Group 8 Presentation--Using Art and Media for Activism

As Jane Saks, founder of Project&, explains “Art can really challenge us, art can take risks, it can show us our humanity when we don’t see it ourselves.” A good example of this is the anti-cat calling signs around New York City. These signs were created by Feminist Apparel and Anti-Street Harassment Week. Founder of Feminist Apparel, Alan Martofel, states that these signs will create and build both awareness and dialogue surrounding feminist issues. Although this does not always result in getting the point across, there will be people that will not get the point or that will disagree with the ideas and issues that are being exposed.

This is one of the many signs posted around NYC by the group
Feminist Apparel as part of Anti-Street Harassment Week.

Social media activism is similar to art in that both have useful creative content. Social media does have more advantages, such as the wide range of people that the content can reach at a faster rate. It provides people with the ability to make an individual impact to the issues being addressed and gives them an opportunity to see several opinions and sides at once. A great way to use activism in social media is by using hashtags that become great movements. Hashtags have been used to express forms of activism campaigns such as #ChangeTheRatio, #leanin, #Likeagirl, #inspirehermind, #bringbackourgirls and #heforshe, just to name a few.

In the United States, women make up the largest group of social media users. For this, women can address women issues using different platforms on social media. Technology has really helped spread ideas as well as issues awareness for women. These social media platforms that are being used by mostly women were created, and are still run, by men. By which, men set up the rules. Women have such a great opportunity to be the next creators of the next Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, for which this generation will open the doors for the next generation to be those creators.