#this time around is this woman whose video went viral because a man ‘harassed her’ for ‘doing stretches’

[fedtothenight]

not to be anti-woman or anything but it does fill me with a certain sadness to see a young woman with incredible talent in whatever field resort to onlyfans

[transnationalfeminismwww]

Understanding Other Women and Impact of the Media: Final Reflection

I have chosen to focus my final reflection and blog post on transnational feminism. After trying to figure out what theme I wanted to base my final reflection on, I did a reread and watched all the videos that we were assigned during the time of this class and I found a common theme in what I wrote, the world around me and in the characters and people I was learning about. I looked online and found the definition of transnational feminism is that it is meant to give a perspective focus on the different experiences of women who live all over the world. After reading this definition, it made perfect sense to me that this is the topic I should reflect on. Not only did I see this in society today with different women’s movements, but I also saw the pattern in it through the videos of TED talks and the readings we annotated throughout the course. I have made it known in my annotations that I felt that we live in a not purposeful, selfish society. I think that many times in life, we are unaware of issues that occur for other people when it’s not taking place in their own personal bubble, until it affects us personally do, we take an interest in it. As an example, during the women’s movement #BringBackOur Girls that took place in Nigeria, it was a huge social media movement when it took place. It all started when a social media post went viral after revealing hundreds of innocents, young schoolgirls were taken hostage by a local terrorist group in Nigeria. With the overwhelming popularity of the campaign, there became an urgent response to help and save the girls. The government, with the aid of other nations, were able to luckily locate and save some of the girls from any other kind of potential harm, three years after they were kidnapped. That was over seven years ago, now we are able to see what happened in a new way with the coming out of a new documentary, that was released in 2018. This gives people insight into the terrorist group that harmed them, and you even hear from some of the girls that were kidnapped and are able to live to retell the horror that they experienced so many years ago. I watched the documentary, and there was a comment that was made by someone at the school over the intercom to the rest of the students and said, “Do not talk about that day in the forest,”. This really stuck with me because in one way I can understand why she said that because she wants to protect the rest of her students from having something like that to ever happen again, but on the other hand if they don’t speak about what happened to them, then they will never be able to heal since what happened to them was so public. I am recalling this example, because if this never got into the media and received as much attention as it did, then who knows if those girls would have ever been found.

There are a couple of other examples of social media campaigns that have made a difference in the women’s equality movement, the biggest one being the #MeToo movement that occurred a couple of years ago that changed the game in Hollywood as we knew it. Harvey Weinstein was a successful and powerful producer in the movie industry, he was the producer that could make or break your career as an actor. He has produced so many iconic actors such as Ashley Judd, Gwyneth Paltrow, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Lawrence and many more. Even though Weinstein may have been a successful producer with a ton of connections, he was also a predator. He used his power as abuse to young actresses starting out their careers and sexually abused and harassed, and even raped in some cases. Most of these cases took place in the 20th century. Until one actress, came out with her story of abuse at the hands of the producer, and that’s how it all started, with one social media post. It started a spark, and then more and more actresses were coming out with their own stories of abuse at the hands of Weinstein. This was grabbing everyone in the public’s attention. Then one morning on the Today Show morning news show, they announced someone came out with an allegation against their own Matt Lauer, prominent anchor of the show, about sexual abuse, and harassment in the workplace at his fault. This was a shock to everyone in the wake of everything else that was happening. This was also a revolutionary move during this movement. This proved that this was no longer about actresses that were abused by a producer, this was now a movement about every woman who was ever harassed or abused by any powerful man at the workplace, who thought they could use power and intimidation to make women feel less. For the next couple of months, more women kept coming out with their own stories, some were about Weinstein, and some were about other men that were either their bosses or people that were prominent in their career field. At the next academy awards, everyone showed their support for their movement by wearing black in support of the people that came out about their own stories of abuse or who have experienced it and still did not have the courage of sharing their story. Women were becoming more empowered and knew that it was time to use their voice to get the fair treatment that they deserved. The United States Women National Soccer Team has been making headlines in the last couple of years by winning back-to-back World Cups and bringing home gold Olympic medals in the last couple of years. Even with all the success they have received, they don’t get paid the same as the men’s team. And the men’s team have never won a world cup or Olympic medal. They made it to the Round of 16 and made more money than the women did for winning the entire tournament. They just released a new documentary about the women’s players and their ongoing fight for equal pay. All of these movements have come about through the #MeToo movement, and the courage of one woman to share a social media post.

Connecting back to all of the videos and readings that we did throughout this course, also showed me that women want the same end goal when it comes to the fight for feminism is the same for all women, however the hardships and obstacles they face throughout their lives are completely different. In one of the novels we read, the main character is on a journey of self-discovery while growing up in a traditional and religious country during the 1970s. After losing her father during a civil war, the main character of the story tries to live on without her father and ends up figuring out that she is gay. And while in a relationship with a girl, her mother tried to use the Bible to get her to think how she was feeling was wrong. In the last novel we read, it followed the story of three sisters, whose lives will forever be affected by their childhood. One of the sisters constantly put herself in a situation that are exactly ones that have traumatized her in the past, and they all have to do with her relationships. This story reminds the main character of how terrorist attacks have affected the course of the majority of her life. All they have done is cause pain and sadness and every time she hears or witnesses a terrorist attack, she reflects back to all of the painful times in her life that involved people that she would never forget. And through other passages and videos, I was introduced to all of these powerful women that share their stories as a sign of how courageous and confident to be so vulnerable with different audiences that were either in front of them or were people, they hoped would read their writing. With all of the readings, I found one common theme through all of them, they were all about women who share their stories in hopes that someone who is reading it will realize they are not alone, and they deserve more out of life. It is their life, and they deserve to know they deserve equality and someone else knows how hard it can be.

In conclusion, throughout this course I was able to comprehend fully about the idea of transnational feminism and how crucial it is to win the fight on feminism. I was not only able to find examples through monumental social media movements such as, #MeToo and #BringBackOurGirls, it is also important for other women to understand that to win the fight we have to remember there may be more of a fight for women that have more to fight for such as the ability to drive or vote.