To respond to the Do Now, you can comment below or tweet your response. Be sure to begin your tweet with @KQEDEdspace and end it with #DoNowFemPop
For more info on how to use Twitter, click here.
Do Now
How are women of color, such as Beyoncé—who identify as modern feminists—changing the landscape of pop culture today? How can you help change gender inequality in your own environment? Do you identify as a feminist? How do you think the experience of gender inequality varies among different cultures?
Introduction
Beyoncé is one of a few pop stars making a stand for feminism—a term that represents the equality of all people regardless of their gender. She, like other women, such as actress Emma Watson, the founder of HeForShe, are standing up for equality in a society that continues to be inequitable for women. In Beyonce’s song “Flawless,” she samples a speech by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who defines a feminist as a person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes.
Writer, producer, editor and self-proclaimed “modern feminist,” Issa Rae, has also been making waves with the release of her new book The Misadventures of an Awkward Black Girl, named after her award-winning web series. Not only did this web series propel her into self-made stardom and partnerships with the likes of Pharrell Williams and Tracey Edmonds, her book hit the ranks of The New York Times Best Seller list.
Issa Rae reminds us that there’s a lot of work to do to achieve equality for women, and especially for women of color. When Issa grew up in the 1990s, she was influenced by a diverse spectrum of roles and characters people of color filled on television and TV. She explains, “Then, when the millennium hit and we disappeared, I felt kind of… hopeless, in a way.” Using the Internet, Rae grew a strong audience base and now takes a stand to question how women of color are represented in media and film. In her chapter “Leading Lady,” Rae asks “How hard is it to create a three-dimensional leading lady on television? I’m surrounded by them.” Media representation is just one example of inequity among all women, and particularly women of color.
Gender inequality is felt by all women, but there is a spectrum, and women of every culture experience dramatically varying degrees of discrimination, violence and inequity. Some believe that the mainstream feminist movement privileges white women. To put this inequality into perspective, consider the fact that in the United States, women are paid an average of 70% of the salary a man would earn for doing the same job. For women of color, it’s 64% or less, demonstrating how wage inequality varies culturally in America. Being a feminist doesn’t mean you speak out against men, it is a call for all humans to be created equally, and this includes women of all cultures.
You may have heard the excerpt of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s speech in Beyoncé’s hit song, and you can watch the full speech below, which was a Ted Talk by Adichie, “We Should All Be Feminists.”
Resource
VIDEO: We should all be feminists | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (TEDx Talks)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie a renowned Nigerian novelist was born in Nigeria in 1977. She grew up in the university town of Nsukka, Enugu State where she attended primary and secondary schools, and briefly studied Medicine and Pharmacy. She then moved to the United States to attend college, graduating summa cum laude from Eastern Connecticut State University with a major in Communication and a minor in Political Science. She holds a Masters degree in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins and a Masters degree in African Studies from Yale University. She was a 2005-2006 Hodder Fellow at Princeton, where she taught introductory fiction. Chimamanda is the author of Half of a Yellow Sun, which won the 2007 Orange Prize For Fiction; and Purple Hibiscus, which won the 2005 Best First Book Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the 2004 Debut Fiction Hurston/Wright Legacy Award.
To respond to the Do Now, you can comment below or tweet your response. Be sure to begin your tweet with @KQEDedspace and end it with #DoNowFemPop
For more info on how to use Twitter, click here.
We encourage students to reply to other people’s tweets to foster more of a conversation. Also, if students tweet their personal opinions, ask them to support their ideas with links to interesting/credible articles online (adding a nice research component) or retweet other people’s ideas that they agree/disagree/find amusing. We also value student-produced media linked to their tweets. You can visit our video tutorials that showcase how to use several web-based production tools. Of course, do as you can… and any contribution is most welcomed.
More Resources
WEB SERIES: The Misadventures of an Awkward Black Girl (Issa Rae)
“The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl” is Issa Rae’s third web series and it has been featured on several sites and publications. You can view the episodes on this website. WARNING: These videos contain curse words.
MUSIC VIDEO: Day-Day – “Dream” (BAVC)
Music video for “Dream” by DayDay. Directed by Marielle Boland and Julia Retzlaff. The Factory 2015.
ARTICLE: Beyonce and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Make Feminism Go Viral (KQED)
Despite her celebrated status within the writing community (honors include a MacArthur Fellowship and being one of The New Yorker‘s “20 Under 40″), most people hadn’t heard of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie until Beyoncé surprised the world with her visual album last week. A snippet of “We should all be feminists,” Adichie’s TED talk on feminism, was sampled on a song called “Flawless” in an attempt to finally pin down the definition of feminism.
VIDEO: Miles to Go (BAVC)
This video demonstrates the progress that still has to be made if America wants to consider itself a leader in gender equality. Directed by Julia Retzlaff, Win-Mon Kyi, Jane Huff, and Buffy Almendares.