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| Julia at Camps Bay with Lion's Head in the background |
Since my last entry, it’s been
relatively relaxed and just going about normal life in South Africa for me. I
got to experience one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen, Camp’s Bay.
The sand is so soft, without a single rock or shell. The water was numbingly
cold, but thankfully I’m not much of a swimmer anyways. I also went to Old
Biscuit Mill, which is a foodie’s paradise. They also have stands for various
local designers and I got my official Cape Town souvenir- a ring with Table
Mountain carved out. I was really excited about finding this because I love
rings and I wanted something unique to take back with me to remember this
amazing place. It’s also perfect because I literally see Table Mountain
everyday since the view is accessible from the house and the top of our street.
Other than little things like that,
I’ve mainly been focusing on my internship. Last Thursday I went to EduDrama’s
performance of Reclaiming the P Word.
The show was powerful, inspired, and humorous. It was exclusive just to black
and coloured women because their stories are usually told by men or white
people. The show was a series of stories real women in South Africa have
experienced. They focused around ideas
of sexual abuse, gender-based violence, and sexism and the reclaiming of their
sexuality. What was really cool about seeing the show was that some of the
women in the show are people I’ve gotten to know really well over the past
month and spend three days a week with. I managed to get a poster and have a
few of the women sign it for me. What a typical tourist, huh?
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| Becca, Ashlyn, and Jillian join Julia and friends at the performance of "Reclaiming the P Word" at UWC |
Last night in Marita’s class we watched a
video (Codes of Gender) on how the media enforces gender norms and portrays women as passive,
childish, indifferent, and off-balance through their various positions. They
also portray men as aggressive, confident, and powerful. By watching this I got
the inspiration for a documentary that could also act as my activist project.
My question is how would you pose in an advertisement for a can of Coke? I would be interested to see the different
ways in which men and women pose and also the differences between races, class,
and sexual orientation. I would video
tape their pose and ask each person why they would pose the way they did. I
would encourage the use of props and imagination. For example, if they imagine
someone else in the pose with them or their hair a certain way, they could just
tell me. I would analyze the differences and make conclusions based off those
differences. I want to see how much media influences people in terms of
displaying gender. Do we really live by the binary and pick up subtle positions
portrayed in the media to mean certain things about our gender? Will girls use
limp, delicate hands? Will men put their one hand in their pocket and grip the
Coke in their other hand depicting confidence?
Once the documentary is done I plan to use the Gender Equity Unit’s
facility to do a showing of it. I hope that by showing this I can educate
people on how gender really is learned and let them know that they have a
choice in how they present themselves. I expect that people from the LGBTQ
community may defy the gender norms in their presentation of the Coke, and will
therefore, prove that there is a choice in how people presents themselves. I’d also like to go into how the advertising
actually oppresses women in a way by implying that women are dependent and
passive. I am actually really passionate about this, something that I don’t
feel about many things. I still have to work out details and the structure of
the video, but I’m excited to start interviewing people and see the results.
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