WBEZ | women

Divas in the board room

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 05:00:00 -0500

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, and Marissa Mayer, COO of Yahoo, are arguably the youngest and most well-known females in corporate America today. In the male-dominated world of business, where only slightly more than 4 percent of Fortune 500 companies are led by women, Sandberg and Mayer are wunderkinds who achieved early success and rose to the top at a meteoric rate.

In both financial and feminist circles they are considered rock stars, trail blazers and gurus to be studied and emulated. And this dynamic duo has not been hesitant in word or deed to proclaim and demand a new set of rules for women in the workplace.

After 13 years at Google, where she was the twentieth employee hired and the first female engineer, Marissa Mayer left Google to become CEO of Yahoo in July 2012. Her first two challenges were obvious ones:

she needed to address the company’s declining ad revenues and stock prices
she was seven months pregnant

The pregnancy issue handled itself, and on September 30, 2013, she had a baby boy.

The company's financial issues remain ongoing, and Mayer returned to work just two weeks after having the baby to give them her full attention. (She has managed to balance the financial dilemma and the demand of diapers by having a nursery built next to her office.)

Since then, she has done everything in her power to right the ship. And her most controversial decision to date speaks directly to how she sees and wants the game to be played. Starting this spring, “working at home” has been banned.

“We need to be one Yahoo, and that starts with physically being together”, Mayer said.

Although Yahoo’s new model has generated a considerable backlash, Mayer’s message is clear: “do as I do” or move on.

Sandberg, in her recently published book Lean In: Women, Work, and The Will To Lead offers advise about how women can advance their careers, and at the same time, admonishes women for being part of the problem of why more women are not in more leadership positions. If you want to get ahead and make it big time, says Sandberg, women need to “lean in”, assert themselves more, put in more time, take on more tasks, be more ambitious.

Yes, she says, it is a male dominated world. So work harder. Believe in yourself. Don’t doubt your ability to do it all. Make more demands. Take on more. Sandberg argues that women have to stop looking for excuses and reasons for failure or mediocrity. Success costs, and if you don’t pay the price, it won’t happen.

I’ve got a daughter who is a business person, my wife is a COO of her firm and I like to think I’m a card carrying feminist. But to tell you the truth, Sandberg and Mayer scare me. Or, perhaps more accurately, they confuse me. They want women to outwork the men. They are advocating putting in the big hours, and making the big compromises, so that they too can succeed on Planet Finance. But maybe they’ve all got it all wrong. Maybe it really shouldn’t be about the big job, the big hours, the big sacrifices. Maybe it’s the system and not the players that is all screwed up. Maybe none of us, men or women, should be eager to “lean in” because the world we are being asked to “lean into” isn’t, in the long run, humanly worth it.

Maybe our two C-suite divas are on to something more important than success at work. Maybe their’s is a cautionary tale. Rather than “leaning in”, maybe all of us should start thinking about “leaning back”, and start trying to find success and accomplishments in other parts of our lives beyond our jobs.

Al Gini is a Professor of Business Ethics and Chairman of the Management Department in the Quinlan School of Business at Loyola University Chicago.

Winter in Hollywood: Tis the season for slut-shaming

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 10:21:00 -0600

The winter movie season tends to be a dumping ground for movies that couldn’t hack it anywhere else—whether they’re risky business for a studio that feels they might be a tough sell to audiences (the re-cut, hyper-violent Gangster Squad) or a studio red-headed stepchild that has flop written all over it (the long-delayed Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters).The A.V. Club recently referred to January as the "least-wonderful time of the year." But this winter, we’re seeing an emerging trend on top of our yearly pile of holiday coal: a stinking heap of slut-shaming and sex negativity.

To be fair, this isn’t the first time that slut shaming has reared its sexist head in TV or film. The WB’s golden age programming had a marked tendency to punish its female characters for losing their virginity. Both Gilmore Girls and Felicity have their young leads engage in infidelity for their first times, which leads to retribution and (in the case of Rory Gilmore) being shipped off to Europe for the summer like Daisy Miller. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy Summers’ undead boyfriend loses his soul and tries to kill all of her friends after they have sex. The premium is put on maintaining one’s virginity, and if any form of sexuality is shown, it’s harmful and dangerous.

Cinema sometimes subverts these norms—like The Devil Wears Prada—but the more common example is a film like What’s Your Number?, which tells women that having sex with too many people is bad. If you're a slut, no one will ever love you and you’ll be doomed to be alone. It’s like that scene in Mean Girls where a sex-ed counselor tells girls that if they have sex, they will get pregnant and die. This is not how Judy Blume said it would be.

Michael Tiddes’ A Haunted House (aka that movie starring a bunch of Wayanses) gives us a great example of Hollywood’s norm of sex negativity, as characters who overtly express their sexualities are lampooned for it. The Wayans’ brothers previous Scary Movie franchise engages in the same behavior, presenting female sexuality in broad caricatures and dichotomies. Women are either fake-breasted sluts or virgins. In A Haunted House, the character most defined by his sexuality is Nick Swardson’s gay psychic, and Swardson can’t get through fifteen seconds of screen time without the movie shaming him for his sexuality. They even pull out a nice lisp and some leather gear to do so. The Wayans oeuvre is not one for subtlety.

As a (terrible) send-up of horror films, A Haunted House both comments on and upholds the horror genre’s tortured relationship to sex—where the virgin lives and the slut dies first. (Joss Whedon’s recent The Cabin in the Woods parodies this trope brilliantly.) If you wanted an example of slut-shaming in horror films for your cinema class, the recent Texas Chainsaw 3D is practically a gift from God, a movie whose characterization of female sexuality is so over the top that you feel like it has to be a joke. Two of the film’s three screenwriters are female, so I sincerely hope this is the case, but Tina Fey assures me it might not be. Seriously, did Mean Girls teach us nothing?

Texas Chainsaw 3D introduces us to two female leads, whose sexual behaviors are diametrically opposed. Alexandra Daddario’s Heather is a classic horror movie good girl in the vein of Jamie Lee Curtis, who looks like Neve Campbell crossed with Tiffani Amber Thiessen. She’s shown to be somewhat sexually active, but far more conservative than her friend Nikki, whose dress and nomenclature suggest she’s auditioning for Showgirls II: Revenge of the Kibble. Almost every line of Nikki’s dialogue that graces our ears is about having sex, hooking up or boys—but Raymonde plays Nikki with enough winking irony that you know she understands what she’s dealing with here. During a panel discussion about the film, the Lost actress was a good sport about her character’s limitations: “That was another pleasure of mine, to fulfill the iconic stereotype role of the bimbo in the horror movie.”

Despite the brains behind the boobs, the movie treats Nikki with a strange amount of disdain and spends a great deal of screen time setting her up for a slut takedown. Throughout the film, Nikki goes after Heather’s boyfriend (played by rapper Trey Songz, obviously) like a drunken, heat-seeking missile, and finally lands him in a barn by getting him liquored up. She all but has to force him to get him to have sex with her, which the movie is then able to punish her for by brutally slaughtering her. Whereas Mr. Songz’s death gets to take place off camera, the film revels in watching her pay.

The same behaviors take place in Jack Reacher, a movie that’s been steamrolled at the box office by Django Unchained and Les Miz ever since it was released. Buried in the pre-Christmas onslaught, the film portrays Tom Cruise as a loner vigilante working with and against the police to track down a serial killer, played with reliable surreal gusto by the mad German auteur Werner Herzog. While hunting down the bad guys, the film serves as a love letter to Tom Cruise’s apparently irresistible sex appeal, as almost every woman he encounters throws themselves in front of him to have sex with him. In an uncomfortable scene, even an old lady cashier gives him the sex-me-now eye. He declines, because he's too good for sex. Jack Reacher is above that sort of thing.

One of the women dying to be with him is the scantily clad Sandy, who approaches the much older Cruise in a bar and offers to go to bed with him. For reasons that the plot will attempt to explain later, Cruise turns down her offer, at first mistaking her for a hooker, and then repeatedly calls her a “slut”—until the men she’s with try to beat him up. (Because it’s a Tom Cruise movie, he’s able to fight all of them off.) However, the movie is not done with Sandy, and Cruise will track her down again later to give her a bizarre speech about her life choices and why she needs to change her filthy, whorish ways. Sandy doesn’t turn her life around, so someone punches her in the head and she dies. No more Sandy.

What’s interesting here is that the movie finds the idea of Tom Cruise being an insatiable lothario so permissible that it’s able to ram it down our throats—but if a woman expresses herself sexually, she gets killed for it. What is this, the Taliban?

Even the movies that do a better job on issues of female sexuality have an odd relationship with the secular flesh. Take the Oscar-nominated Zero Dark Thirty, which is a landmark in rewriting the rules of women in film. Jessica Chastain’s Maya lives for her job, so much so that she views the idea of having sex with her co-workers “unbecoming.” When another female employee, played by Meryl Streep look-alike Jennifer Ehle, suggests that she relax and let her hair down, Maya insists, “I’m not the girl who f**ks.” In order for Maya to be respected at what she does, she’s not allowed to be sexually active at all, and Maya looks down on those without her brand of sexual ethics. All this does is replace one set of sexual standards for another, rather than just allowing women to make their own choices.

Although the film is meant to be a statement about the hyper-sexualization of women in cinema and a cry against patriarchy, this only upholds the overarching sex negativity in Hollywood, where sex is a four letter word. Last year’s public slut-shaming of Kristen Stewart and the industry’s complicity in dumping her career only showed how much progress needs to be made on the issue. We need to change a culture where women are thrown under the bus for cheating, and men get to keep their jobs and careers. The slut shaming we see in such films as Texas Chainsaw 3D is a reflection of that puritanical mindset, one that we reinforce by throwing money at it.

If there’s any hope for sluts at the cinema, you’ll find it in films like Will Gluck’s Easy A or David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook, which aren’t perfect but are a huge step in the right direction. In Silver Linings’, Jennifer Lawrence’s Tiffany plays a widow who went through a promiscuous period after her husband’s death, about which her romantic interest, Bradley Cooper’s Pat, gives her a hard time. Rather than apologizing for her past, Lawrence owns her sexual history. When Pat calls her a “big slut,” she retorts, “There's always going to be a part of me that's sloppy and dirty, but I like that, just like all the other parts of myself.”

Sure, Tiffany has to reinforce the idea that she’s not a slut anymore to assuage Pat’s fears, but a mainstream movie that even flirts with sex positivity is a revelation. Although outspoken young actresses like Jennifer Lawrence and Olivia Thirlby—who mentioned in a recent interview that she self-identifies as a “slut”—are ready and able to break the boundaries of how Hollywood portrays women, they need directors, producers and writers who are willing to go on that journey with them. Rather than continuing to perpetuate damaging norms and then cheekily playing along, we need to stop teaching young women that their bodies are bodies are disposable and they deserve to die for having sex. If we want to empower women, we have to stop being ironic about sexism and start actually doing something about it.

Nico Lang blogs about LGBTQ life in Chicago for WBEZ.org. Follow Nico on Twitter @Nico_Lang or on Facebook.

Female filmmakers shine at Sundance

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 05:00:00 -0600

When I was a film student at Columbia College Chicago, I had only one expectation on the first day of class each semester: I will be in the minority.

Sure enough, I'd walk in and see an overwhelming majority of dudes staring back at me, surprised by my femininity and clearly skeptical of my abilities as a director. In many of my classes, I was the only girl in the room.

Last weekend, Columbia College hosted a series of events in Park City, Utah for the opening of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. This year, for the first time ever, half of the films in the U.S. Dramatic Competition were directed by women (8 out of 16, to be exact). I wonder if any female students were inspired by watching these films onscreen, knowing that at least eight more holes have been blasted through their glass ceiling.

Still, women have a long way to go before acheiving the same status that men have long held as directors. Even though one-time Oscar winner Kathryn Bigelow directed arguably the best film of 2012 (Zero Dark Thirty, a modern masterpiece about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden), the Academy snubbed her for Best Director in favor of an all-boys club once again.

A recent study from the University of Southern California also shows a marked discrepancy between genders: male directors outnumber their female counterparts 15.24 to 1, and the numbers don't seem to be budging anytime soon. Except in Park City, that is, where women are evenly matched with men in both the documentary and dramatic film categories.

Sure, the statistics don't look great for female directors in Hollywood. But if the turnout at Sundance is any indication, more women are being acknowledged for their documentaries, indies and arthouse films than ever before.

Actress-filmmaker Sarah Polley (Away from Her, Take This Waltz), whose well-received documentary Stories We Tell gained entry into Sundance's Spotlight program this year, has noticed a steady rise in female confidantes since she first started coming to the festival in 2000.

"I feel like there's been a seismic shift," Polley said. "My first time at Sundance, I spent the whole time just trying to find other female filmmakers. Now you see there's been huge progress."

Director Lynn Shelton (Humpday, My Sister's Sister) is showing her latest film Touchy Feely at both the U.S. Dramatic Competition in Park City and the Music Box Theatre's Sundance in Chicago event on Jan. 31.

As a champion for female voices in a male-dominated industry, Shelton believes that the increased presence of women at Sundance bodes well for the future.

"It just feels like justice," she said. "Like, OK, this is the way it's supposed to be. This reflects the population of the earth. There's no reason why there shouldn't be as many women making movies as men. But I'm also waiting for the day when I'm not treated as an oddity as a woman. I'm just treated as another filmmaker."

Follow Leah on Twitter @leahkpickett

Claire Zulkey - Slow-motion cancel

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 09:31:00 -0600

This weekend I had lunch with a friend of mine who lamented a strange social phenomenon she fell victim to earlier this month. She was hosting a dinner party, and one guest, instead of merely attending or canceling, began texting her in the morning to warn her that she might not be able to attend, due to a sick child. “I’ll let you know what happens,” the guest promised the hostess, and then, on about an hourly basis, provided updates, informing her that things weren’t looking so good due to Junior and his cold. Eventually, exactly at dinnertime, the guest sent a text saying “Looks like I can’t make it after all. Have fun though!!”*

Naturally, my friend was peeved. “Ah yes, the slow-motion cancel,” I said. “I’ve fallen victim to it myself.” Instead of just being told that someone can’t show up to dinner or a party or a date, I’ve gotten a long, slow buildup to the inevitable letdown that someone is canceling on me. Sometimes they start days in advance, as I’ve had friends start letting me know the second they feel a cold coming on so that I can get ready to confront the possibility that I might not see them. (And just in case you think I’m being a judgment-casting stone-thrower, I found myself doing this last week. A friend of mine was holding an event that I had earlier said I’d attend, and I let her know early in the day that I might not be able to attend due to my husband not feeling well. And then I texted my apologies five minutes into the event. So I am absolutely guilty of this myself.)

Why do we** do this? I have two theories. One came via a British guy friend of mine who told me recently the biggest difference between American and British girls is that at bars (and other such places), a British woman will have no trouble telling a guy who is hitting on her that she’s not interested (“Sod off,” is the term everyone, probably even including the Queen, uses in this situation.) But once the guy came to the States, he’d chat up a lady for an hour and figure he had a good chance of getting somewhere with her until he realized that she was Just Being Nice.

There are many times when Just Being Nice is actually not so nice after all. Like talking behind someone’s back instead of saying what you feel, like letting resentment build up instead of addressing issues head-on, like leading a person on or like wasting someone’s time by sloooowly canceling on them instead of having the cojones to just do it. If you say “I can’t make it tonight, sorry,” right off the bat, it’s rude. But if you do it over the span of many hours or days, it’s Nice.

But the flip side of Just Being Nice is also feeling a like Kind of a Big Deal. When you’re a Kind of a Big Deal, no social function can go on without you (not in any meaningful way, anyway), so you need to let people down gently and slowly. If you just say “I can’t make it tonight, sorry,” right off the bat, you are tearing people’s hearts out. But if you do it over the span of many hours or days, you can slowly, slowly get your friends used to the idea of spending time without you when they were all worked up about seeing you. It’s like gradually entering a hot bath, only in this case instead of bubbles the tub is full of disappointment.

In the interest in saving time and text fees, let’s agree to relax on Just Being Nice and that we’re not always Kind of a Big Deal. We all like seeing our friends and it’s a bummer when plans get altered but let’s just agree to take a note from the British gals. Say “sod off” to being indirect, passive aggressive or not quite honest when it comes to rearranging plans. Our friends will all survive until the next time--when you gossip about the people who didn’t make it.

*It’s essential, when declining an event, to give everyone permission to have fun without you.

**by “we” I mostly mean women but not all women and certainly not exclusively women, but let’s face it, this is a girl thing.

In praise of caring, but not too much

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 05:00:00 -0600

Sometimes we women buy into a lot of bull when it comes to the business of looking good. Just look at colors: How is it conceivable that the cosmetics world is still inventing shades in which to manufacture nail polish, eyeshadow and lipstick? I suspect they’re not, actually — the companies just slap on new celebrities, taglines and ridiculous adjectives (“ultimate suede,” “moon candy,” “photoready,” “clump crusher,” “smoothwear” and “mega plush” are all nonsense terms cosmetics companies are currently using to sell us product). These companies rely on our collective hope that this next new product will be the thing that saves us from our own decrepitude and ugliness. So many of us are vulnerable to this, even the smartest and most mature of us. And sometimes, aside from the hope, the sillyness is fun. You know how it is.

Part of the appeal of the old beauty song and dance is that if we’re wasting/spending our money on our looks, we want to feel like we’re being taken care of. I am pretty sure that at least $20 of the cost of my haircut is my haircut lady consulting with me as if we are about to do something very important. Bangs or no bangs? Are we bringing up the length significantly? (This is salon-ese for “cutting off a lot.”) What’s the layer situation? This all involves a serious chat wherein we don’t look each other in the eye directly but speak to our reflections in the mirror. Then she gets to work, I am out $100 and I feel kind of good about myself until I sleep on my new hair and I realize the next day I am totally unequipped to take care of it. But the point is, if I get a good haircut or a good eyebrow wax or makeup applied by a pro, it just makes me like my reflection a little bit more and I feel more willing to go on that journey with someone who seems to be taking me seriously.

As I get older, though, I realize I don’t need everything to be a production. I used to get my eyebrows waxed at the same place where I get my hair cut and I always dreaded the appointment. Not because it hurt, although it did — for better or for worse, the lady plucked a lot and all that plucking stung and made me have to sneeze — but because she spent 15 minutes before the appointment chiding me for how awful my eyebrows were. God forbid you pluck in between appointments. You might do permanent damage! She would then inform me what her plan was. She was going to wax here but not here to see if we can encourage this little bit to grow back, but only if I promised not to touch my eyebrows for three weeks, warning that it might be too late to save my brows. We could only hope. It was a bit much, all of it, and I’m not just talking about the $50-plus per month.

Recently, one of those strip-mall salons opened up near my house, the type that would have a name like “Sexy Nails,” only in this case it’s actually called Sexy Nails. This weekend I took a gamble and walked the block and a half (instead of the mile from my office to the fancy salon) and asked for an eyebrow wax. Should I have been suspicious that there was a zero minute wait time for my wax? Or that the wax took place in a chair in the corner of the salon and not in a private room? Or that it cost $10? I don’t know. The wax was efficient, chit-chat free and in the end I got what I asked for: a cleanup that left my eyebrows relatively full. The whole thing took about ten minutes, from entry to tipping.

I felt liberated. This must be what it’s like when men get their hair cut (specifically, my husband, because he goes to a specific chain where the employees don’t typically speak English very fluently so he’s guaranteed not to be chitchatted too much in the chair, which he finds excruciating).

Being a woman and doing the whole thing — the product and frivolity and chitchat of it all — can be a good escape. But at the same time, it’s not a true and serious commitment; you should be allowed to not take care of your split ends or to cut your nails with clippers or to pluck your eyebrows as much as you want without punishment. Sometimes it’s good to find that happy middle where you’re still taking care of yourself but without the investment and lecture. Sometimes you gotta just Sexy Nails it.

The Title IX Olympics

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 08:00:00 -0500

If I leave the 2012 Olympic Games moment with any one particular memory, it's of the resounding triumph of America's women. Their excellence coincided with the 40th anniversary of Title IX, which brings an old phrase comes to mind: "You’ve come a long way baby."

Of course, most of the participants probably don’t remember that Virginia Slim’s tag line. But those of us from that generation recall an era where we couldn’t participate in most sports; nor did we have the opportunity to go to college on an athletic scholarship. That's one reason these games mean a lot to women like me. Title IX, which gave women equal rights to earn NCAA scholarships, was signed on June 23, 1972 — one month after I finished high school. There were no athletic scholarships for me or any of the other women in my graduating class.

Compare that the women returning to Chicago after toppling France and earning America a fifth-straight gold medal in Olympic basketball: Chicago Sky players Swin Cash and Sylvia Fowles. Each has now won two gold medals; Cash earned her first at the 2004 games in Athens and Fowles won in Beijing in 2008.

Both Cash and Fowles paid homage to the law that gave them the chance to play the sport they love. Fowles gave credit to the women that paved the way for her and hopes to become a role model for other young women in turn. Cash acknowledged that Title IX was instrumental in the success of women athletes, especially at these Olympic games. “When you invest in women, we can give you the same production as men,” she said. It showed in the viewing numbers: the women’s basketball games were almost on par with the men’s basketball games. We have come a long way, baby!

Both Cash and Fowles said the Olympic experience in London was terrific. Despite tough practices Fowles took advantage of the city with visiting friends and family. “I took a tour with my mom," she said. "I liked Big Ben, Piccadilly [Circus] and the palace." The lack of a language barrier was a comfort for her too. Cash also saw the sights, shopped and went to watch the beach volleyball games, which she said was “amazing.” She compared being in the Olympic venue to being on the “White House lawn or Rose Garden."

Even though they had limited time together, the 12 women on the U.S. team developed a close bond. “We all had a selfless mindset. We understood what our goal was; we were not just representing ourselves but for our country,” said Cash. The experience was humbling for the 32-year-old player since she missed the Beijing Olympics due to an injury. It was also the last time she will ever stand on the podium as an Olympic medalist since this was her final Summer Games.

Cash, however, hopes to be a broadcaster for the 2016 games in Brazil; she believes she's made enough sacrifices – personally and professionally – for her career in the WNBA. Her long term goal, she said, is to be married and have children. “As women those are things we have to think about,” Cash said. “Our male counterparts don’t have to think about that.” Her teammate Sylvia Fowles, however, would love another opportunity to play in the Olympics. “If my body stays the same, hopefully, I will be in Rio,” she said.

Now that both ladies are home and the WNBA is returning to business, both would love to do something for the Sky and their fans: get into the playoffs. With a month off, injured players were able to get healthy, or at least get rested. Fowles, Cash and Epiphanny Prince will be key to helping their team make their first post-season appearance. Cash did not play as much in the Olympics and said it will take a couple of games to get into shape.

‘Ground Shifters’: Collective healing brings hope to Ciudad Juárez

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 16:31:00 -0500

This week, Jean Friedman-Rudovsky presents a five-part series featuring stories of women and girls in Bolivia and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. It's called Ground Shifters: Stories of Women Changing Unseen Worlds.

Today, we revisit Ciudad Juárez, now ground zero of a drug war that’s killed more than 6,000 people in the last three years. The carnage has left an entire population of families steeped in grief. We get an intimate look at one young woman who recently lost the love of her life. She tells Friedman-Rudovsky how her emotional wounds have helped others to heal.

JEAN: Meet Erika Salazar and Ernesto, her three year old son.

JEAN [with ERIKA and SON mixed in]: Since last June, this is their daily ritual: Mother asks son: where’s daddy? Ernesto points to the sky. And you love him a lot? Yes, he says. And where is he watching you from, making sure you are alright? Up there, answers the little boy with the slight lisp, eyes floating up towards the heavens.

ERIKA: I found out watching the TV news; I thought I saw his body. So I went to where the news said the killing happened and no one was there. I looked for him all over the city and then just as I was heading home I saw the car he had been driving. It was full of blood and the windows were shattered. In that moment, I knew it was him I had seen. So I went to the morgue and he was there. The district attorney hasn’t investigated it at all, just like with many other cases.

JEAN: Erika and Ernesto lives in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico homicide capital of the world, where thousands have died from the years-long “War on Drugs” that many see spiraling out of control. An increasing number of politicians, experts and activists now wonder if the billions of dollars spent were worth the human cost. Recently we’ve learned about “Operation Fast and Furious,” a scheme through which the US government intentionally allowed thousands of guns to flow into Mexico in order to track their sale to violent drug cartels.
Erika’s husband was shot, assaulted and killed for his cash, she says. 29 years-old Loving father of three.

ERIKA: Era los 24 horas estando en la casa. Llorando, sin dormir…

JEAN: At first, I was just in the house 24 hours a day, crying, not eating, not sleeping. Not even showering, and not paying any attention to my kids, she remembers. But then she recalls saying to her self: Erika, enough. You have three kids and don’t have the luxury of falling down.

JEAN: So instead of falling, Erica landed here.

JEAN: Welcome to SABIC, Salud y Bienestar Comunitario, or Communal Health and Wellbeing, where dance therapy class has just let out.

DORA: Aquí se llama Salud y Bienestar Comunitario, es una asociación civil, estamos en la zona poniente de ciudad Juárez…

JEAN: That’s the center’s Director, Dora Davila. Dora explains that residents of this periphery neighborhood created the center eight years ago.

DORA: This center is completely community run. It’s based on holistic healing. Here we work with an all-encompassing concept of health. Health as harmony, as equilibrium, as life—emtional, social, environment and body. We have a wide range of services including floral therapy, reiki, massage, group therapy, dance. We have a very clear concept of gender too—meaning the reconstruction of women’s lives, particularly now as this relates to the current situation of generalized violence in this city.

JEAN: The small building perched on a hill, overlooks the rest of the city. I can understand how Erika must have felt first coming here. The all-glass entrance is filled with plants and sunlight pores in. Children amuse themselves with Legos as their moms drink coffee and prepare for the day.

ERIKA: Yo empecé a trabajar aquí en SABIC por medio de las terapias…

JEAN: Erika says her neighbor, who had also lost a loved one to violence, brought her here for the first time to attend the grief support group. She then involved with dance classes, reiki, and as a peer counselor for other women. Now she works here as an administrative assistant.

ERIKA: My life changed completely. I used to be a housewife and I depended on my husband for everything. Now I am rediscovering myself as a woman, as a worker, as a mother because I am using skills that I didn’t even know I had or that I never put to use. I arrived here destroyed, with my self-esteem on the floor. You could say I arrived here dead inside.

JEAN: It’s hard to reconcile Erika’s reflection of her past self with the woman sitting in front of me. She now has a quiet grace, the serenity of a survivor who is at peace with what life has thrown at her, and the strength of a warrior who knows the battle is not yet over. This is not uncommon in Juarez, notes Dora Davila.

DORA: To be a woman in Juárez is like being in a whirpool from which you can’t escape. It tires you. Women of Juarez are tired of the hours they work in the maquila, tired of living in fear of what will happen to their kids. We sometimes feel like our energy runs out and we aren’t sure where we’ll find enough to keep on. But also, being a woman in Juarez means very brave and very strong. Recently, there is a strong sense of solidarity. To be a woman in Juarez is to be all women of Juarez. All of us who are here say to ourselves “being in Juarez gives my life purpose.”

JEAN: On a recent morning, Erika and two other women gather for their weekly group therapy session. They sit on plastic chairs with bare feet resting on mats and rugs.

ERIKA: Ya saque saque su ropa, fue dificil, mucho mucho pero parece que ya..

JEAN: Erika lives with parents now that her husband is gone. In group therapy, she recounts her previous day. She spent the afternoon getting rid of her husband’s clothes and belongings. It was her first time back home since he died. It was hard, she says to the group. Very, very hard. Seeing all his things, she continues, made me feel like I had fallen again. But with she says her friends helped her move her emotions, from anger, to sadness and finally to relief.

The other women nod understanding Erika’s story in a way I can not. One, who asked me not to use her name, also lost her husband to the city’s escalating violence. She reflects on the struggle that has become that of so many Juarez women and how she like Erika has found a path forward.

ANONYMOUS WOMAN: There are so many women who are alone now. From the moment we lose our husbands we begin a constant challenge—trying to earn enough money from work and also becoming better mothers. We end up sacrificing part of ourselves. We dedicate all our time to work, to our kids, to the daily struggle of keeping our families going and the days pass into years. We are honest, dedicated working people and we have learned so much by being together with other women. We are better able to take on life’s challenges and to have a more positive attitude. The therapy helps us express our emotions and to move forward psychologically.

Despite this, it seems that such intense personal reflection is only for the truly strong. The group has dwindled over time, from 16 to four.

ERIKA: The moment we start to touch on the hard stuff, you find ways to escape. We dont really want to work that hard stuff. People think that pain is normal, that it’s natural, that if you lose a loved one then you have to suffer because if you stop suffering it means you no longer love that person. That’s not the way it should be. Let that person go and rest in peace. Don’t wait for time to heal your pain because that only makes it worse. The sooner you start to heal the better.

JEAN: For this reason, Dora, Erika and the others spread out around Juárez, offering peer counseling and therapy to women who can’t get to the center. This collective experience is crucial for Erika.

ERIKA: Sharing the experiences of others who have gone through what you’ve lived helps to minimize your own suffering. You start find silver linings. For example when I sit down and talk with someone who has gone through what I have, sometimes it’s like I am that person on the listening end. The first time I tried peer counseling it was with a young woman like me. She had lost her husband a year ago before and she was totally destroyed, crying. By telling her “listen, chin up, be strong, everything happens for a reason,” it was like I was saying it to myself, almost like I was looking into a mirror and comforting myself too.

JEAN: Back at home, Erika gives little Ernesto a bath. She says they’ll probably stay with her parents longer than she first thought. She’s just not ready to go back to the home she shared with her husband. That’s how her life is right now, one day at a time.

ERIKA: I used to be a person that planned everything. I was the one, as they say, who built castles in the sky. But everything that happened made me realize that the only thing you have is this moment. We dont know what’s going to happen tomorrow. What happened to me helped me open my eyes and live everyday in the present.

JEAN: Erika’s life today feels almost like a life-after. There was something else before – love, joy, partnership – which she mourns but she knows she can not turn back the pages of time. Instead, she moves forward, without regret, present in her skin, in her space, in her city—unlike the quarter-million Juárez residents who’ve fled over the past four years in fear. Erika could have left too. Her three kids are all U.S. citizens. But, she says she and her children are Juarenses and they won’t be leave.

ERIKA: Juarez is not just violence. There are many good people, many people who receive you with open arms. There are many of us still here with the hope that this is going to change and we don’t let ourselves lose that hope. We are hard working people, we fight to make our lives better. We are united. We have faith our current situation will change. We are from here and this is where were will remain.

JEAN [with ERIKA and ERNESTO mixed in]: Ernesto stands on the couch. His tiny legs wobble as he tries to steady himself on the cushions. Erika kneels below. “Jump, Jump!,” she tells him. Don’t be afraid. He laughs and hesitates. For this three year old, the inches that separate him from the safety of his mom’s outstretched hands, must seem like a one story drop. “I’m right here,” Erika says. “I’ve got you.” Ernesto looks straight into her eyes and springs off the couch, right into her arms. I notice he’s got her full lips and smooth skin. His eyes are someone else’s.

ERIKA: Me amas? Hasta donde? Hasta donde esta tu papi? Es mucho verdad que sí?

JEAN: You love me? Erika asks. Yes, he answers. How much? He mumbles: I love you from here to where my daddy is up there.
[end Erika and Ernesto original audio]

This series is part of an ongoing collaboration between WBEZ and the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women & Gender in the Arts & Media at Columbia College-Chicago called Gender, Human Rights, Leadership, and Media. The Institute develops projects with journalists, artists, human rights workers and activists to investigate global issues.

Ground Shifters: ‘Locked-up, but Organized’ in La Paz, Bolivia

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:02:00 -0500

This week, Jean Friedman-Rudovsky presents a five-part series featuring stories of women and girls in Bolivia and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. It’s called Ground Shifters: Stories of Women Changing Unseen Worlds.

Today, we travel to a women’s prison in La Paz, Bolivia. Rather than a high-security industrial complex, this prison takes the form of a miniature city — with shops, businesses, a school and even a union. We find out how its female inmates are exercising their rights to organize and improve their communal home.

Just past the security screening rooms, the women’s Central Correctional Facility in La Paz, Bolivia expands into an open air courtyard. It looks like anything but a prison. Women – not wearing jumpsuits or uniforms of any kind – manage kiosks and stalls, or sit knitting in front of classrooms.

Young kids, who live inside with their moms, run down passageways and weave around my legs out into the yard. Briseida Paredes is a wide-eyed beauty who looks decades younger than a grandmother of two. S he says the prison is designed like a hacienda or spacious ranch.

"The only security we have are the four towers and the door," says Briseida, through a translator. "Over there are the shared dormitories. Also, there are a variety of courses offered for inmates for free like accounting, baking, knitting, embroidery. There’s a laundry facility—we offer that service for people outside the jail. There are those of us who wash dishes, wash clothes, clean the classrooms. Everyone makes their own way here."

That’s lot to take in. No individual cells and women who earn their own keep inside. Almost nothing meshes with my idea of prison. Especially Breseida’s title: President of the Consejo de Delegadas, or delegate council, a representative body most akin to an inmate union.

"Of course, we have to work jointly with the national penitentiary system as well as the local government," she says. "Also with the prison health system. I’m not the boss here. There is a warden and everything has to be done according to procedure. In this coordinated way, we address judicial matters, as well as medical attention for the kids; any and all internal issues inside the facility."

13 reps elected by the areas where they sleep, six more at large – to be in charge of education, work and recreation. Then, a Vice President and La Presidente. They run in yearly elections. One inmate, one vote, via secret ballot. Despite what Briseida says, these elected representatives make the prison hum. They hold classes and help inmates stay with their schooling. They arrange for donations from charity organizations for the kids, and make sure the businesses run smoothly.

They even coordinate soccer matches with visitors. Lucia Choque is a dorm delegate. She’s indigenous Aymara. Two thick long braids hang down her back.

"My name is Lucia Choque and I’ve been here for one year and one month," she says. "I’m the representative from dorm 11. Each dormitory delegate helps to organize the activities like the Christmas communal meals and decorations. Sometimes the new girls don’t understand how this all works. They think they are still on the outside but things are different here. I explain that in the dorms, they can’t bring in outside bags, can’t bring in food or anything like that. They don’t always listen so I have to be on top of them, reminding them again and again."

Hours past roll call, the women and kids are free to roam until 8 clock tonight, when they must be back in the dorms. Briseida is working—the prisoners are making sweet bread to raise money for infrastructure improvements and she’s managing the process. It’s clear that these women find nothing unusual about being organized.

We’re in Bolivia – where unionization is a foundation of society. Everyone—from the shoe shine boys, to the farmers, to the domestic workers, have their representative organization.

"Everywhere around the world, people organize: in the workers unions, in professional associations, in mother’s clubs. Why not in a jail?," Briesida asks. "We, too, are a part of society. We have needs just like everyone else. Teachers demanding a raise protest and make themselves heard. This is the same thing, but we ask for better food, better medical facilities, better infrastructure. Since we are part of society, we have the same rights as those on the outside. The only right that’s been taken away from us is freedom of movement. Every other one is intact."

Intact is right — and these women don’t take them for granted.

"About a month and a half ago we had a strike because we only had 50 gas canisters for cooking and those 50 weren’t enough for the prison’s three kitchens," Briseida recalls. "So what did we do first? We followed procedure and sent a request letter. That was ignored so we called a state of emergency and refused to stand for roll call. The last resort is the hunger strike. At first, we had about 30 women striking. During a strike, you can’t stand for roll call or work. The only thing we drank was coca and chamomile tea and we only ate throat lozenges. That strike lasted 4 days and now we have 75 gas canisters."

Briseida makes it sound so easy. But it’s hard being a leader in this environment. Constant threats from the guards and gangs or factions form easily. You have to know how to deal with all kinds of personalities, says la Presidenta.

"Here there are all people from all over," she points out. "There are some from the rural areas. Others are educated professionals so you have to mediate their different life experiences and perspectives. But all humans, whether free or in prison, learn new things until the day we die. We always keep on learning."

Finding a voice, cultivating a leader

Some of that learning comes through being a delegada. On the outside, none of the current reps were political women. Virginia Condori is young and soft-spoken, and is dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. Like 80% of Bolivia’s prison population, she’s a “preventiva” – meaning she’s being held preventatively while waiting for trial. Legally there’s a 6 month cap on preventative detention. But that’s not reality. She’s been here for over year and has yet to come before a judge.

Yet, she’s not bitter. Instead, she’s productive. She’s working on her accounting degree and now she’s the representative for education—a post she says taught her more lessons than the classroom.

"One of those has been that I’ve lost my fear of speaking in front of others, of expressing myself," she says. "I remember the first time. Someone told me – you have to make an announcement about a human rights workshop and you have to tell everyone during roll call. I stepped out to give the announcement and I turned red. You know you stand in front of everyone and all the compañeras are looking at you. I thought to myself, maybe I’m not saying it right. But with time I lost that fear. This has all helped me to develop, speak more often, express myself better. I wasn’t this kind of person before."

It’s this personal evolution that may matter almost as much as winning a strike. Nicole Zamora Paredes is Briseida’s middle child. Only 20 years old herself, she brought her toddler son in for a visit. She’s got her mother’s eyes, and the same strong sense of self. She says the delegada system is the best rehabilitation opportunity the prison offers.

"Years ago my mom was immature," Nicole recalls. "She liked to be out dancing, out wherever with her friends. Not anymore. She is a much more mature person now. This has allowed her to reflect, study, understand family, to value many things. I think my mom is doing great. She has changed a lot and for the better."

This personal growth is small compensation for the fact that this is still prison. No union can change that. Women must walk past the foul-smelling solitary confinement chamber dozens of times daily. Guards beat and bribe the prisoners at will. And of course, while many of these women still live with their kids, they miss those treasured parent moments—like watching your child graduate from primary school, or playing together in a park. Life is a concrete hacienda.

Inmates in this facility, like most around the country, are mainly here for petty drug charges. Others are in for contraband—bringing in untaxed second hand clothes or cars to sell in open air markets. Debt too can land you some time. Women have an added complication—their husbands exploits. You’d never see a man locked up for his wife’s crimes, but the opposite happens.

"I am here because for being an accomplice, I guess they call it," says Lucia. "They killed my husband and my son is in San Pedro prison. But they don’t let me leave here, not even to visit my son. They’ve taken everything of mine. It’s been a year and one month. I am not sentenced yet so I don’t know when I’ll ever get out. There are so many of us, preventivas. There is no quick justice here. I’ve had 5 different lawyers, 2 of them took my money and did nothing. Now I don’t have anything left."

Today, visitors are streaming in. But not for everyone. So many women here are shunned by the world the minute they are swallowed by these high walls. I see Virginia’s sadness as she watches Briseida play with her grandson. She tells me she doesn’t have a family. Yet again, the education delegada finds the positive.

"Here is where you find your real friends," says Virginia. "Outside, people just say to you: how much do you have, how much are you worth. When you have money, everyone is your friend, your family. When something bad happens to you, no-one is there for you economically or emotionally. Here is where you find your real family because we support each other in the best and worst of times. We motivate each other. Sometimes we cry and we console one another. Or sometimes you cry and they cry along with you."

I wonder if Briseida’s and Virginia’s and Lucia’s personal growth, has to do with the their insulated female world. These intimate bonds, among only women, lead to the extraordinary. It’s getting on in the afternoon and things are winding down. The aroma of dinner preparations wafts down the passageways. Briseida is saying goodbye to her family. Normally non-chalant about her organization’s achievements, she gets reflective, sharing one last story.

"A few months ago, there was a problem with a warden here," says Briseida. "She had mismanaged money from the laundry service and that money is ours. She wanted to shut us up about it. We have to have a full revolt to get her out of here because it’s not right that people come here and live off the work of the prisoners and abuse their authority. I was chained in my cell, they didn’t let me go to the bathroom or receive visits. I spent 15 days in the hole. They completely violated my rights. We demanded a hearing and I was let go and then everything turned around. Now the warden has a pending charge against her via the Ministry of Corruption and Transparency. Imagine that! Where in any other part of the world do you see a prisoner, a delinquent as they call us, launch a case against a warden? It’s like a utopia. It’s illogical. That shows that we have rights and values, even as prisoners we have our principles. And especially us as women because it’s us women who continue to be mothers, pillars of our families. I mean we’re the ones who always wear the pants in this world, right?"

The story is part of a weeklong series on the lives of women and girls in Bolivia and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico called Ground Shifters: Stories of Women Changing Unseen Worlds. The series is a collaboration between WBEZ and the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women & Gender in the Arts & Media at Columbia College-Chicago.

Series Executive Producer, Steve Bynum. Series Producer/Creative Advisor, Jane Saks

How the media's portrayal of girls affects teens

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 13:30:00 -0500

SlutWalk Chicago takes place on Saturday in the Loop. The march originally took place in response to a comment by a Toronto police officer, that women should "avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized."

But the effort to connect what a woman looks like to how she’s treated is far longer-standing and pervasive. And it starts young, especially in the media. So what are young girls learning about womanhood from television?

Dr. Sharon Ross researches this very topic as a Professor in the Television Department at Columbia College Chicago. She joined Eight Forty-Eight to explain what she hears from teens about the media they’re consuming.

Art as a vehicle for social change

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:52:00 -0600

An exhibition currently at the Chicago Cultural Center explores the nature of violence against women. Off the Beaten Path: Violence, Women and Art is also an example of how artists work toward social change.

It begs the question: Is art an effective tool for advocacy? Eight Forty-Eight invited two guests to discuss this issue. Patricia Evans is a photographer in the exhibition. Her recent work looks at the aftermath of rape. She’s also documented Chicago’s public housing and public works projects.

Abraham Ritchie is Senior City Editor of ArtSlant in Chicago. Tuesday, Evans and other artists in the show will take part in a panel discussion Art and Civic Engagement. The panel is presented by The Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media. Off the Beaten Path: Violence, Women and Art was created and produced by Art Works for Change.