Blog Post #3 Cara Dacus Eng. 201 1073

"If people knew that Cuba, China, Iraq and Afghanistan have more women in government than the United States of America, that would get some people upset" -Gavin Newson.
I realize that the number of women in government is not a competition... but c'mon! Seriously? I was definitely surprised by this fact, surprised and discouraged. To add a little salt to the wound: 67 countries in the world have had female presidents or prime ministers. With our equal rights and freedoms one would think that our government would reflect equality. Or at least more so than some of the countries mentioned that are notoriously known for repressing women's rights.
This quote reminded me of an episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart that I watched recently. Stewart was interviewing Fawzia Koofi, a native of Afghanistan and a candidate in Afghanistan's 2014 presidential elections. The story of her life is harrowing, and truly incredible. Born into struggle, her parents abandoned her to die shortly after she was born because she was a female. Not only surviving but thriving she grew up with high aspirations to become a doctor.  Her dream was disrupted shortly after she was accepted into medical school when the Taliban barred women from education in 1995. She then turned her focus to women's rights and human aid organizations. She has survived many attempts on her life and in 2005 she was elected the first woman Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament in the history of Afghanistan. According to her website (www.fawziakoofi.org): "Fawzia has battled male domination, imposition of men's selective religious interpretation on the rights of women and issues of power between men and women, and the old and new generations". I thought that if this women could push through all of the obstacles in her path and still live out her dream to create positive change in her country and become a leader than why not women in the United States? If things are changing for women in politics in the Middle East then I feel it's only a matter of time before they start to change here. We're just behind the curve, but we'll get there. 

“It is extremely important for women to be writing their own stories, truly crafting those stories, writing them down, directing them and giving them to people to really emotionally become impacted by” –Rosario Dawson

I definitely agree with this statement. Any population should have its members telling their own stories, if not then there is a piece of the story missing. When thinking in terms of women, that is a huge piece (about half) of the population. I believe this is important not only for different sexes but different ethnicities, cultures, etc. Everybody’s story is unique, and nobody can truly know and understand another person’s experience. The more stories that are out there the better we understand the world around us. Limiting the storytelling to a select group robs the population as a whole of an accurate reflection of itself. The more voices the better I say. 

This quote made me think of the many quotes from the famous authors throughout history in our text Literary Criticism by Charles E. Bressler. “Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and it ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure will she have for it, even any…recreation” –Robert Southey. “The woman author does not exist. She is a contradiction in terms. The role of the woman in letters is the same as in manufacturing; she is of use when genius is no longer required” –Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Apparently many famous male authors throughout history have not thought highly of female writers. While things have changed considerably over time, the fight to hear women’s stories in equal amount to their male counterparts is still unfinished. The film Miss Representation stated that "Only 7% of film directors and 10% of writers are female". I typed in a google search of "Best movie directors" and many recognizable names appeared: Steven Speilburg, Alfred Hitchcock, Woody Allen, Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood... but no women. Only on one list, that was discussing the top directors of 2012 did one woman's name appear, and not at the top. This was Kathryn Bigelow who was the first female to win Best Director (in 2008). While a google search is far from scientific I do think it is a somewhat accurate reflection of society in general. If asked (before this search) to name a director I could have named quite a few, but if asked to name a female director I wouldn't have been able to name one. Unfortunately I think I'm not unusual (in this sense at least), for the majority of us female directors are unknown. How am I supposed to be familiar with female directors when they make up only 7% of total directors? Like I stated earlier, this lack of the female voice in storytelling robs all of us, men and women,  of a whole different perspective and story. In this age with our advanced technology and supposedly advanced ideology there is no reason for this disparity any longer. They say variety is the spice of life, so let's spice it up a little!