Together, we were catalysts for cultural change in 2016. This past year, our films continued to ignite a dialogue both nationally and abroad. Miss Representation and The Mask You Live In have been seen by more than 10 million people and screened in all 50 United States and over 80 countries. Through our social media platforms and campaigns, we continue to reach 2.5 – 5 million people per week, inspiring scores of people all over the world to take action. Together, we influenced major moments in the cultural zeitgeist. We brought our #BeAModelman campaign to the Super Bowl and beyond, challenging our sports leaders to be model men both on and off the field. We brought #AskHerMore to the Olympics, and successfully challenged the Chicago Tribune, Fox, NBC Bay Area, and the Mercury News for their sexist coverage of female athletes leading them to apologize and/or alter their coverage. And during the 2016 U.S. election, we premiered #RepresentHer to celebrate and encourage more women in politics and demand paid parental leave, universal pre-K, and equal pay for all. This critical work will continue into the new year and beyond.
Additionally, educating, inspiring, and empowering young people has been central to our mission. To date, we have distributed over 8,000 copies of our media literacy curriculum, which takes our films and shorter, age appropriate media clips into classrooms and community groups worldwide. In August, we hosted our inaugural #DisruptTheNarrative: Global Youth Leadership Summit and brought together social-justice advocates and voices from the entertainment industry to inspire an audience of 200 young global influencers to be leaders in ending damaging stereotypes and norms.
This year we also launched “Building Gender Equity in the Workplace: A Best Practices Resource Guide” in partnership with the Bay Area Council to re-examine corporate culture, address unconscious bias, and redefine what an inclusive and diverse corporation looks. With the launch, we created our corporate workshops to help organizations and companies internally re-examine their corporate culture, address unconscious bias, and redefine what an inclusive and diverse corporation looks like.
Thank you, in advance, for investing in our work for 2017. Together, we are building a world free of damaging stereotypes and injustices and ensuring justice and equality for all.
Onwards,
Jennifer Siebel Newsom & The Representation Project Team
“How Masculinity Dominated 2016”
Check out our video and share it on Twitter or Facebook to spark a national conversation about toxic norms and how we as individuals and a society can do better. Together, let’s challenge and overcome this limiting and harmful culture in 2017.
Representation Around the Web
“Female physicians actually tend to provide higher-quality medical care than males, according to research released today. If male physicians were as adept as females, some 32,000 fewer Americans would die every year—among Medicare patients alone. The research is published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. Researchers from Harvard University reviewed the records of 1,583,028 hospital visits among Medicare patients. Within 30 days of arriving at the hospital, rates of death and re-admission were significantly lower when the patient’s doctor was female.” – The Atlantic
- GQ: We Need to Talk About Ezekiel Elliott
- The Huffington Post: Boy Has the BEST Reaction to Being Adopted After 832 Days in Foster Care
- Mic: Margaret Cho Felt Like a “House Asian” When Tilda Swinton Called her about ‘Dr. Strange’
- National Geographic: In Their Words: How Children Are Affected by Gender Issues
- Upworthy: Subway Riders in New York Are Paying $2 for 5 Minutes of Advice from an 11-year-old.
- Vox: Obama Just Made it Much Harder for Trump to Build his “Muslim Registry”
Happy Holidays from The Mask You Live In! Remember patriarchy affects everyone. 📷 credit Gemma Correll via The Equality Institute
Image via The Mask You Live In‘s Instagram
