A high-profile advocate for women will speak tonight on the issues surrounding the negative portrayal of women in the media.
Jennifer Siebel Newsom will give her talk, “Miss Representation: Power and Influence in the Media,” as the 18th installment in the David Letterman Distinguished Professional Lecture and Workshop Series, which brings business, academic and media leaders to campus.
Newsom wrote, directed and produced the award-winning documentary “Miss Representation,” which explored how the stereotypical representation of women in mainstream media fuels the gap in power positions between men and women.
Graduate assistant for the College of Communications, Information, and Media Grace Hunsberger said Newsom works to elevate public consciousness of these issues.
“She has had success with engaging the public, helping them become aware of the misrepresentation of women through mainstream media,” Hunsberger said. “She started a non-profit organization that helps people take action via social media and [provides] education tools that people use in schools [to] talk about what’s happening with gender differences in society.”
Newsom’s non-profit, MissRepresentation.org, is a social action campaign. During the Super Bowl, they pushed the hashtag #NotBuyingIt, calling out Super Bowl ads that objectified women and girls. More than 10,000 Twitter users joined the conversation, reaching more than 2 million users.
She also worked as an executive producer on the 2012 documentary “Invisible War,” a documentary about the rape epidemic in the U.S. military. It has been nominated for a 2013 Academy Award in the documentary feature category.
Hunsberger said Newsom’s message of media activism is pertinent to college students because they are the future of the family unit.
“We are the ones that are in the next generation that can make differences in family, our nuclear family and the workplace,” Hunsberger said. “It’s not until we start demanding things change that anything is going to change. If we touch people when they are at the university level, we have a greater chance of making a difference.”
During the event, about 20 minutes of “Miss Representation” will be shown, and then Newsom will speak to its themes.
The event will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Pruis Hall and is free and open to the public.
