You Can’t Be What You Can’t See

By Lisa Pool Content Manager | January 23, 2012 at 6:07 pm | No comments | Culture | Tags: activism, body image, couture fashion, entertaining, family, full figured, gloria steinem, jane fonda, jennifer siebel newsom, katie couric, media literacy, miss representation, oprah network, OWN, plus size woman, Queen Grace, red carpet, rosario dawson, sexism, student campaign, sundance film festival, Weekly Dish

The film Miss Representation exposes how American youth are being sold the concept that women and girls’ value lies in their youth, beauty and sexuality. It’s time to break that cycle of mistruths. Written and directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, this inspiring and action-oriented documentary is taking the media and the public to a place of acknowledgement so needed in today’s society. In response to the overwhelming request for more from the film organizers, the MR team created MissRepresentation.org, a call-to-action campaign that seeks to empower women and girls to challenge limiting media labels in order to realize their potential.

Miss Representation.org are uniting individuals around a common, meaningful goal to spark millions of small actions that ultimately lead to a cross-generational movement to eradicate gender stereotypes and create lasting cultural and sociological change.

Using social media, women and girls are speaking out, telling their stories and influencing change. Men and boys are standing up to sexism, countering hyper-masculinity and championing women as leaders. Schools are using the Miss Representation‘s Curriculum to educate youth around media literacy and to inspire and activate students to make change. Communities are hosting screenings and discussions to shift the cultural mindset around gender and end sexism. Consumers are using their power to celebrate positive media and advertising, and challenge negative media and advertising.

“The media can be an instrument of change: it can maintain the status quo and reflect the views of the society or it can, hopefully, awaken people and change minds. I think it depends on who’s piloting the plane.” – Katie Couric, Journalist

About The Film

Like drawing back a curtain to let bright light stream in, Miss Representation uncovers a glaring reality we live with every day but fail to see. The film exposes how mainstream media contribute to the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America. The film challenges the media’s limited and often disparaging portrayals of women and girls, which make it difficult for women to achieve leadership positions and for the average woman to feel powerful herself.

In a society where media is the most persuasive force shaping cultural norms, the collective message that our young women and men overwhelmingly receive is that a woman’s value and power lie in her youth, beauty, and sexuality, and not in her capacity as a leader. While women have made great strides in leadership over the past few decades, the United States is still 90th in the world for women in national legislatures, women hold only 3% of clout positions in mainstream media, and 65% of women and girls have disordered eating behaviors.

Stories from teenage girls and provocative interviews with politicians, journalists, entertainers, activists and academics, like Condoleezza Rice, Nancy Pelosi, Katie Couric, Rachel Maddow, Margaret Cho, Rosario Dawson and Gloria Steinem build momentum as Miss Representation accumulates startling facts and statistics that will leave the audience shaken and armed with a new perspective.

Everyone with the QG WD team are so supportive of this great effort and we want you to know you are be part of this call to action for all young women! The Miss Representation organization has a host of opportunities for you to become involved; school campaigns, intern rep openings to share the message, host a YouTube video of your own, dinner conversation packet ideas, email alerts to spread the weekly news and Twitter #notbuyingit to send the message we are here to make a difference.

We hope to be more involved with the Miss Representation project this season and will share updates regularly – in the meantime, go to; http://www.missrepresentation.org and find out more!