12th Annual Allied Media Conference - Detroit, MI: (6/18 - 6/20/2010)

This weekend I attended my favorite conference: the Allied Media Conference in Detroit. This year was way more subdued than the last two years I’ve attended. There were fewer people of color present; I didn’t go to very many sessions; I was on my period, feeling real low energy; and it was still amazing and transformative, and once again reminded me of what I’m here to do in this world. Even with its challenges, the AMC is the kind of conference that has me checking the calendar to make sure I’ve got it on deck for next year.

The most powerful part of the conference for me was being connected to the Creating Collective Access folks, organized in less than a month by some of the fiercest people I know. I was reminded how conferences themselves create a non-sustainable way of folks relating to each other, to themselves, and to their own needs. On some days the conference schedule was filled from 8am-2am. Being connected to the Collective Access folks allowed me to give myself permission to chill, to not push through exhaustion and inattentiveness to be at every session, and to not sacrifice a really good slow conversation to make it to a panel presentation on listening. I felt more in my body, more aware of my needs.

Creating Collective Access also had me questioning what collective space looks like and what to do when access may be so different for different people. I went to one of the sessions that was part of the Indigenous Media and Technology track, and the presenters were using smoke as a tool in the workshop. I was thinking about folks with disabilities that need scent-free spaces and how you hold those things together or, if you can’t, what do you do? Are we willing to do what it takes to create or use tools to share across real boundaries?

I was amazed by Adrienne Marie Brown’s Octavia Butler Symposium, people’s overwhelming interest as well as her awesome awesome facilitation skills. Adrienne is so fierce she had the notes up later that day! I was once again struck by folks' reluctance, and perhaps inability, to talk about trauma in our movement and how we heal or don’t from all these –isms that impact our lives.

I feel softer now, and sharper at the same time. I am refined and focused, recommitted to kindness with direction, and more prepared to speak up as an ally for the disability justice movement and the rights of indigenous peoples. I’m full and content and feel myself coming into a new era of myself. I’m hopeful and it feels really good.

Review by Moya Bailey

Cross-posted at Crunk Feminist Collective

Peepli Live

Directed by Anusha Rizvi

UTV Motion Pictures

The women of Peepli… well, there are no women in Peepli. Yes, there are daughters and mothers and wives, and to them Natha is purportedly “son and brother.” Natha is in dire straits; he has taken a loan from the bank and now cannot repay it. In an attempt to keep their lands from being auctioned off, Natha and his brother, Budhia, go to the local strongman cum political candidate for advice.

The politician recommends that one of the brothers commit suicide, for while the government does not provide debt relief or agricultural subsidies for farmers, it will give a sizable payout to the family of a farmer who has committed suicide. And therein lays their salvation. The family will have money and what have the two brothers done with their lives anyway? Let one sacrifice himself for the greater good.

Natha is a simpleton and his somewhat more savvy brother convinces him that since Budhia is the one who has a family, Natha must be the one to commit suicide—only he can save them all. Obligingly, Natha agrees. Later on that evening, after the brothers have drunk themselves into a stupor, a visiting reporter hears their story. The following morning’s headline foretells the death of farmer Natha and a media circus (as well as a political one) descends onto Peepli. The various parties and partisans push and pull, and attempt to decide whether or not Natha should live.

The three female characters in the film are all shrews. From Natha’s wife, who badgers and assaults the brothers, to his mother who complains and swears, to the reporter who appears to be unconscionably chasing leads, there is not a single positive female figure in the film. Inflation herself is a witch, wreaking havoc and ruining the farmers’ lives, leading them to their early graves.

Review by Elisheva Zakheim

Creating Ourselves: African Americans and Hispanic Americans in Popular Culture and Religious Expression

Edited by Anthony B. Pinn and Benjamin Valentin
Duke University Press

The topic of cross-cultural communication has fascinated me for a number of years, partly because of my own experiences in Latin America, and partly from observing the interaction between the Latino/a and African American communities. Watching these two groups interact has taught me a great deal about differences in the ways of communication, how what may be "appropriate" in one culture may not be in the other, and the need for discussion to avoid potential misunderstandings.

Therefore, it was with great interest that I read Creating Ourselves, a study on cross-cultural communication and collaboration between religious scholars of the two largest minority groups in the United States. The timing of the publication of this book is of great importance, as both groups have, to a certain extent, been viewed as "foreign elements" that might threaten the national identity of Americans, especially in the current economic climate. Scholars from both communities engage in a dialogue, an exchange of opinions, perspectives, and hopes, as their history and identity is linked through the cultural production via representations in popular culture.

I found the structure of the work innovative and very much needed in scholarly circles. The book consists of seven sections with two essays in each of them, one from each group. Every article is followed by a response written by a corresponding essayist from the opposite group, each contributor using their own personal experiences to further engage readers.

Teresa Delgado analyses the novel América’s Dream by Esmeralda Santiago, which delves into the life of América González, a single mother who takes a job as a maid in a hotel in New York after suffering abuse by her daughter's father in Puerto Rico. Although América finds freedom in New York, she remains isolated and silent, as she has not broken the dependency of oppression. Cheryl Kirk-Duggan, in response, reflects on the "womanist theory" that calls for revolution in the ways of seeing, living, and being. The term "womanist," coined by Alice Walker, refers to women who are in charge, who champion freedom and who transform the oppressive forms affected by race, gender, and class domination. Kirk-Duggan uses hip-hop artist Lauryn Hill as an example of just one of these extraordinary women.

In "Television and Religion," Jonathan Walton analyses the dramatised faith in megachurch movements; the colossal buildings that house sanctuaries, gyms, daycare, bookstores, and more are especially attractive to African American communities, with their charismatic pastors who even hold worship through an electronic church. Another form of melodrama is found in the Latin telenovelas (soap operas) that have become extremely popular for millions around the world; Kassandra, a Venezuelan soap opera attracts people as far away as Serbia, while The Rich Also Cry is popular even in Moscow.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Creating Ourselves as the subject of creativity in all different forms, styles, colours, and shadows is part of our daily life.

Review by Anna Hamling

Face It: What Women Really Feel as Their Looks Change

By Vivian Diller and Jill Muir-Sukenick
Hay House

As the authors of Face It explain in the preface to their book, women who came of age during and after feminism's second wave were brought up to believe our looks don’t have to define who we are or determine our possibilities. What mattered more in this 'enlightened' new age were our brains, our talents, our degrees, our abilities, and our ambition. The paradox is that women continue to receive conflicting messages from the media and our culture about the role appearance plays in our lives. Because many of us have never attempted to unravel our ambivalent feelings about our appearance, the way it impacts our self-esteem, and how we relate to our family and friends, we deny these feelings when we see the first signs of aging—or react with a vengeance to try to arrest the aging process.

Face It is all about guiding women through this potentially treacherous time, during which many of us feel the very ground shifting beneath us. Like many adolescent girls, aging women cling to what the authors describe as “masks” that take the form of "workaholism," addiction to cosmetic surgery, excessive exercise, and dieting to protect ourselves from the sadness and loss we feel at the change in our appearance. In this thoughtful and engaging book, the authors, both psychotherapists and former models, present the stories of how different women approached the aging process. Runway models, nurses, homemakers, and businesswomen, who range in age from early thirties to mid-sixties, tell us their stories.

Some women never felt their appearance played much of a role in their lives, and were taken by surprise when they felt a sense of loss, or even panic, about their changing looks. In contrast, the models interviewed for the book were aware of aging, given that it pushes them out of their profession at the youthful age of twenty-five, and experienced a range of feelings and emotions similar to what many women face when they enter midlife. For women who believed that their intelligence and ambition were their ticket to success, it was often embarrassing to admit to friends and family how their changing looks were impacting them, because it seemed frivolous or superficial.

The authors use the experiences of these different women successfully navigating this challenging time with the use of an innovative six-step program that forms a pathway to a new acceptance and understanding of the aging process. This program involves taking an honest inventory of one's experiences with beauty and acknowledging how family and culture shapes one's identity as a woman. While the authors stress that they aren’t against using plastic surgery to enhance one's appearance, they want to give women the tools to make decisions about it from a place of strength and appreciation for their unique attributes, not out of a panic to "stay in the game."

As a forty-something woman, I found this book intriguing and was pleased to discover that it lived up to its billing of helping women navigate such a challenging time in our lives. Face It helps women of any age to gain an understanding of how to fully own the aging process and not react out of fear to our changing looks and bodies, but to, instead, appreciate and learn from the journey.

Review by Gita Tewari

I ♥ FR: The Final Push (Birthday Edition)

Today is my 30th birthday. As a feminist activist who came of age in the '80s and '90s alongside the popular use of computers and the emergence of feminism's media savvy third wave, one might say founding a feminist-oriented blog was an utterly predictable choice for me to make, and while that may be true, it was not a choice I ever anticipated making... until I did.

When I was an undergrad, I worked as a student assistant in the Women's Studies Institute at my university. The head of the department generously allowed me to use the institute's resources, like the copy machine, to create my first media project, a zine comprised of artwork and essays compiled from the internet called Strike. I sold some of these for a dollar apiece, but mostly gave them away to anyone interested in reading a critique of pro-capitalist feminism or checking out the artwork of Shirin Neshat. Strike lasted for two issues before I teamed up with my friend Alex to create the kind of magazine she and I wanted to read—and Altar Magazine was born.

I was happy to see Altar was recently added to Utne Reader's The Dead Magazine Club, an online project that keeps the spirit of well-intended yet ultimately unsustainable indie mags alive, because that magazine had a lot of good stuff going on and was easily the precursor to what Feminist Review is today: a space representing the many divergent voices within social justice movements. Alex and I crafted Altar's mission statement (which I am still very proud of!) over a delicious vegan dinner at a spot in East Atlanta, and after I lost a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, we also had the perfect name for the place we hoped people would come to reflect on the past, meditate on the present, and push feminist thought to the next level.

In 2006, Altar merged with Clamor Magazine, a partnership the two struggling magazines had hoped would combat the then recently emerging crunch felt by the decline of print media, and despite all our best efforts, those dreams were soon dashed. One might look at this as a sign that it was time to get out the game, and believe me I considered it, but here's something I found out during those five years: you learn an enormous amount from your failures. And I certainly got a hefty education during that time—not only in media but also in working with others. I had the enormous privilege of building relationships with amazing media makers, writers, artists, activists, and academics—as well as folks who are better described using some combination of the terms. These are the inspiring people from whom I gain encouragement and support in sustaining this longest-running media project of my personal lot, thenow three-and-a-half-year-old Feminist Review.

Now no longer simply my own creation, Feminist Review belongs to all of the editors and writers whose creative and intellectual energies provide daily content that is representative of the pluralism of modern, global feminisms, and their ability to harmoniously coexist. It also belongs to the readers, whose comments and commitment to having difficult dialogues provide a continuation of necessary discussions within social justice movements. We hope you will join us as we move forward with the purpose of creating an online space for contemplation, critical thought, and the promotion of new ideas, as a revamped site will be launched this summer.

For the next eight days, Feminist Review will continue to collect contributions (one-time & recurring) for our I ♥ FR Campaign. We have already raised over a quarter of our $5,000 goal, which would cover this year's overhead expenses, like shipping and web hosting, and if each person who reads this plea over the next week donates just $5 (that's one Starbucks grande vanilla soy latte, y'all), we will easily meet this goal. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to continue to make feminist media—a fitting birthday present, indeed.

In community,

Mandy Van Deven
Founding Editor