 |
| Women Protesting the Manhattan District Attorney's Handling of Weinstein accusations. Source: Holly Pickett for The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/17/opinion/columnists/weinstein-harassment-witchunt.html |
My semester project is
about sexual assault in Hollywood and the message powerful men are teaching are
teaching young men and boys how to act around women. Following the Harvey
Weinstein accusations, the debate around sexual assault was revitalized. Several
prominent actresses have spoken out against him and have joined the
conversation to prevent this from happening again. Clearly it is an uphill
battle, since many of the media organizations are owned and operated with men
at the highest positions. Of course, sexual assault occurs in various career
fields but I choose to study it in Hollywood because it is a field of
importance to me because I am entering this field and as a woman this is an
issue that directly affects me. I wanted to look at several examples of the men
in Hollywood who have been accused of sexual assault and rape and try to
determine a motive. With this portion of the project I would rely on studies
that focus on gender roles and the harm they cause to young boys. My initial
reasoning is that it has something to do with the socialization of young boys
and how harmful the imposition of strict gender roles can be on them; in addition,
it is important to discuss the patriarchy and how it gives men more power and
privilege.
I would create a children’s
book (using Photoshop and Illustrator) directed at young boys, similar to a
choose your own adventure story, in which the young boy would be faced with
these sexual assault stories in the media and have a choice about what to do
with his own life. Would he let his parents, father figures, and/or peers
socialize him into thinking gender norms are acceptable and he as a man has all
the power. Or would he enlighten himself through diverse media forms and
feminist icons to challenge the patriarchy. This project would be take a lot of
time so the timeline I have in mind would be to create a page every week or so
and by the end of the semester I would have enough time to make revisions and
take in feedback from my peers. This storybook would be something I would
publish on Yumpu.com and share on my social media to spread the word about the
project. My reasoning for making this stems from the fact that sexual assault
is a prevalent issue in our society and won’t go away until people take action
whether it be through legislation acts that protect women in the workforce, or
having men use their privilege as a way to speak up about these issues.
Some of the initial research I’ve done:
Hi Elizabeth,
ReplyDeleteThe issue that you are covering in your final project is very timely. I still have some questions regarding how you will teach young boys about sexual assault, and ultimately to make different choices about gender roles. How will you set up your storyline? I know your book will target boys but what age group? I think maybe having a section that discussed generally sexual assault, all the powerful women in media that have been affected, and a discussion portion would work. Also, including a little glossary maybe nice way to define terms we often think we know.
Thanks for sharing and I look forward to the final product!
-Yolanda Mackey
I love the idea of a children's book! I think it's great if they get to see the result of both options. It's especially fitting due to the uproar of sexual harassment charges lately.
ReplyDeleteI do like the idea of adding some additional background information like Yolanda said. It might help add some emphasis on why their actions could be hurtful and how they could haunt them later on.
I'm really interested in seeing how you tackle this. It's so important to teach children, especially boys, about this topic but it's also a very sensitive subject when discussing it with children. Can't wait to see it!
ReplyDelete