Author: Shari Graydon

The value of interviews

Posted on by Shari Graydon

Hanging out with someone who hasn’t been drinking your kool-aid is a useful thing to do, every now and again. Being asked questions that encourage you to articulate and defend the principles you hold dear forces you to get clearer about why you believe and act the way you do.

Earlier this week, Lauren McKeon of J-Source, a website of The Canadian Journalism Project, aimed her five questions at Informed Opinions.  She challenged us to clarify what exactly the absence of women’s perspectives means for media consumers, and to defend the notion of “a woman’s voice”.

Here’s what we said in response.

Women in combat picture speaks a thousand words

Posted on by Shari Graydon

Last week the National Post ran a story about the role of women in combat positions in Afghanistan. It was accompanied by a truly arresting photograph — one that contained no bloodshed, guns or evidence of violence*.

I find the image of Canadian Corporal Tamar Freeman and the unidentifiable Afghani woman incredibly moving. The gesture is so intimate and at the same time underlines the vast chasm between the two women and the opportunities and realities of their daily lives.

It’s also impossible to look at the caress of appreciation and imagine it ever being offered to a male soldier, given the cultural contexts and barriers. Although I deeply lament the investment in military action, I respect Ms. Freeman’s choice to serve in the arena. Without women in combat roles, such interactions between Afghani women and Canadian soldiers simply could not occur. The exchange captured by the photograph would be literally inconceivable.

Similarly, the absence of women’s voices on a vast array of public policy issues leaves a gap in our national conversation that is inconceivable. We can’t possibly foresee exactly what impact the presence of women’s perspectives on everything from nuclear power and military spending to assisted suicide and crime prevention would have on the spending choices we make.  We genuinely can’t predict how our world, our culture would be different as a result of hearing and learning and benefiting from their informed opinions.

But I am certain that some of the differences would be as profound and significant as the interaction in this photograph.

(*Depending on your perspective, of course, a woman fully enveloped in a burka that completely covers her head and requires her to regard the world through a small meshed opening so opaque that others cannot distinguish her eyes, may well be a kind of violence. But the nature of the interaction depicted here is clearly not the kind of image we ordinarily think of as emblematic of war or conflict.)

Do feminists have an obligation to “out” themselves?

Posted on by Shari Graydon

Last week Rick Mercer inspired a welcome debate about whether or not gays and lesbians who survived the hell that high school often is for them to become successful leaders in their field have an obligation to own their sexual orientation in a public way.  Although sympathetic to queer teachers and politicians, business leaders and entertainers, who just want to be known for their capabilities and actions, rather than their sex lives, I deeply admire those who do come out of the closet. Their willingness to publicly claim this aspect of their identity helps counter reductive stereotypes, challenge prejudices and make the world an easier, safer place for gays and lesbians of all ages.

Then yesterday, ForbesWoman contributor, Victoria Pynchon blogged about a related dilemma. In her post, “Will Feminism Hurt Your Career?” she makes a compelling case for why this, too, is a critically important act. Responding to a reader wanting to know if her aspirations as a lawyer would be negatively affected if she applied the “f” word to herself, Pynchon wrote:

“If you have something important to say about the status of women in the law and you don’t say it, it might not get said. And women who need support, whose spirits are flagging because they don’t hear your voice in the desert, might suffer a spiritual death from thirst.“

She went on to remind readers that:

“I grew up in a culture that actively discouraged and permissibly discriminated against women in the labor force. Then women raised their voices up on their own behalves and everything changed. The language changed. Women entered the professions and the police forces and fire departments, the skilled trades, journalism, politics, sports! in droves.

We changed the world and our place in it. Once there, many of us stifled ourselves like Archie Bunker famously told his T.V. wife Edith to do… It was a joke but we were stifling ourselves. And our participation in the higher ranks of American business, politics, religious life, and the professions remains depressingly, intractably, unacceptably low.”

In addition to being effective in the relatively small world of our jobs, don’t most of us also want to be effective and made a difference in the broader world of our society? — the arena that determines not just whether we succeed, but whether those without our privileges have the opportunity to as well?

Claiming yourself as a feminist — male or female — does come with risks. Notwithstanding the definition of the word as one who supports gender equality, it has baggage, it’s negatively viewed by many. But as long as 300 gay teens are committing suicide in this country, skilled immigrants are wasting their education driving taxis, and date rape remains a problem, speaking up for equitable treatment — not just of women, but of gays and lesbians, racialized and religious minorities, Aboriginal peoples, those living with mental and physical disabilities — remains necessary.

IBM CEO and the female confidence issue

Posted on by Shari Graydon

It’s 1997, and I’m on the phone in the home office space I share with my husband. He’s leaping up and down and gesticulating wildly in an effort to change the words coming out of my mouth.

Why? Because I’m telling a CBC radio reporter that “I’m not really the best person” to pontificate on the subject at hand.

When I hang up, he chastizes me mercilessly, pointing out that all the reporter really needed was a 15-second sound bite, and surely I know enough about the issue to have given him that. He’s right of course, and the irony is that only a few years before this incident, I’d complained about the number of truly expert women who had offered exactly the same reason when declining to be listed in a resource guide designed to make it easier for journalists to find women experts.  And in dozens of conversations with women experts over the past 18 months, I’ve heard a multitude of similar stories.

Is it possible that behind every competent woman who overcomes her socialized reluctance to assume authority, there has to be an encouraging man to remind her of her relative worth?

I’m sure this is not always the case, but this week it was incoming CEO of IBM, Virginia Rometty, who confessed that early on in her career she hesitated about accepting a big job, uncertain about whether she had sufficient experience. According to a New York Times article, it was her husband who challenged her to reflect on the likelihood of any a man with similar credentials reacting the way she had.

“What it taught me was you have to be very confident, even though you’re so self-critical inside about what it is you may or may not know. And that, to me, leads to taking risks.”

Apparently, we can’t be reminded of this often enough.

Implanted breasts and concerned scholars

Posted on by Shari Graydon

Yesterday, sharing my Top 7 Reasons Smart Women Should Speak Up with a group of scholars at Carleton University in Ottawa, the conversation turned – as it often does – to the potential aftermath of gaining media profile. Many women worry about the fall-out from this, not wanting to be slagged – either by colleagues who disagree with their analysis, or by mean-spirited internet trolls who insult their appearance, intelligence or right to an opinion.

(Yes, it happens, but you’re the one with the informed insights whose views were deemed of sufficient value to publish or broadcast, not theirs, so let’s be clear about the resentment that’s often behind such critiques. And think about how little sense it makes to lose sleep over attacks coming from anonymous on-line time-wasters too cowardly to even own their identity!)

When I’m moved to write commentary, I never think about such consequences – partly because I’m not an academic and don’t deal with the petty jealousies and power jockeying that often takes place in universities, and partly because being called a feminazi or dog-faced slut hasn’t killed me yet.

Other women are concerned about being seen as promoting themselves. But that’s not what it’s about. By speaking up about something you believe is important and happen to know more about than the average person, you’re sharing information that may help others better understand an issue or make a decision in their – or society’s – best interests. It has nothing to do with self-promotion.

I have a piece in today’s Globe and Mail about the FDA’s recent update on the “relative safety” of breast implants. Whenever I write on this topic, there are probably a few people who wonder about the status of my breasts and/or psyche: why does she care? what does she know? is she bitter because they didn’t work for her? is she trying to deprive guys from enjoying Hooters? does she have any idea of the havoc pregnancy and breast feeding can wreak on beautiful breasts?

The truth is much simpler: in researching a previous book, In Your Face – The Culture of Beauty and You, I learned all sorts of things about the problematic impacts of breast implants that are not commonly understood. It made me incensed that we live in a culture that encourages kids as young as 7 years old to become self conscious about their “breasts” and wonder if they need implants. (True story told to me by a TV reporter about her young niece.) Discovering that implants were becoming a graduation gift of choice in many affluent communities, I collaborated with two amazing media artists to create an online media literacy intervention that would draw attention to the health and financial consequences of implants. Our site, plasticassets.com, won a Huffington Post Contagious Media award for its demonstrated effectiveness at spreading the word.

Which is what it’s all about, for me.

PR practitioners vastly outnumber journalists

Posted on by Shari Graydon

I spent three years in the mid 1980s flogging pseudo news stories to journalists on behalf of large corporations. (All I can say now is I’m sorry, and I’ve been putting my talents to better use ever since.) Employed by Burson-Marsteller, then the world’s largest PR agency, I was astonishingly successful at getting my fast food, pharmaceutical and consumer products clients onto radio talk shows and into business sections of newspapers across western Canada.

I was paid well, got to travel a lot, and learned even more. But after three years I couldn’t do it any longer. It depressed me that rich corporations were able to buy their way into the news, and that I was helping them – often at the expense of what I believed were much more important stories.

Now new research documents the fact that PR “flacks” outnumber journalist “hacks” by a factor of six to one. A recent article in The Economist magazine profiled a study done by Jamil Jonna at the University of Oregon finding that as newsrooms have cut staff, the ranks of those tasked with attempting to influence news coverage has swelled significantly.

I’m not alone in thinking this is bad news for the future of independent and authoritative information that helps citizens make sense of an increasingly complex world in which public space is already overwhelmingly dominated by commercial interests.

Sexual assault – defining consent, round 2

Posted on by Shari Graydon

“Feminazi”, “President, Bitch of the Year Club” and “you dog-faced slut” – these are among the monikers I collected during my three-year stint as an out-feminist columnist with the Vancouver Sun. Most of the insults came from readers, but occasionally a columnist from another paper – or even my own – would be so stuck for meaningful material that he (and yes, I’m afraid it was invariably a “he”) would devote his 24 inches to slagging my apparent failure to find sexism funny, or permit other people to just “have a good time”.

My skin thickened over those three years, and I really grew to appreciate that the attacks helped expose the ignorance behind them. Moreover, I had the opportunity each week to challenge the dismissive or insulting characterizations of me with words of my own.

Women who don’t have the luxury of a regular column often feel personally bruised by the sometimes personalized and gratuitous word-assaults still regularly leveled at those who defend a woman’s right to say no, even to her partner.

That’s why it was doubly gratifying yesterday to see Danielle Fostey and Heather Cassells, two legal interns with West Coast LEAF who benefited from some indirect Informed Opinions support, challenge the specious arguments Vancouver Sun columnist Ian Mulgrew made about sexual consent in his own paper. Mulgrew himself had been responding, in part, to the cogent analysis of a recent Supreme Court decision delivered by University of Ottawa law professor, Elizabeth Sheehy, who had actually intervened in the case. In his column, however, Mulgrew characterized Prof. Sheehy as “sneering” and accused her of being locked up in her ivory tower. Neither charge is remotely accurate, and betray lazy reporting and a willingness to stereotype.

For their parts, Danielle Fostey and Heather Cassells take apart the columnist’s arguments piece by piece, refuting his claims with concrete evidence, case law and common sense. It’s an illuminating read about a persistently troubling issue.

Controversial “unconscious consent” case given context

Posted on by Shari Graydon

Last week’s controversial decision by the Supreme Court of Canada in favour of protecting unconscious women from sexual assault begged for additional context and analysis. The salacious facts of the case (including the apparently agreed-to asphyxiation, the nature of the assault, and the subsequent relationship breakdown of the couple involved) have fueled simplistic and predictable commentary dismissing the woman’s complaint and raising the specious spectre of a slippery slope that will endanger men who kiss their sleeping wives.

But University of Ottawa professor, Elizabeth Sheehy knows the case well, having intervened at the Supreme Court on behalf of LEAF. On Friday when the decision was released, she was quick to translate the evidently compelling arguments she offered in court into accessible newspaper commentary.

As a result, her analysis is now enlightening readers of three daily newspapers: The Vancouver Sun, The Halifax Chronicle Herald, and La Presse.

This case is a classic illustration of the importance of ensuring women’s perspectives are heard. As Ms. Sheehy points out in her analysis, the Supreme Court’s decision reflects a gender split, with three male judges dissenting from the majority, which included all four of the female judges, as well as two of their male colleagues. If women’s realities weren’t represented by the presence of Justices Beverley McLachlin, Rosalie Abella, Louise Charron and Marie Deschamps, the outcome might have been different.

Women seek impact over profile, study finds

Posted on by Shari Graydon

A new study out of Princeton University confirms a trend that Informed Opinions has observed anecdotally: women with the capacity to lead are often more inclined to seek opportunities to do so in areas where they can make the most difference, than in positions or organizations that will increase their profile.

Looking at the involvement of female undergrads in student organizations at the American ivy league institution, researchers found that female student leaders engaging in service organizations, academic clubs and advocacy groups often land in positions where “responsibility is high and visibility is low.” Part of the explanation for that?

“Some women said they considered work within larger, older organizations to be “less rewarding”, and would pass on high-profile gigs in favour of high impact ones.”

In a dozen workshops conducted over the past year with more than 150 expert women, a similar preference gets expressed, albeit in a different context. Most of the women who participate in Informed Opinions workshops openly share their desire to change some aspect of the world, or the small corner they inhabit. But few have made the connection between raising their own profile and the opportunities that such profile might give them to increase their impact, let alone committed themselves to doing so.

This may reflect women’s pragmatism – wanting their time investment to be as efficacious as possible – and/or it may be influenced by the “ambition and femininity don’t mix” messages still directed our way (consider pop culture reinforcement like The Devil Wears Prada and The Proposal, or the critique leveled against Kim Campbell as being “crushingly ambitious”.)

Either way, it’s holding us back.