether in a hospital or in a house. Many of these women have worked in the hospitals and, frustrated with the lack of control that women were allowed concerning the birth of their children, decided to pursue methods that they feel give that control back to the mother.

Why do you think the government has such a strong interest in restricting women from having homebirths? Is this a residual effect of communism (state vs. individual)?