Posts Tagged ‘progressive women’s voices’
She's Doing It: Women's Media Center Honorees in the Spotlight
Honoree and CBS News Chief Foreign Corespondent Lara Logan talks courageously about being assaulted in Tehrir Square with WMC’s founding president Carol Jenkins.
Read More“Employ very medium” is No Excuses Power Tool #8, and the honorees of the Women’s Media Center first ever Media Awards gala fundraising event November 30 lead the way. I’ll post the video that event chair and filmmaker extraordinaire Donna Deitch created for the event when it’s available, so please check back for it. Meanwhile, here is Marianne Schnall’s first hand report about the evening, originally posted here on the WMC blog.
I’m proud to serve on the board of an organization that is tackling one of the most important issues of the day with the big vision of making women visible and powerful in the media.
Check out the WMC’s Facebook album if you’d like to see more pictures from the Media Awards, including Arianna Huffington, Sheryl Sandberg, Business Media Award Recipient Maggie Wilderotter, Carol Jenkins Young Journalist Award Recipient Yanique Richards, and many others!
The 7 C’s of Why We Must Embrace Controversy to Change the World
I have the pleasure of speaking to each “class” of Progressive Women’s Voices, an exciting program of the Women’s Media Center, where I serve on the board. This started during the first class two years ago when I was asked about the lessons I learned leading a social movement where I worked a great deal with the media and messages as vehicles of social change. My comments have evolved over time from the conversations I’ve had with PWV participants and Heartfeldt Politics readers. So as I prepared today to speak to the final 2009 class tomorrow evening, I decided to share the latest iteration here on my blog. Please let me know your thoughts.
The angry, gunslinging, mobs opposing President Obama’s healthcare plan at town halls have created quite a stir. Screaming confrontations aren’t just great political theater that captures media attention, did you know they literally make your blood pressure rise and cause other involuntary physical anxiety-fear-pain-fight-flight reactions?
If you’re a live-and-let-live sort of person, as most Americans are, your first reaction to public controversy might be a racing heartbeat, but it won’t be long before you’ll probably want to race away. We have millennia of rape and pillage warnings in our brains, after all. Who needs it?
Well, actually you do if you’re interested in getting health reform in our time, or if you’re advancing any personal or organizational mission that you care about through the democratic process. Your voice is essential.
Public disruptions succeed not because they are necessarily proposing valid points of view, but for two other reasons:
- The people are organized, passionate, and persistent. They know that if they can cause enough discomfort, the rest of us will probably back away, go silent, and leave the field to them.
- They take charge of the conversation, frame the issue as they see it, and change the terms of the debate.
Let’s look deeper at these two dynamics.
With regard to public discourse: You can’t change eggs into omelets without breaking them. It’s not surprising that change will always upset some people. That causes controversy. It’s just the nature of the beasts social change movements have to dance with. As Dr. Joycelyn Elders, the former Surgeon General who was pushed out of her job when she said controversial things about the positive value of masturbation, told me one time, “When you are dancing with the bear, you don’t get to sit down until he’s ready.”
Since we can’t avoid controversy when we’re changing the world, we have to learn to love it, embrace it, not back away but rather use the energy to advance our cause.
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