Can’t wait: “Hey…Shorty”

June 23, 2007 in feminism, gender violence, girlpowering by marisa | 3 comments

Chloé A. Hilliard has a nice story in this week’s Village Voice, about five girls who are interns at Girls for Gender Equity in Brooklyn. They’ve made a video, inspired by Maggie Hadleigh-West’s War Zone (which is totally interesting and should be checked out as well!) Their video is titled Hey…Shorty, and is part of their larger campaign to get boys to recognize their own potential relations to gender violence and oppression–i.e. figure out that girls don’t like be yelled at on the street, or having shit thrown at them when they don’t respond…


I can’t wait to get my hands on “Hey…Shorty.”

For now, here’s a trailer from War Zone. You can check more videos from Northampton’s Media Education Foundation, including Byron Hurt’s fabulous, Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, by clicking here.

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    1. John’s avatar

      John on June 24, 2007 at 11:17 am

      Totally fascinating trailer, almost a film in itself.

      The obvious – and always important to re-emphasize – is how the male gaze exempts itself from the reversibility of visuality. To see, but not be seen. Taking that exemption away changes everything. Anxiety is here such a good indicator of how deeply this exemption is held; something about the social world is actually at stake.

      As well, it says a lot about technology. After all, a woman saying the very same things to a man does little, if anything. Rating a man a “5″ would probably provoke violence, so I guess it would do a lot, just nothing political. But the camera removes the sex/gender determinate of the seer, so suddenly the reversibility of the gaze is in play. Thus, the anxieties.

      This also shows how, for better or worse, technology gets inside subjectivity. It’s not just a tool. Here, it’s all for progressive ends and I like that, but getting inside subjectivity is a whole different game. That’s where the bigger questions get really complex and hard.

      For now, this is just awesome.

      Reply

    2. Feminist Review’s avatar

      Feminist Review on July 13, 2007 at 11:14 am

      Bravo! This is such a huge issue for women and completely goes under the radar. I think it’s interesting that so much of the blame for men’s behavior is shifted to women. We’re supposed to change how we dress, change how we walk, change how we respond, change the route we take to get to work, but men aren’t ‘supposed’ to change anything. I think it’s high time that men are held accountable for their actions.

      Reply