Why Women Now?
Alicia takes a moment to explain our latest emphasis on women-centric media on the podcast.
Welcome to From the Teacher’s Desk, where we take turns further reflecting on our episodes and applications to the classroom.
When Sarah and I committed to a pop culture podcast, we knew there would be a few specific rabbit holes we could fall down. The first of these is how easy it is to just talk about media we find fun and entertaining.
But as we transition into a new year, Sarah and I are making a new Lit Think goal.
For our first four episodes of 2023, we want to talk about feminist media. And here are our top three reasons why:
Highlighting inclusive media
2022 was a hard year for all of us. But no matter where your beliefs stand in our current political climate, there has been extra emotional weight attached to existing in a woman’s body.
At Lit Think, we believe our vote matters. We’re committed to participating in the American democratic process. We also think it’s crucial to use our platform to enact the change we believe in as well. That’s why we’re highlighting pop culture pieces that highlight strong female voices.
We all matter - as daughters, friends, partners, mothers, and as individuals. When we choose to highlight media that includes and empowers women, we are also including and empowering a better future for all of us.
Offering companion pieces
Let’s be honest - a lot of the literary canon that’s still being taught in English classrooms is male-centric. So when we “lit think” feminist media, we’re doing intentional work to help expand our literary lens.
The feminist media we’re focusing on to finish up Season 3 of our podcast can work as great companion pieces to the literary canon. When we can give our students real-world examples of the literary concepts we cover in English class, we help validate the value of English literature study. We bring these ideas to life by reminding students they exist in their everyday media intake. And we empower students to be critical thinkers whenever they encounter stories outside of English class, whether that involves playing video games or listening to podcasts in their spare time.
Intersectionality
But it’s not just about women. I love this definition of intersectionality from the Center for Intersectional Justice:
“The concept of intersectionality describes the ways in which systems of inequality based on gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, class and other forms of discrimination ‘intersect’ to create unique dynamics and effects. For example, when a Muslim woman wearing the Hijab is being discriminated, it would be impossible to dissociate her female* from her Muslim identity and to isolate the dimension(s) causing her discrimination.
“All forms of inequality are mutually reinforcing and must therefore be analysed and addressed simultaneously to prevent one form of inequality from reinforcing another. For example, tackling the gender pay gap alone – without including other dimensions such as race, socio-economic status and immigration status – will likely reinforce inequalities among women.”
This is the type of social justice work we want to help inspire for our listeners and fellow educators - which is why we are intentionally looking for intersectional pop culture pieces as well.
We’re women too
As this GIF displays beautifully:
As two podcast hosts who identify as women, feminist issues matter to us. It’s really not that deep.
To end, I leave you with these words from Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic:
“There are many reasons why women’s voices and visions are not more widely represented today in creative fields. Some of that exclusion is due to regular old misogyny, but it’s also true that—all too often—women are the ones holding themselves back from participating in the first place. Holding back their ideas, holding back their contributions, holding back their leadership and their talents. Too many women still seem to believe that they are not allowed to put themselves forward at all, until both they and their work are perfect and beyond criticism.”
Keep on lit thinking people!
Note: Get ready for the first episode of 2023 to drop on January 11.
Please “like” by clicking on the ❤ and share this post with your friends, colleagues, and fellow lit thinkers.
Cool, I’ve highlighted women a few times last year in my work. But I think you undercut your argument by using the hijab example for the purposes of intersectionality and the inability to separate the fact that she’s a woman from her Muslim identity.
There’s a very obvious way in which the question of wearing a hijab can be separated from both being a woman and the religion of Islam. Here’s how:
Does the government have a right to require people to wear things?
We have a very obvious example of how this idea was completely separated from the question of Muslim women in basically all of Western society. Many of the people who are supporting Iranian women who are protesting the requirements of women to wear hijabs by the government were extremely pro-mask mandates and forcing women to wear masks. They were also more than willing to force it on men.
It’s morally contradictory to be okay with requiring it in one situation and being against requiring it in other contexts. In both cases, the government is saying that it’s in favour of safety for those who are being required to wear it.
So you might want to address that if you are going to cover the issue of hijab requirements.