Gender Conscious Movie Night

We’re all aware of how gender stereotypes in movies and TV shows can negatively affect our perceptions of ourselves or others; however, watching movies is a fun activity to do with kids, women, men, your host family, or other community members. Many schools use movie nights as a way to collect money for a specific purpose or event—charging one or two córdobas as an entrance fee and hosting it at school once classes are over.

In this post we’ll discuss two ideas for making movie nights a little more gender conscious: (1) including a gender checklist while watching any movie or (2) showing a gender-equality themed movie or documentary like Girl Rising or Half the Sky.

Global Gender Gap--where does Nica stand?

Since 2006 the World Economic Forum has produced an annual Global Gender Gap Report. When Hannah, a health volunteer in rural Matagalpa, heard that in 2012 Nicaragua ranked inside the top ten while the US held a spot at #22, she felt there was some investigating and reflecting to do.

The following post was originally published on Hannah’s personal blog on March 29^th, 2013 and is re-posted here with her permission. 

When the tables are turned...

The short video "Oppressed Majority" (click here for link) does a great job of showing what many daily experiences for women might look like if it were men in their shoes instead.

The director  Eléonore Pourriat actually made the film five years ago in France, but only recently did it receive intense internet attention. As written in an article on the Guardian Women's blog, "Pourriat realised that the film had gone viral only when she started seeing activity on Facebook. Her YouTube mailbox filled up, but the messages were so aggressive she deleted them. "I kept one though because really, you can't believe it. Someone said: 'More patronising feminist bullshit. Keep whining, bitches!' When I read that, I was more convinced than ever that I have to continue to make films." She is already working on her next project – a mockumentary about the removal of pubic hair.