Showing posts with label Ashia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ashia. Show all posts
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
The Souls of Black Girls, a documentary
http://clutchmagonline.com/lifeculture/feature/the-souls-of-black-girls-the-lens-of-the-soul/#1
Daphne Valerius analyzed the relationship between self-esteem and media in this documentary.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Roundtable: Sexual Media Images of Black Women (from NPR)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5437124
This is a podcast from NPR. It was released in 2006 so some of you may have heard it, but it is still relevant. It features Mark Anthony Neal, associate professor of African American Studies at Duke University; Karrine Steffans (AKA Superhead), model and author of Confessions of a Video Vixen; and Shaheem Reed, MTV news editor. They're discussing perceptions of black women given that a black exotic dancer had recently accused white Duke students of raping her.
Few things I want to point out in this:
Steffans' self-perception when she started out. She says her perception of what she wanted to be came from videos. She didn't feel beautiful, and the only place she saw women who looked like her was in videos taking their clothes off. No one ever told her she was smart or that she could do something that did not involve getting naked for a camera.
The discussion of "bitch-ho" lyrics in rap and different female responses to it
Participation records - labels release songs that get you to dance in the club. Steffans urges women to stop buying music that degrades them.
This is a podcast from NPR. It was released in 2006 so some of you may have heard it, but it is still relevant. It features Mark Anthony Neal, associate professor of African American Studies at Duke University; Karrine Steffans (AKA Superhead), model and author of Confessions of a Video Vixen; and Shaheem Reed, MTV news editor. They're discussing perceptions of black women given that a black exotic dancer had recently accused white Duke students of raping her.
Few things I want to point out in this:
Steffans' self-perception when she started out. She says her perception of what she wanted to be came from videos. She didn't feel beautiful, and the only place she saw women who looked like her was in videos taking their clothes off. No one ever told her she was smart or that she could do something that did not involve getting naked for a camera.
The discussion of "bitch-ho" lyrics in rap and different female responses to it
Participation records - labels release songs that get you to dance in the club. Steffans urges women to stop buying music that degrades them.
Point One
Point One: We want an end to the psychological damage of black women and black young girls imposed by the media.
In “Those Loud Black Girls,” Signithia Fordham argues that to be a successful female in academia, she must “gender pass;” in other words, she must de-feminize and silence herself to thwart attention away from her gender. Fordham further argues
that to be a black woman in the academy is even more difficult because she must adhere to the norms of a white woman on top of “gender passing” – she must bring as little attention as possible to the fact that she is a woman and black.
Fordham’s article only added another layer to the things I had already seen in my everyday lived experience. Rarely do black women have a voice in the way people perceive them, and the only time they are represented at all is when they are
fulfilling stereotypes. When a black woman does not fit the mold created for her by outside agents, she is silenced, erased from any meaningful aspect of society.
The point I am specializing in and will further elaborate on is the first point – our demand that more attention be paid to the psychological and emotional health of black women.
We believe that, as of now, there are very limited representations of black females in the media. From television to magazines to music, the same stereotypical images of women appear repeatedly – the sex symbol, the angry girl, the super woman. When images like these are fed over and over to our women, they become internalized. Seeing people who like themselves portrayed as one-dimensional and in service of other people’s needs, wants and desires constantly is detrimental to black women’s self esteem. It is then embedded into the fabric of society, making it difficult to combat. Low self-esteem has been a recurring factor among women who are subject to domestic violence and prostitution among a host of other social ills. We believe that to free ourselves of the cycle that many women are trapped in, we need to reconstruct and redefine what it is to be a black woman in the greater American consciousness.
With regards to my focus, I envision the documentary including black women sharing their ideas about:
- their self-perception and the factors influencing it
- responses to media images
- experiences/relationships with other black women
In “Those Loud Black Girls,” Signithia Fordham argues that to be a successful female in academia, she must “gender pass;” in other words, she must de-feminize and silence herself to thwart attention away from her gender. Fordham further argues
that to be a black woman in the academy is even more difficult because she must adhere to the norms of a white woman on top of “gender passing” – she must bring as little attention as possible to the fact that she is a woman and black.
Fordham’s article only added another layer to the things I had already seen in my everyday lived experience. Rarely do black women have a voice in the way people perceive them, and the only time they are represented at all is when they are
fulfilling stereotypes. When a black woman does not fit the mold created for her by outside agents, she is silenced, erased from any meaningful aspect of society.
The point I am specializing in and will further elaborate on is the first point – our demand that more attention be paid to the psychological and emotional health of black women.
We believe that, as of now, there are very limited representations of black females in the media. From television to magazines to music, the same stereotypical images of women appear repeatedly – the sex symbol, the angry girl, the super woman. When images like these are fed over and over to our women, they become internalized. Seeing people who like themselves portrayed as one-dimensional and in service of other people’s needs, wants and desires constantly is detrimental to black women’s self esteem. It is then embedded into the fabric of society, making it difficult to combat. Low self-esteem has been a recurring factor among women who are subject to domestic violence and prostitution among a host of other social ills. We believe that to free ourselves of the cycle that many women are trapped in, we need to reconstruct and redefine what it is to be a black woman in the greater American consciousness.
With regards to my focus, I envision the documentary including black women sharing their ideas about:
- their self-perception and the factors influencing it
- responses to media images
- experiences/relationships with other black women
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