Jennifer Siebel Newsom is an award-winning filmmaker, influential thought leader on gender equality, and the First Partner of California. After graduating with honors from Stanford University and Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, she wrote, directed, and produced the award-winning documentary Miss Representation (2011) which explores the media’s misrepresentation of women and girls and the resulting underrepresentation of women in positions of power and influence in America. As a result of Miss Representation’s impact, she launched The Representation Project, a nonprofit organization that uses film, media, and education as catalysts for cultural transformation. Her second film as a director, The Mask You Live In (2015), explores the boy crises in America and how America’s narrow definition of masculinity is harming boys, men, and society at large. Her third film, The Great American Lie (2019), unveils how the US value system of money, power and control has glorified individualism, institutionalized inequality, and undermined the ability of most Americans to achieve the American Dream. Jennifer’s fourth film as a director Fair Play (2022) takes a deep look at domestic inequity, making visible the invisible care work historically held by women and illuminating the benefits to men and the family when they lean into more care at home. Jennifer’s latest film, Miss Representation: Rise Up exposes how AI and social media are being weaponized to harm girls and women’s mental health, safety, and power at an unprecedented scale. It premiered at the 2026 Tribeca Festival. Jennifer also executive produced the Emmy Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering’s documentary The Invisible War (2012) and was an executive producer on the Emmy Award-winning documentary The Hunting Ground (2015) as well as On the Record (2020).
Jennifer’s films have been seen by tens of millions of people worldwide, and The Representation Project’s social action hashtag campaigns have reached nearly one billion people. The Representation Project is responsible for single-handedly shifting the norm of sexist Super Bowl ads with the #NotBuyingIt campaign. Similarly, their #AskHerMore campaign transformed sexist reporting on the red carpet, and empowered women in Hollywood to address inequalities in the industry, giving early momentum to the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements.
Since becoming First Partner of California, Jennifer has championed various issues related to gender equity and raising healthy, whole children, launching the initiatives #EqualPayCA, California For All Kids, California for All Women, and California for All Communities. Jennifer lives in California with her husband, California Governor Gavin Newsom, and their four young children.
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Photo by Andrew Paynter
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