{"id":145,"date":"2018-12-07T21:37:05","date_gmt":"2018-12-07T21:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.c21uwm.com\/tennessenscholars\/?p=145"},"modified":"2018-12-07T21:44:07","modified_gmt":"2018-12-07T21:44:07","slug":"popular-feminisms-roundtable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.c21uwm.com\/tennessenscholars\/popular-feminisms-roundtable\/","title":{"rendered":"Popular Feminisms Roundtable"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Popular Feminisms Roundtable: November 7<\/em><sup><em>th<\/em><\/sup><em>, 2018<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s the day after the election. A record amount of women have been elected to congress. I feel hopeful for a shifting cultural and political landscape \u2013 one that is feminist, inclusive and representational. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It isn\u2019t a coincidence that the Center for 21st<sup> <\/sup>Century Studies hosted the \u201cPopular Feminisms Roundtable\u201d on this day. The date was chosen specifically to follow the election, because as Professor Elana Levine (of UWM\u2019s JAMS department) suggested: \u201ceither way, there would be something to talk about.\u201d Following a brief historical overview of popular feminist culture by Levine, Professors Jessalynn Keller (University of Calgary) and Kristen Warner (University of Alabama) led discussions on their respective research involving popular feminisms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Keller\u2019s talk focused on hashtag activist culture and specifically around \u201c#CropTopDay,\u201d a movement that started in Canada in retaliation against sexist dress codes in schools. Keller connected #CropTopDay to other historical movements, specifically the \u201890s riot grrrl culture (i.e.,writing on bodies \u2013 most popularly seen on Bikini Kill\u2019s front singer, Kathleen Hanna) as well as #CropTopDays remediation of \u201870s protest images in the contemporary context of social media &amp; selfies. \u00a0I found Keller\u2019s discussion optimistic and interesting to consider in our #MeToo cultural moment. #CropTopDay, Keller suggested, exemplifies the use of personal testimonies and connecting with one another through sharing stories. #MeToo in many ways offer the same possibilities. Of course #MeToo may carry greater implications (potentially of those accused), of the safety (both mentally and physically) of those disclosing their trauma, and simply because of the gravity of sexual assault. It is also important to consider who is getting the most attention. Keller reminds us that it is white women that are central to the news stories about these movements; indeed, it was originally Alyssa Milano who received credit for instigating\u00a0 #MeToo before Tarana Burke became recognized as the original creator of the movement. While hashtag activism is promising \u2013 particularly because much of it spearheaded by youth \u2013 it is not without its own shortcomings, many of which directly correlate to the same problems of previous waves of feminism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Warner\u2019s discussion centered on the practice of colorblind casting in television and the concept of \u201cmake do\u201d culture. Colorblind casting is most evidently seen in the work of Shonda Rhimes where characters are cast irrespective of their race. But Warner raised the question of how do these characters become embodied differently is they are written without regard to race? Warner talked about how in make do culture, people \u2013 particularly women \u2013 of color have to fill in the blanks with unrealistic representation and narratives. For example, Olivia Pope\u2019s hair goes through many transformations in illogical amount of time and fans have the labor of creating stories around her hair could be logical. While there is significance to Rhimes\u2019 practice of colorblind casting \u2013 Rhimes stated that wanted to normalize presence of people of color \u2013Warner argues that there becomes an \u201cemphasis on the body.\u201d Actual histories and the complexity of these identifies fail to get fully understood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because we are in the midst of upheaval and change in our democracy, what are cultural effects? How much does culture reflect our political moment and how much do political reflect our culture? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Popular Feminisms Roundtable: November 7th, 2018 It\u2019s the day after the election. A record amount of women have been elected to congress. I feel hopeful for a shifting cultural and political landscape \u2013 one that is feminist, inclusive and representational. It isn\u2019t a coincidence that the Center for 21st Century Studies hosted the \u201cPopular Feminisms [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ariel-teal"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pag9B1-2l","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.c21uwm.com\/tennessenscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.c21uwm.com\/tennessenscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.c21uwm.com\/tennessenscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.c21uwm.com\/tennessenscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.c21uwm.com\/tennessenscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.c21uwm.com\/tennessenscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154,"href":"https:\/\/www.c21uwm.com\/tennessenscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions\/154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.c21uwm.com\/tennessenscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.c21uwm.com\/tennessenscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.c21uwm.com\/tennessenscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}