Enlarge Image

Director Jennifer Siebel Newsom (SUPPLIED PHOTO)

Such a sly virus, complacency.
   
Take the issue of women’s rights in North  America. By no means should the very real gains women have made since the early-20th century, until which time women had few if any rights, be understated.
   
Yet over the last several decades, conservative forces and governments have chipped away at those achievements (in Canada as well as the U.S.) Some of the effects have been concrete, such as the effective curtailing of abortion rights in multiple American states.
   
The documentary Miss Representation shows how women’s equality is being rolled back by perhaps a more insidious influence: the media. The polite point is that, when it comes to women, modern media is unrepresentative and undemocratic. Comedian Margaret Cho offers maybe a more effective encapsulation: "The media treats women like shit."
   
Ten hours, 15 minutes of media per day, in a variety of platforms, is what the average young person consumes today, according to the film. And what do they see? Advertising based on guilt and shame. Whether it’s for fashion, beauty products or just about everything else, images of impossibly proportioned women send the message: you’re fat and ugly.
   
Then there are the women of the movies, which are often just juvenile male fantasies. Zoe Saldana in Colombiana could’ve been an example of what one interviewee calls "The Fighting Fucktoy": a tall, slim, hypersexual female figure that also blows things up.
   
These aren’t reflections of real empowerment; just fetishistic constructs projecting illusory power. They’re mere sexual objects, meant to titillate male audiences. But, that such images are foisted on us, again and again, is a function of the media being overwhelmingly owned and run by men.
   
Hence, we’re right back to the 18th century regarding the prevailing view of women’s worth; the message is a woman’s greatest asset is her beauty. The heartbreaking effects of this are made clear by some dire statistics: 78% of 17-year-old girls are unhappy with their bodies; depression rates for girls doubled between 2000 and 2010; and eating disorders are rampant.
   
The upshot is, women hardly need to be disempowered politically if they internalize what the media communicates to them. In effect, they disempower themselves.
   
For that matter, that the media allows open, unabashed sexism, even misogyny, doesn’t exactly encourage women to pursue public leadership roles: a montage of various talking heads running down the likes of Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright and Nancy Pelosi is absolutely cringe-inducing.
   
The source of that hostility, of course, is the challenge women present to men’s privilege. If masculinity is synonymous with status and power, to compete with women is seen as potentially emasculating.
   
It’s not just female but also male gender constructs that need smashing, then. In historical terms, we’d do well to remember that women have lost status in Western society before: it took women in Europe centuries to regain an approximation of their rights in the Middle Ages. A clarifying film like Miss Representation provides needed momentum to reverse our present backwards inertia.
   
This exclusive screening of Miss Representation is presented by Canadian Women in Communication; admission is $15 for members, $20 for non-members. A panel discussion will be led by Janet Stewart of CBC News Winnipeg. For complete information and to register, visit the events calendar at parktheatrevideo.com/café.