In a previous post, I examined why the Keep It Real campaign is important to me. In this post, I will explain why Miss Representation (the documentary and the movement) speaks to me, which has a lot to do with why I am a feminist. It also has a whole lot to do with why I love Buffy. 
I grew up in a household with an interesting relationship with gender roles. On one hand, my parents raised me to believe that I could be and do anything I set my mind to, encouraged me to play sports, and my dad tried very hard to keep me interested in math and science. On the other hand, my parents modelled very traditional roles for my siblings and me (stay-at-home mom, breadwinner dad; it has only been in recent years that I can remember my dad actively helping out with household duties). When my mom did have a career, it always came second to my dad’s career. She was, more often than not, responsible for picking up my brother and myself from school when we were sick. She was a prime example of how women have to deal with the second shift.
I can recall many things my family said that bothered me as a kid. I hated when my dad or my uncles would say “You throw like a girl.” I would retort, “I AM a girl and I am PROUD of it.” To which, they would respond, “Calm down! It’s just a saying.” It made (makes) me so mad because I could not express how badly it hurt my feelings.
I still remember the events that led me to become a feminist. I believe I was 11 years old at the time. I was hanging out with my boy cousins and my brother, and we decided that we would act out a television show that we all watched (I wish I could remember what show it was). As we determined who would play what part, I realized that the girls in the show were lame, so I asked if I could play one of the guy characters. My cousins and brother protested, insisting that a girl could never play a boy’s role. Then, one of my cousins said, “Why don’t you go to the kitchen? That’s where the girls in the show go.”
I was furious. I just wanted to play a powerful character and have some fun with my cousins and brother. I did not want to be by myself in the kitchen because there were not girls in the show. I stormed off, which caught the attention of my aunt, who told my cousins and brother to let me play with them or play something else to include me. The damage was done though. I was hurt that I could be left out of play time just because of my gender.
This incident made me painfully aware of how few role models there were on television for girls. Then, I discovered Buffy. I was home sick from school and stumbled on some reruns. I watched two episodes and I was hooked. I wanted to dress like Buffy, I wanted to talk like Buffy (I can still picture my mom’s face when I first tried to use the word “wiggins.”), I wanted to BE Buffy. I was so excited to have a super cool role model that I could watch on TV.
As you can probably tell, the representation of women in the media is important to me and have been for quite some time. The girl power movement of the 90’s had a major influence on how I saw the world and experienced being a girl (I am reading Enlightened Sexism by Susan Douglas, which discusses how/why the Girl Power movement was problematic.). I began to see that being a woman is a powerful privilege, and I grew up with the confidence that I could be whatever I wanted to be (except, maybe, a Slayer). Buffy and other women who I looked up to in the media supplemented the part of my world that encouraged me as a girl and actively talked back to the part that told me that I “threw like a girl” or to “go to the kitchen.”
It bothers me that media has not changed that much for women. We still see shows and movies that center around men and their lives, except the rare time the main character is a princess. If you want to see how male-centered Hollywood is now, just watch Anita Sarkeesian apply the Bechdel Test to this year’s Oscar nominees.
This is why I watched the Miss Representation documentary and blog/tweet about the movement. We need to demand that the media companies provide our sisters, daughters, cousins with strong women role models they can emulate, so they, too, can have the experience of feeling powerful because a TV show that said they could fight vampires, instead of a TV show being the reason they are told to “go to the kitchen.”
Visit MissReprentation.org to find out how you can join the movement. You can watch the documentary on iTunes or Amazon.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer picture is courtesy of http://www.vidiot.com/Buffy/
Joss Whedon quote picture is courtesy of http://picklemethis.tumblr.com/post/7965018386/caption-q-why-do-you-write-strong-female.
peace and love kaleidoscope 