D I V E R S I T Y
Ethnic Diversity:
London is considered as one of the most diverse cities in the UK and London most definitely benefiting from their multiculturalism. They contain many different types of cultures as even statistics state that Newham, Brent and Tower Hamlets have been revealed to be the boroughs of ethnic diversity. Facts and figures reveal that there 37% of London's population are born outside of the UK and 44% of London are consisted of Black, Asian and European compared to 2001, in which the percentage of ethnic groups were only 28.9%. The White British population has decreased from 8.2 million to 3.7 million, according to a statistic source from BBC news.
Gender/Sexual Diversity:
From reading an article online, written by a woman named Penny Duncombe that worked in one of London's top banks as a specialist, she states that she had experienced the sexism and the sexist attitudes of men in London. In her experience, she had revealed that the men whom she had worked with named called her as an "Ice Queen" due to her lack of communication towards them as the woman did not feel comfortable in their presence and had undergone premeditated assault of drugging and spiking her drink by one of her co-workers. According to other female workers of London City banks, many women suffer sexism from male workers, verbally abused by them, and being told that women do not naturally have the self confidence in their jobs unlike men.
S H O R T F I L M S A B O U T L G B T
BLOOMING:
I think this film did a great job in portraying how difficult it is to come out as gay or lesbian to friend, the film contained a lot of realism with that part hence why I enjoyed the beginning of the film, however, as the film gradually proceeded, it gradually begun disappointing me as the film followed many clichés when it came to the narrative and storyline which isn't the type of short film I'd want to be watching as I know what will occur in the end thus this was a reason why I did not enjoy this short film. However, when it came to the technicality and how it was filmed, I must state that there were very nice mid-shots and close ups of the two girls furthermore, the lighting was slightly low key which could signify mystery or dismal atmosphere as the girl is having difficulties trying to come out to her friend as gay. I admired the slight change of lighting and music as one of the female characters had opened up as being lesbian, the lighting slightly lightened and the music became more happily ambient and this has a great effect on what is occurring on screen as the audience will feel as if what is happening is positive and we'd feel happy for the characters therefore, the film had done a fine job with interacting with it's audience. However, another negative comment about this piece of short film is that they did not have a range of different shots and framings throughout the whole 10 minutes, the type of shots were mostly reused plenty of times and there were opportunities where the crew of this film could have experimented different angles and shots to represent a subliminal message.
P R I M A R Y A U D I E N C E R E S E A R C H
H I S T O R Y A B O U T L G B T
L G B T
London is in fact one of the largest population percentage of people whom identify theirselves as gay, bisexual or lesbian, additionally, London is known for being the gay capitol as the percentage of gays in London are far higher than any other areas in the UK.
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In sex education, there are so many arguments opposing with schools teaching children and teenagers about LGBT sex and many of those whom are against this state that teaching the younger generations about homosexuality and LGBT is quite contentious and controversial in the eyes of many. Moreover, the opponents that support not teaching about LGBT sex state that teaching and exposing kids to such a topic is harmful and psychologically destructive in their minds, in which I absolutely disagree with. Excluding the education of LGBT sex education could negatively imply to the LGBT youth that their preference are unusual and not normal in which may result to them over thinking that they are not deserving of inclusion and not worthy of society. There are a large population of people that come from the LGBT community that suffer discrimination in sex education due to lack of useful information that is still pending to be taught about their orientation. There are many pros to educating children about LGBT, one of them includes decreasing and reducing homophobic bullying against LGBT individuals and to educate the LGBT students about the risks of obtaining STI's or HIVs during sexual intercourse therefore, education should make a jurassic change and stop excluding LGBT sex ed and promote teaching the younger generations about sexual orientations and gender identity in case some have issues in finding and discovering what they consider their selves.
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From researching online forums and surveys, I found one that discussed a disappointing percentage and it stated that in a secondary school in the UK, only 4 percent of the LGBT younger generation announce that having any positive discussions and talks about the LGBT community and LGBT issues in class whilst the rest of the discussion were negative. I found that statistic to be quite tragic and discouraging from society as I expect society to be more supportive and caring about different individuals. Another statistic states that nearly one in three LGBT students skip their classes due to feeling unsafe in their school environment due to fear of bullying, isolation and discrimination by other students and teachers. Going into the psychological side of negative victimisation of being part of the LGBT community, according to an online website, lesbians, gays and bisexuals are four times more likely to gain a low self esteem and have a higher risk of obtaining depression. Furthermore, they are most likely to attempt suicide due to their discriminative treatment by others, according to the same online source.
P O L I T I C A L / S O C I A L M E S S A G E S
According to a online news article from the website pinknews.co.uk, the conservatives are currently planning on blocking their plans to allow LGBT sex education to be compulsory in schools however, Labour party's Stella Creasy wishes to make a change and make topics such as heterosexual, same sex relationships, LGBT sex and consent mandatory and compulsory in all schools in London. Sadly, Stella Creasy's request for a change and amendment in education was denied by the government as 10 out of 15 Conservative MP's voted to deny allowing educational institutions to be caught those following subjects whilst the remaining 5 Conservative MP's voted to support the idea.
C I N E M A T I C F I L M M A K I N G
In addition, the Stonewall LGBT charity Chief Executive, Ruth Hunt had, too, stated in an interview that over half the population of students in London based secondary school comment that they do not at all discuss LGBT relationships or LGBT sex during their health classes/lessons and Ruth Hunt equally wishes the same as Stella Creasy by changing how education teaches about LGBT, by promoting support of LGBT rather than hatred, teaching about gender identity and sexual orientation as discussing these topics will not only benefit the LGBT community by educating them but it benefits even those whom are not LGBT, teaching them to accept the LGBT community into society.
M Y I D E A S
As I wish to pursue a career in the film industry and I will continue my journey in learning about Film Production in University, I wish to create a short film as I had been inspired by a short film I had discovered and watched on YouTube called "Pretty Boy" which had immensely and truly moved me and made me open my eyes to how the LGBT community still suffer from many things although they have obtain support from others, they are still agonised by homophobia, prejudice and hatred from some in society. I think creating a short film gives me the power to portray a message how I wish to represent it and I am able to do this all by the visuals, the narrative, the script, the macro and micro elements of film as these film aspects have the ability to educate the audience about LGBT, move the audience by allowing them to feel emotions and allowing them to result in thinking about the film's message.
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My initial idea is having a young woman whom is very promiscuous with men however she gradually begins to not enjoy her time with men and fantasies about being with a woman but the more she spends her time with men, she feels down and not as ambitious with the men she is with therefore, results in her experimenting with her sexuality by befriending another woman whom too is experimenting their sexuality.
Although my idea follows the genre of a character living a double life, I think many individuals of the LGBT experience confusion with their sexuality at first before accepting who they are and what they consider theirselves when it comes to their sexual orientation.
As I have been inspired by a few shorts such as Pretty Boy with it's unique content and The Problemless Anonymous, with it's use of diverse use of cinematography and lighting, I have begun location scouting as whilst I had conducted a photoshoot as part of my extra curricular work. There is a location I have discovered in which is fitting and suitable to use for a few scenes for my short film, if I am to produce a short film as this location has installed blue ambient lighting and looks very flattering during the night as it contains a mixture of low keying lighting and ambient lighting of blue tints, this kind of lighting could portray when a character feels rather down or feelings of sadness or confusion.
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From looking at the timeline of the significant occurrences that have happened throughout history, there had been jurassic changes and opinions towards the LGBT. I quite admire how from looking at the timeline, I can clearly detect that in the past, there were a lot of discrimination and exclusion upon the LGBT community but as the years gradually went on, society had begun accepting them by creating rights movements and laws supporting LGBT, moreover, including them on social media like creating and founding the very first gay newspaper in the UK back in 1972. Moreover, same sex marriage had been legalised in many countries including the UK in the latest years in 2014 in which many of the LGBT had been waiting ever so patiently for however, although these supportive acts are finally legalised and are beginning to be accepted by society and changing laws for the LGBT community, there has always been homophobia in the atmosphere and hatred towards LGBTs in this day and age especially in London as according to an online newspaper on the independent.co.uk, there had there had been an incident where a kiss cam was occurring during the Rio Olympics and a member of the BBC had offensively remarked that he is hoping the kiss cam does not zoom into two men, this incident had led and sparked many unhappy and enraged supporters of LGBT and
the community of LGBT. Furthermore, another statistics from the independent.co.uk online newspaper had stated that over 630,000 people whom are LGBT had suffered and been attacked with homophobic hate only from the years of 2011-2014. Hearing, looking and researching these kind of negative facts and statistics on social media are honestly unfortunate and dispiriting as part of the 21st century, I would have expected traditional views and opinions to not be as popular or supported as the 21st century has definitely introduced the world to mew cultures, new opinions and new lifestyles from many different places but that is what is disappointing when I still hear homophobic remarks and comments to this day.
S T Y L I Z E D S H O R T F I L M S
ONE TAKE SHORT FILM: THE ROBBERY
The Robbery is a short film directed by Jim Cummings and it is a single take comedy short film about an unlucky female that plans to conduct a robbery however, her devious plan does not go accordingly. What I really admire about this particular short film's style is their choice of cinematography and filming the whole film in one take with the actors remaining in character moreover, I also enjoyed how the movement of the camera is not shaky at all and was stable enough to watch as the whole film was filmed hand held and compared to some hand held shots in some other short films, their hand held shots would sometimes make the audience dizzy however, that was not the case for The Robbery. But if there were something negative I would say about the film is that some of there technical framing were quite unrealistic and very obvious that the crew behind the scenes are doing SFX makeup on the main actress however, although some of the framings were unrealistic, it was a good attempt in doing a one take short film as usually, one takes are very difficult to create as it requires all of the cast and crew to be fully concentrated and requires not making any small mistakes such as forgetting their lines or the cinematographer appearing in a reflection of a door or a car window.
MIXTURE OF LIGHTING: THE PROBLEMLESS ANONYMOUS
L G B T T H E O R I E S & C O N T R A V E R S I E S
QUEER THEORY:
The Queer theory was constructed around the idea that our gender identities when we were born are fixated on one particular gender and our gender does not indicate whom we are as a person. The Queer theory also additionally examines heterosexuality is constructed within one's body and has an odd theory which theories that sexuality or sexual identity is more of a "fluid".
Amy Winehouse and the character of Jack Sparrow are examples that support the Queer theory as Amy Winehouse breaks and challenges all the expected actions on what women should be doing in which are not over consumption and abuse of drugs and alcohol and inked with a large amount of tattoos on her body in which were once considered masculine. With Captain Jack Sparrow's character, he is considered an odd masculine yet feminine character as his appearance includes long hair and wearing a lot makeup such as eyeliner which are usually associated with women but speaking in terms of Jack Sparrow's personality, his reactions are quite overly dramatic in which some individuals in the past may stereotypically refer that kind of behavioural response to women. Adding on to that, his mannerisms and gestures are too reckoned and deemed to appear feminine to some therefore, the character of Jack Sparrow portrays a male whom gives the impression of attaining some femininity in both his appearance and personality.
CONFLICT BETWEEN LGBT AND RELIGION:
Religion has their own rules, regulations, laws and commandments that they follow and in some religions, they do not believe same sex relationships and marriage nor do they believe in LGBT. However, most religions have full and utter respect for the LGBT community and support their lifestyles, on the other hand, there are some religious extremists whom are completely against LGBTs and spread hatred and detestation to them and even so, some of these religious extremists take illegal actions, going as far as being verbally and physically violent towards gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender individuals. From reading article about conflict between religious beliefs and homosexuality on people-press.org, a study showed a statistic representing that 54% of the public majority say that there is no conflict between homosexuality and religion however, 43% remark that there is a large amount of conflict still strongly occurring to this day and age. Religions cannot believe in the idea of people of the same sex being part of marriage as accordingly to religious beliefs, homosexuality as they participate in sexual acts that do not result in producing children as most religions believe that sex is not for pleasure but reproduce and create more life. Furthermore, most religions classify homosexuality as "unnatural" and many extremists compare homosexuality as equal as sins such as murder, rebellion, arrogance etc. However, as a strong believer of Christianity, I absolutely support and encourage the LGBT community despite my beliefs as I know that it is morally correct to accept my neighbours although they are not part of what I believe in religiously.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST'S JOSH GAD CONTROVERSY:
The 2017 upcoming Disney remake film of the tale that is as old as time, the Beauty and the Beast film have sparked a huge controversy as the film makers and producers of the film had created a particular persona on the side chick villain of Gaston whom's name is LeFou as the director of Beauty of the Beast, Bill Condon had announced to the public that in the film, there will a "gay moment" for the first time in Disney history. However, according to film critics and viewers who have already seen the film, some are complaining that it is not right and it is hysterically indoctrinating kids who watch it to promote homosexuality. Moreover, according to an news article online on www.smh.au, the Russian Culture Ministry are banning children whom are under the age of 16 years old as they do not want to further encourage children to watch blatant promotion of misrepresentation of sexuality. On the other hand, the actor Josh Gad whom plays the character that will have his own gay moment in the film
PRETTY BOY:
Pretty boy is an award winning coming of age short film that had been surfaced online early 2017 and it was directed, produced and written by Cameron Thrower. This particular short film in which explores the themes of LGBT and sexuality confusion is the very reason why I was inspired to choose the topic of LGBT for my Final Major Project as I immensely adored both the content and the style of the film and from researching many different types of short films, whether they are LGBT related or not, I found this short film was the only one that managed to impress me with it's narrative, visuals and their use of film elements. Expanding on the content of Pretty Boy, I admire how the story line of this short film is nothing alike or similar to any LGBT film I have watched as the film had brought two characters which represent a significant contrast between them due to their personality differences as one character is very timid, unstable and filled with confusion whilst the other character is incredibly demanding, professional but despite being very bold, she is very understanding and full of sympathy by helping Sean, a teenager who is afraid to come out as gay, to accept himself. The content of this film is unique and something that may be new to the
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The Problemless Anonymous is a Sci-fi short film set in a dystopian era where there are rules and laws in which being perfect is absolutely illegal. What really stood out for me about this film's use of lighting and cinematography, these two elements are what really stood out in my eyes throughout the whole film as their were scenes that contained very divergent lightings and there was a clear contrast between the type of lightings used as in one particular scene, there was a lot of low key lighting that contained many shadows and moreover, ambient lighting was used therefore, the atmosphere of the shots contained a red tint and these type of lightings may dynamically represent something sinister and evil may occur and the use of low key shadows in which result in shadows could also suggest a theme of mystery and enigma that will have an effect on the audience's emotions and feelings. Then all of a sudden, the scene completely transition to a shot where there is complete high key lighting and a lot of shots with a strong shallow depth of field to allow us as the audience to focus our minds on what the shot is making us focus on. I think this short films use of different lighting was very impressive and diverse, moreover, the use of ambient lighting in this film is specifically what had truly inspired me to use ambient lighting to portray my character's feelings as coloured lighting is another intelligent yet subtle way of portraying how someone feels without the use dialogue in film making.
audience whom watch this short film and I personally think that is one of the main reasons why I was very moved by the film as the message behind this was portrayed very nicely and cleverly due to the use of the script, dialogue and narrative which is why I am inspired to create a good piece of script and dialogue for my own short film that will clearly represent the message I wish to send to my target audience.
Another reason why I was very inspired by Pretty Boy to create a short film is because the style of the film. I enjoyed the type of lighting that was specifically used as the lighting played a huge part in the film to portray the atmosphere of the characters emotions as in some particular scenes, especially in the beginning, most shots consisted of low key lighting and that low key lighting could strongly suggest Sean's feelings of confusion and sadness due to his own father being disappointed in his son and being forced by his father to engage in sexual intercourse to "fix" Sean's sexuality. As the film gradually continues near the end, the shots begin to increase in lighting as the film's dialogue begins to state their LGBT message, the lighting being more high key may signify that Sean is finally accepting himself as being gay and is finally confident to confront his father about being gay and this is another main and important reason why I am inspired by Pretty Boy, I too wish to use the element of lighting to represent my characters feelings and mood so that the audience may sense the kind of atmosphere is occurring on the screen.
I am Natalie Kim Quitos and I have many passions and strong beliefs but what truly intensely drives me is my yearn to learn more about film making and cinematography but also to create films with particular messages that are worth creating films for. However, more politically and socially, I am driven to support equality of everyone which includes men, women and even the LGBT community. Before the Final Major Project, I had self discovered a short film that revolved around the themes of LGBT, sexuality confusion and self discovery and that film is called Pretty Boy. What truly inspired me to wish to make and produce a short film is how the technical work with the camera, sound and lighting have worked together to compose and portray subliminal representations to support the messages or morals of the story. Content and dialogue is not the only main and significant element in which makes a film successful but the technicality work makes a jurassic difference as they aid and assist the content to make the audience understand the atmosphere of the scenery in a symbolic way.
For my short film, I wish to concentrate on the matter of how some individuals are internally confused on what to consider theirselves when it relates to their sexual orientation. My idea revolves around one specific character, preferably a female character and her personality is considered as promiscuous but only with men however, I want my short film to portray her internal feelings and I want my target audience to be placed in her thoughts and realise that this female character is mentally conflicted whether it feels right for her to be with men or if she should experiment with a female to conclude her preference in her sexuality. However, I am still conflicted whether to involved filming a few scenes that visually show some scenes that portray my main character experimenting with her orientation, not because it may cause controversy or unnecessary claims but it may be quite difficult to film these kind of scenes however, a positive thing is that I do know female acquaintances that are openly lesbian and are willing to act for my short film. However, I think it will be quite easy for me to look for locations to film in as in the past projects I have done in mg institutions and also from past experience of location scouting for an extra curricular film that I had been planning with friends, I have found many other locations that are suitable and appropriate to use for my film such as a a homey environment where I can control the lighting myself with the help of using LED lights moreover, I can also take my time and perfect how I wish the shoot to be like such as what will be in frame, how the camera movement will be like etc. Moreover, I have found a perfect location in which I can film some scenes and it's a location of stairways that have installed blue ambient lighting and I have experimented filming in this location when I had conducted a photoshoot in the past and I have discovered that filming in this location with the blue ambient lights looks far more flattering and better when the sun is down and it is night time as having low key lighting containing a blue tint light gives the suggest feelings of a sad atmosphere in which is a feeling that is highly associated within the theme of my film in which could possibly make my short film more successful in visuals and the subliminal messages of the use of visuals. I will be taking roles of cinematography because I have had quite a lot of experience with working with cameras particularly the DSLRs due to past projects I have done in college. I have also been experimenting using my own DSLR at home by watching YouTube tutorials on how to use DSLRs and how to create creative and unique camera movements and techniques. This too will help me pursue my passion for studying Film Production and Cinematography in University. Additionally, another role I will be overtaking is director as I know exactly how I wish my film is supposed to appear and what I wish for the actors to do and what my crew should be doing to improve how each shot looks hence why I feel as if the only way I will achieve my aims for my short film is if I will take the role of director and state how I want everything in my short film to flow.
C O D E S A N D C O N V E N T I O N S O F S H O R T F I L M S
Short films are an original motion picture film that have a running duration of 40 minutes or less compared to feature length films that last from 70 minutes to 210 minutes. However, that is not the only difference between short films and feature length films but short films seem to have less characters than a usual feature film as having too many characters will complicate the film and make it more complex as this would result in the film having to create a backstory for each character and as short films are limited when it comes to the duration length, there would not be enough time to complexly portray the story of each character hence why there is a restricted amount of characters in short films.
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Moreover, short films seem to aim for the audience to feel a load of strong emotions such as sadness, joy, anger, confusion and portray a significant and important message or lesson to symbolically show the targeted audience. Sometimes short films represent a ethical message far more powerful than feature length films it is easier to visually illustrate the message and allow the audience to quickly catch on what the film is attempting to tell their story as sort films are more straightforward.
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Although I see all films as artistic and masterpieces due to the different variety of ideas portrayed within films, short films have a specific yet artistic creative signature ideas such as using imaginative shots and framing, also, idiosyncratic music used as part of their soundtracks which helps in setting the mood for particular scenes in the film which furthermore aids in representing the message across to the audience.
T R U M P ' S V I E W S O N T R A N S E X U A L S
Continuing my research and discovering an online article from the Telegraph, America's president, Donald Trump had stated for students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that are designated for a particular sex such as female or male however, Trump has concluded in a confederate decision that transexual students use bathrooms and locker rooms to the gender in which they identify their selves as. However, there are many workers in many schools that do not agree with the decision as they do not agree that the decision protects LGBT students or teenagers as it excludes their equal rights to public places in an environmental location such as bathrooms and toilets. Excluding LGBT students to access a public toilet/bathroom in school would make them feel harassed and prohibited from obtaining access to these locations and this is a violation of their LGBT rights due the law's discriminative nature.
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There are also conservative protestors that agree with Trump's law of banning female and male mixed toilets/bathrooms as they argue that mixed toilets of the two genders do not allow young girls to feel secure of guarded when they are changing in front of males and their privacy are violated by the other sex which is alerting and alarming for parents. A minority leader of the United States House of Representatives whom's name is Nancy Pelsoi had stated that Trump's decision to ban mixed gender toilets portrays how untrustworthy Donald Trump is in protecting and supporting the rights of the LGBT population.
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Donald Trump is known as a traditional man with conventional views and beliefs as according from a report from the hrc.org website, Donald Trump is stated to be a political rival that does not support marriage equality. Tragically, as son as Donald Trump had declared that he supports the LGBT community and grants LGBT protection however, an article from the independent.co.uk stated that the White House had abandoned the idea of transgender protection from discrimination when it comes to transgenders being able to freely enter any gendered toilet in educational environments in which had sparked controversy within the White House as their statements are contradicting Donald Trump's statements when it comes to the LGBT community and their promises.
N E W S U B J E C T : L A B E L S O N F E M I N I S M
DOCUMENTARY STYLE AND CREATIVE SHOTS: AFTER SOPHIE
I watched another short film however, this is quite different from a short film as this contains a mixture of aspects of a short film and of a documentary and I have found this an interesting short film to analyse as I have a lot of features noted down in that was used in the film and I was very inspired by it. One of those features is that the cinematography for the cutaway shots were more cinematic, for example some shots had a deep shallow depth of field whilst the camera is slowly panning left and shots where the camera is tracking and moving forward. I found these particular shots quite odd as from the documentaries that I have watched or seen, I have never seen these kind of shots or camera movements usually used in documentaries hence why I found this short film quite interesting and fascinating. Moreover, I adore the positioning of the characters/interviewees when there is an interview shot as the film makers intelligently followed the rule of thirds in which is a popular and fundamental technique used in photography and interviews and using that technique in this short film aided in allowing the film to appear a lot like a documentary. Another feature that I really enjoyed seeing in After Sophie is one of the beginning shots where the camera is tracking forward but at the same time panning up and the title of the short film/documentary appears and slightly glitches. My first impression and initial thought of that shot when I was first watching the whole short film is that it is nothing more than a short film but I was surprised to see that is was more like a documentary and it was quite shocking as the beginning shots and most of the cutaway shots were visually similar to what shots appear in films. Furthermore, the sound effects and dialogue used within the film is also very movie-like, an perfect example is the beginning yet again, there are radio reports stating and broadcasting about a death of a girl named Sophie and the way these reports were edited seemed to sound as if each report is finishing a sentence and I found this editing very engaging and it had allowed me to want to pay more attention as it was these reports are talking about which had made this short film more gripping and interesting.
WHAT IS FEMINISM:
Feminism is a defence movement for the equality of the two sexes. Feminism focuses on improving the life of both men and women when it comes to their social, political and personal views and treatment as some people suffer from discrimination in work places, domestic violence or lack of equal pay. Although feminism focuses on both men and women, women are predominantly the ones whom suffer greater of the inequality as some may some say that women have more responsibilities at home rather than working full time jobs like men. Researchers have stated that women supposedly linger behind compared to men when working therefore their employment jobs offer lower pay and low chances of opportunities for job promotions and women are the ones that are usually found in bad emotional conditions according to an online article from huffingtonpost.co.uk I have read in which I personally disagree with as everyone can react differently to situations. From reading an article about women's rights from the website womenkind.org.uk, women work much longer hours compared to men but earn much less in most countries. This is an atrocious and unjust statistic towards women but sadly true and I personally question to myself why it is that this must occur when it is very simple and easy to award women what they have worked for and what they earned. I do not see the difference between a man and a woman when it comes to them working the very same job, they have both equally earn their positions and they both must work equally as hard to earn money therefore, they should be given their earnings.
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When it comes to violence towards women, about one in three women will experience and suffer from beatings or rape without justification. FGM is Female Genital Mutilation and this is the female circumcision and the removal of the exterior part of the female genital and their vaginas are sometimes sewed together without anaesthetic. Moreover, in a Birmingham hospital, around 50 women are taken to the hospital for treatment as they have gone through female genital mutilation and it is claimed that this is a monthly statistic. In the independent.co.uk online newspaper, an article was posted on March 7th 2014 about international women's day and further provided facts and statistics of women's rights and it had been stated that in the UK, 44% of British women have been physically and sexually abused in their adolescent years in which had resulted in making the UK one of the top countries that have high statistics of domestic violence and violence towards women.
H E F O R S H E : C A M P A I G N
HeForShe is a campaign that aims to captivate men to aid in helping make a change by urging men to stand against inequalities against women and to do something about these inequalities that we face. HeForShe has many values that they urge for everyone to support and they are to make people's voices be heard as they matter and to make their actions real as they do matter and make a difference in the process of making a change in inequality. An infamous occurrence that had occurred with the HeForShe campaign is Emma Watson's UN speech that she had conducted. Emma Watson was appointed be to be of the main faces and an ambassador for UN Women and she flawlessly delivered her speech, requesting for everyone especially the men to help and participate in fighting gender inequality and joining feminists in order to make a significant change in the treatment of women and making it equal to men. Not only did Emma Watson focus on the inequality of women and men but she had also focused on the stereotypes stereotypes of men and boys to be masculine which consist of being on emotional, independent, strong and self confident however, Emma's speech and intentions want to fight these destructive stereotypes that negatively affect men's behaviour. I personally think that even in this day and age, men still follow masculine stereotypes as a way to fit in with their own groups and they feel as if they must act in a particular way to blend in with other men and I don't believe that we as part of society should allow men to feel obliged to follow these stereotypes but we should support them and encourage them to be comfortable with being their selves. Expressing my opinion about feminism, I believe that there are no differences between a man or woman when it comes to their ability to do something. Yes, we are physically different in appearance, we all are different mentally and what goes inside our minds but we are no different when it comes to physically doing something because we all have no limits unless we motivate ourselves to strive to complete whatever we wish in life. I also believe that men play a huge part when it comes to feminism because feminism is not about just equality for women but equality for both men and women socially, politically and overall in life. Men have the power to make a jurassic difference in fighting for the equality of women and men as they are half of what us feminists fight for. I think that both men and women should feel comfortable to be sensitive about something and both men and women should be comfortable to being strong as being sensitive is not a "girl thing" and being strong is not a "boy thing", they are unisex feelings that all humans feel and there are no labels on feelings. Feminism should be the balance of power between men and women and it should not be imbalanced with men having more power or women having more power. I feel disappointed that the world and society has conditioned us to follow gender roles and conditioned us to think that men aren't allowed to feel feminine feelings and women aren't allowed to feel masculine feelings and I think that this is absolutely wrong and this isn't how children should be brought up as they would grow up in a world they know would judge them and it will allow a fear of being judged to grow and eventually consume their minds, this isn't how us humans should live our lives, we should be able to live freely however they wish as long as it is accordingly and good.
HEFORSHE COLLABORATION WITH BOY TOY: FEMINIST TOY
From researching and reading on the HeForShe website, I had discovered that the HeForShe campaign had collaborated and paired up with Boy Toy and they have created a donation and produced a boy doll toy that can allow kids to play with them and as kids do not care about differences and kids adore having a diverse collection of toys, this boy toy action doll will encourage kids to disintegrate the limitations of diversity in toys and expand equality and appreciation of the different variety of toys for children. Not only does it expand equality but children can learn how to accept other cultures and orientations at a young age and this can empower them to not grow up discriminative or prejudice. HeForShe and Boy Toy did not want to call their boy toys "action figure" as it would associate these dolls for just boys but their aims are to promote these dolls to both boys and girls. It had been stated that these two boy dolls are used to teach young boys to learn about mental emotion, sympathy and empathy.
I had discovered this video on Twitter and this is a short video made by a father and he is speaking to the camera about how his son, Azai had received the same present twice on his birthday therefore, he had taken his son to the stores to find another toy to replace one of the same toys. The
father reveals that his son had chosen a Little Mermaid Ariel doll as his new toy. The father continues to speak to his two sons saying how he will support the decisions they make in life because it's their life and as a father, he will accept their own choices and he lets his two sons choose their lives. When I watched this video, I was truly touched how happy the father was despite his son choosing a mermaid doll in the toy store as normally, society associates barbie dolls to young little girls and only girls but with this father, he is very overjoyed about his son's choice because in the video, he is talking about how him and his wife tell their kids that they get to choose their expression, to choose what they are into and to choose their sexuality and they will support their children. This video is special to me as I believe in every word the father had told his kids and I have the very same views because if I were to have kids, I will not bring them up to follow gender roles or be feel as if they are limited to feel or do something due to their gender but will encourage them to do whatever they wish.
F E M I N I S T B L O G S
LENNY LETTER:
Lenny Letter is an online feminist news blog that is founded and led by Lena Dunham. This newsletter blog consists mainly of politics, life, work and of course, feminism. I had been scrolling through her Lenny Letter online newsletter and I had come across an interesting article that was written by the one and only oscar award winning actress Jennifer Lawrence and the article that she has written is called "Why Do I Make Less Than My Male Co‑Stars?". From reading her article, Jennifer Lawrence states that she had been payed millions less compared to men in the acting industry and she had blamed her self as she personally thought that it was her fault and that she was not working hard enough compared to the men that had earn much more than her. Lawrence had mentioned in her article that she did not want to speak her mind about earning less than male actors to producers and directors as she did not want to appear like a "spoiled brat" or "difficult" but keeping that to herself will not do her any justice therefore, Jennifer Lawrence had resulted in confronting the man she works with about her thoughts and she had confronted him in a sensitive way however, his reaction was something that she did not expect as he reacted as if Lawrence was offended and completely angry that her pay is not as high as expected. One thing that Jennifer wrote on her article that had caught my attention is "All I hear and see all day are men speaking their opinions, and I give mine in the same exact manner, and you would have thought I had said something offensive." I think this is very sad hearing an actress' personal negative experiences within her own work place in the Hollywood acting industry. I can definitely see the discrimination occurring in her situation as it is clear that an award winning actress such as Jennifer Lawrence would earn millions and millions of American dollars compared to actors she had mentioned that have been nominated for an oscars but did not successfully win however, when these actors had fought for success in the acting, they had all succeeded. From their success, these male actors would appear and seem powerful and strong for fighting for their roles but the message Jennifer is trying to portray through her article is easy to understand and it's true that if female actresses attempt to do the same as these male actors, they would be seen and considered as a childish and ungrateful for what they have been given when that is not the case at all. I think reading this article really allows people that do not have much knowledge on the inequality of women in working industries that is happening in the present day. Many may think that although Jennifer Lawrence is a very talented young actress, talented enough to win an Academy award, she still suffers inequality that many other regular women experience in their workplaces and this is something that needs to be changed.
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Since I had read some other articles from Lenny Letter, I have become intrigued and fascinated with their writing style and especially what they talk about in each article, therefore, I had searched on the website for articles that are related to feminism and I had discovered an article that was written by Lena Dunham and Gigi Hadid and it's an article called "Gigi Hadid Will Not Accept Street Harassment, and Neither Should You" and this article explores Gigi Hadid's attack by a supposed stranger outside the Milan Fashion Show. Gigi Hadid talks about a man ambushes her by grabbing her preventing her from using her arms however, the model manages to get out of his grip and use self defence against the man. There has been many people on the internet and social media accusing Gigi Hadid for being ungrateful and insolent for not appreciating her fans confronting her and her act of violence against her male fan was unreasonable and unnecessary. However, Gigi Hadid responds for her actions and states that she felt that she was in danger in that situation as she has never had a male run up to her to grab her therefore, Hadid feels as if her actions were necessary for that situation. Moreover, she had also mentioned that us young girls should know that if we feel unsafe in a situation, we have the right to fight back. I absolutely agree with that statement as although we live in a world where men fear being violent towards women as they would received critical backlash and lectures on how men should never lay a hand on a women, the whole world are not united but some people do not think that is anything wrong with hitting women. I personally think that men should not hit women and women should not hit men because that would be domestic violence but I speak for men and women, we should all fight back if we feel endangered and we are sure we are in danger. Not only does her statement link to being physically in danger but also, we should fight back if we are feeling as if we are unsafe when it comes to being discriminated or differentiate due to being a woman or a man. I think that is a situation where we should not hesitate in fighting as if our human rights and our equal rights are jeopardised or threatened, then we should stand our ground and state that it is wrong and correct them.
E X T R E M I S M W I T H I N F E M I N I S M A N D R A D I C A L F E M I N I S M
HUGH MUNGUS: RADICAL FEMINIST AGAINST RUDY PANTOJA JA
A video had surfaced the internet on August 11th 2016 by an activist of Black Lives Matter named Zarna Joshi and she asks a male called Rudy Pantoja Jr for his name and he responds to his name being "Hugh Mungus" however, the situation escalates very rapidly as she accuses this male for sexually harassing her, mistaking him as she must have thought that "Hugh Mungus" was referencing to his lower region and male private part and begins to psychotically rant and scream to the world whilst recording that she has been sexually harassed verbally by Rudy Pantoja Jr although, even I from watching the video did not see how he had sexually harassed her as from the video, I can clearly tell that his "Hugh Mungus" joke was referencing his body weight as his body type is quite big. This video of this woman over reacting has caused a huge controversy and it had used a lot of people to think that this is how all feminists act: Being describe as man hating, violent and unnecessary and I find it sad that this is how some feminists act and react to jokes. I think that feminists should not always assume that men are targeting them negatively as I know for a fact that some men in the world are too feminists that wish for equality between men and women. I think that feminists should be careful and not be offended about everything unless it is clear that one is being prejudice towards people because one has a penis or a vagina, those are the kinds of situations where feminists must stand for what they believe in. In the video, we can clearly hear that Zarna Joshi is raising her voice and demanding to call the police to have "Hugh Mungus" arrested for sexually harassing her verbally whilst following him and screaming at him for harassing her. Although I understand Joshi's point of view on the situation that she was in, she was socially justifying someone whom she thought was sexually harassing her however, the clever thing to do in that situation is to evaluate deeply and thoroughly what had occurred on the scene and make a confident conclusion whether or not it was a sexual harassment statement. I think this is an example of what we call radical feminism. Radical feminism not only emphasises on inequality between and women but their ideas completely demolishes the idea of having no social or political hierarchy for men and women and giving women complete dominance over men. Radical feminists views are more extreme compared to what regular feminists believe in as the difference between the two is one wishes for both men and women to be equal but the other type of feminist wishes for women to have more power than men which occasionally leads to "man hating" feminists.
H I S T O R Y O F F E M I N I S M
FIRST WAVE OF FEMINISM:
Before, women had little to no control of their own lives as it was men that had all the dominance and the power on them. Women were limited to doing much in life such as having a high education so that men will have that chance and women were limited to the amount of exercise they do as it was seen before that women that have a very built figure was not acceptable for a woman. Moreover, women were expected from society to follow the stereotypes of women such as birthing children and been kept at home to care for their children, clean their homes and cook meals for their families. Many occurrences that happened in the 19th century when it came two changing the lives of women as around mid 1800's, England had opened up colleges that welcomed women to have the chance to study about science and medicine as women at this time had finally been given the right to learn and access education. Moreover, many political organisations have been founded and many women joined to fight for focus on achieving their property rights, their right to work and also their right to vote, for example, the Employment of Women movement was founded by a woman named Barbara Leigh Smith back in 1859 and also feminist activist heroes Marguerite de Navarre and Anna Maria van Schulman had encountered misogynistic men and attacked their misogynistic views as part of trying to promote education for women. It's a fact that times have indeed changed for both women and men however, the history of feminism has been through a long journey but a journey worth going through. The mid 19th century and the early 20th century is the first time women had begun to realise that they too must have a participation in political and social occurrences such as voting to make changes as well as men. In the first wave of feminism, women focused on reaching particular goals such as being given the opportunity to vote. The suffragists were women that aimed for women to finally get the right to vote. A woman named Millicent Fawcett wanted the right to vote however, as women did not yet have the right to vote in 19th century, she had created a movement and created the National Union of Women's suffrage to persuade women that too had the wish to vote to join and fight for their right to vote. Fawcett and her movement were not violent as peaceful protest was what they all practiced however, there were some feminist movements back at that time that protest violently rather than peacefully such as the suffragettes. One suffragette woman called Marion Wallace Dunlop was imprisoned in Holloway Prison and as part of her protest, Wallace Dunlop had conducted a hunger strike in which she refused to consume any food given to her by authorities as this would signify her political protest for women. Many suffragettes had seen this as an act of heroism and also passive resistance therefore, other suffragettes followed her steps as they saw hunger strikes as the ultimate way to fight their prejudice government. However, authorities did not allow suffragettes to be able to use hunger strikes against their power in which had led to force feeding suffragettes by sticking tubes down their throats or noses and dunking food down so that they will consume food, This was very brutal and it was also life threatening according to a guardian.com news article as usually during force feeding, the tube would injury their throats and caught tissue damage and at times, food would go down the wrong tube and food would not go down their stomachs but their lungs which was very dangerous and could result in death. Women say this force feeding procedure as vile and atrocious and a symbolic representation of rape as the authorities had violated their bodies and invasion of their body all humiliating them. In 1928, the Equal Franchise Act had granted women over the age of 21 the right to vote.
SECOND WAVE OF FEMINISM:
The second wave of feminism was known as The Women's Liberation Movement and was a significant movement for American History for women. Even through the 60's and the 70's, most part of society still expected women to follow the traditional lifestyle of a woman or a girl and that is to marry, have kids and take of your family along with taking care of the house. Women were very inspired by the Civil Rights Movement to gain more significant and important roles in making a change in the society rather than it just being men. Casey Hayden and Mary King were women that were a part of the Student National Coordinating Committee and they had displayed the discrimination and negative issues that are impacting women. Both these women compared the discrimination of women to how America had discriminated African American many years ago. Successfully, the Civil Rights Movement had demolished all types of discrimination towards race, skin colour and sex according to the Title VII. An important woman that was significantly known for her participation of the second wave is writer, Betty Friedan and she was considered as an inspiring writer that wrote about the fighting stereotypes of femininity as Betty Friedan has observed women's marriages and noticed that many women were not as happy in their marriages as they lived a classic life of being a housewife and questioned women about how they truly feel about their lives with their husband, kids and how they live their lives at home. Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique was written and published inn 1963 and she questions whether women are happy living the typical lives of traditional women. However, of course, the second wave focuses on breaking out of the gender roles of men and women and have more freedom to feel what ever men and women feel. In the second wave of feminism, many women including the older women that were brought up and conditioned to follow traditional views and lifestyles of women had join the feminist groups of the 60's as they had eventually learned that women do not have to follow what is expected. Feminists had created a group called the National Organization for Women back in 1966 and this movement were aiming for women to be able to participate in same activities as men and have full human rights. Radical Feminism was first introduced in the second wave of feminism around the time of the 1960's and it had begun with radical feminists protesting against stereotypes of females and abolishing traditional expectations of women. Moreover, birth control pills were finally introduced to women to prevent them from bearing unwanted children. The creation of birth control pills was a significant occurrence as it was a symbol of women having the freedom of participating in sexual intercourse without the worry of becoming pregnant. Furthermore, the pill had improve women's health and relationships with men in which was quite life changing for feminism. Furthermore in the second wave of feminism, the 60's and 70's main focusing points were to allow women to revaluate how they live their lives and how they view their selves as a woman so it was also about women self reflecting their selves. Feminists that were part of the second wave were successful in what they were fighting and protesting for as the law had allowed them to be given the right to be given the same kind of oppurtuninites men are given industrially, socially and politically. In the UK, the second wave was similar to the second wave of feminism in American however, there are it's differences. In the UK, feminists were protesting and fighting for equal pay, the same as men's pay in 1968.
THIRD WAVE OF FEMINISM:
The third wave of feminism surfaced around the 80's and the 90's and feminists part of the third wave were immensely diverted as more woman of colour had joined feminist movements compared to the first wave and the second wave. Women in era of feminism focused their attentions on changing how women are viewed in their appearances, nationalities and sexualities. A huge amount of women criticised the second wave as there were not as many women of colour involved such as black or hispanic women that too can participate and a voice that needs to be heard when it came to the topic of feminism. A website called the Third Wave Foundation states how this feminist organisation will focus their attention of promoting and spreading equality for genders, ages, sexual orientations and social/political status. Third wave feminists had undergone many problems and obstacles that made their protests more difficult as some feminists did nothing to make politcal changes for women and that would not classify them as an feminist that participates in activism. Women have always been portrayed as victims and mistresses in distress whom always need to be helped or added by men as portrayed on social media such as films but third wave feminists want to rid of the idea that women consistently need help. The beginning of the third wave supposedly occurred within the Riot Grrrls punk rock movement as they combined actions of feminists from the second wave and these feminists had created zines and music as a way to portray their anger about political and social injustices against women. As some state that feminism had allegedly went down hill when it came to the third wave, some may argue that the feminist movements are not yet over but growing stronger as third wave feminists are using their angry and transitioning it to turn into power in making a change and differences for women's lives. From researching zines and work that the Riot Grrrls had produced, I look up to these women as they produce work that may cause major controversy however, they do not fear the comeback many people may give them. They have many notable works such as a zine that states a list of things that a woman will not let anyone do to them as they do what they do for their selves. That particular zine had really inspired me as I relate to what is being said for I do not do what I do for anyone but for me as it only benefits me.
H O W T O C R E A T E A B L O G ?
WHAT IS A BLOG?
Blogs are websites that are led by independently or are led by a small group of people and in their website, they discuss and speak about particular topics that are themed and the author(s) of the blog website update the website either daily or weekly. Some may even consider blogs are online diaries or an online journal in which people can share and express their thoughts. Usually, in blogs are written in an informal style when discussing conversational topics. There are many pros and perks to starting a blog as writing out a blog would improve one's writing skills in which could come in handy for the future if someone wishes to pursue a career in writing. Furthermore, in blogs, I have stated that when writing a blog, anyone can share and express their feelings and thoughts about particular topics therefore, writing and reading blog posts can allow readers to learn new facts information. Blogs can be very educational as bloggers can post articles they have written or even take photographs or create videos are part of their blog posts to educate their readers or viewers in which why blogs are very helpful and useful. For my Final Major Project, I will be focusing on blogs that focus on the theme of feminism to aid me in my research but also to inspire me in creating my own blog. I have researched on popular feminist blogs that voice their thoughts on feminism and as I research these blogs, I want to find good blogs that have a distinctive writing style so that I may use it as inspiration and for my blog, I want to have a specific writing style that will result in my audience be able to detect and associate to my distinguishing writing style.
I have found many great feminist blog sites but I really adored Lenny Letter, MsMagazine, Feminist Frequency. I have spoken about why I adore these blogs quite a lot up above as they all have one thing in common and they are al discussing subjects within feminism that may not be discussed yet such as with Lenny Letter's article by Jennifer Lawrence explaining how even successful actresses such as herself still experience inequality within their workplaces as she does not receive the same pay as male actors in Hollywood and that is an important topic to discuss as many feminists all over history have fought a long fight trying to achieve equal pay between men and women. Additionally, I ultimately adore Feminist Frequency as not only do they talk about the inequality of women in politics or social media but they explore the portrayal of women on the media and from all the feminist blogs that I have researched, I have not yet come across a blog that goes into detail or focus on video games, TV and film about the portrayal of women. MsMagazine is definitely a great blog to look into for my project as their blog site has a large exploration variety of topics that all women can relate to. Moreover, the writing style of MsMagazine is very informal and casual as during my time of reading some of the articles bloggers of MsMagaine have written, it almost felt like a personal conversation between friends and this had inspired me to look into more informal blog sites as my writing style influences.
HOW TO MAKE MY OWN BLOG:
There are many different types of blogging platforms on the internet that can aid anyone in beginning their blog sites for example, Tumblr, Wordpress, Wix, Blogger and Medium. There are many great platforms to use in creating a blog but I want to find out which blogging platform will be best to use for when I create a my beginner's blog and when I upload my blog's content, it will not be as difficult to post or edit. There are many pros and cons to the different blogging platforms online from researching, all the platforms have at least one or two cons.
FEMINIST FREQUENCY:
Feminist Frequency is another online feminist blog site that is founded and led by the Executive Director, Anita Sarkeesian, it is also run by a group of women that work for Anita Sarkeesian. Feminist Frequency deliberately centres their focal point on disintegrating the stereotypes and traditional expectations that are associated with women in pop culture as in this day and age, women still face society's conventional and long established traditional strong beliefs and the team of Feminist Frequency's aims are highlight the matter of harassment on gaming sites and video games. As I have looked into written articles on the previous feminist blog site I have researched therefore, I had discovered that Feminist Frequency not only share their thoughts through written articles but also through the videos which I sometimes prefer as I personally enjoy watching videos compared to reading although, reading too is interesting to do. However, of course living in a world where technology is more advance and refined, making videos or vlogs are more interesting and appealing to a younger audience such as teenagers or young adults compared to adults whom were not brought up to enhanced technology. I have stumbled across a video that had caught my attention on the Feminist Frequency's video category and the video article was called "All the Slender Ladies: Body Diversity in Video Games" in which explore how video games lack body diversity when it comes to women. It appeared very interesting to me because I had taken in the title and thought to myself that it was an issue within
TUMBLR: PROS AND CONS
Tumblr is a social networking website where users can create their own blogs and post or what they call "reblog" content from other users blogs. A great perk of using tumblr as a blogging platform is that it is completely free and users would not have to pay monthly or yearly to sustain using the site in making their blog and posting content for their blog. Furthermore, Tumblr is one of the most simplest and easiest sites to use as users are able to create their blog within minutes. However, although Tumblr is a great recommendation of a beginner's blogging platform, it has it's cons. One of them includes a limitation of design layouts that are suggested for users to freely use for their blog. That would be quite difficult for me as I prefer having a wide range of suggest design layouts as I am very picky on how I wish my blog will be laid out and if I happen to not like any of the free layouts that Tumblr suggest, then it would be difficult for me to work with. I personally don't think I will be using Tumblr as the platform in creating my online blog as I have had a Tumblr blog in the past and I found it rather difficult working with because it is quite slow in loading the content of my blog and editing my content was a nightmare as sometimes it would not save and I would have to re write what I have written before and it was quite a nuisance therefore, I will not use Tumblr.
WORDPRESS.ORG: PROS AND CONS
I have heard many great things about WordPress and it is the most commonly used blogging platform. But I still wanted to research the infamous perks and pros of using WordPress and also trying to discover what the cons are as so far, I have no personally heard any cons of it but surely there must be. From looking at online sources such as digital trends.com that is comparing three different blogs and stating which one is better than the other, the article states that WordPress is free to use and to host an online blog which is a perk for me as I would not need to spend money on starting my feminist blog. Another great feature with Wordpress is that it provides almost hundreds on different stylised blog layouts and design templates and this is an significant attribute for me personally since I like to scroll through a huge amount of different layouts so that I did not feel as if my choice are limited. Another pro of WordPress according to the reviews I have read online by other WordPress users it that it is very simple and the layout provided are atheistically simple. Some may not
N E G A T I V E S T E R E O T Y P E S O F W O M E N I N F I L M
Since I wanted to narrow my subject of feminism and focus on a more specific topic, I have decided to research and look more into women in the film industry, both behind the camera and on the screen because I have an interest in films and film making and I think combining my two passions of feminism and film would be a great idea for my Final Major Project.
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In mainstream Hollywood films, I had noticed that all female characters are very different but have their similarities. Hollywood tends to break gender expectations in their films as in blockbusters, females are beginning to become the main characters and more female actresses are cast to play hard core heroine characters in films such as Sucker Punch, Kill Bill, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Hunger Games and some film companies and producers have changed original storylines in video games such as Resident Evil game franchise as the original main character was a male character called Leon Kennedy however, when the series was adapted into a film, they had changed the main character from Leon Kennedy to Alice and the film had received great positive feedback for creating a heroine character to lead in the film. But although Hollywood has begun changing lead characters and creating more gender diversity in their casting, there are still some films that do not support gender diversity and only stick to limited male or female characters. Moreover, some Hollywood films still follow and use negative gender stereotypes to this day. Horror films are a perfect example of a film genre that can portray women as heroic yet still portray them as sexual beings and helpless victims. For example, although Scream had broke the barrier of using a male actor as the leading role and used Neve Campbell as the leading female heroine of Scream, the film still portrayed destructive female conventional ideas within their characters. At first, the main character, Sidney Prescott is introduced and represented as fragile and weak moreover, represented as virgin yet seen as a sexual being but gradually in the scream film franchise, Sidney Prescott's character develops and becomes more fearless and strong. However, there are many female stereotypes that were still used in the film franchise and a perfect example was a character in the first Scream film called Tatum Riley whom was played by Rose McGowan and her character was the stereotypical "big breasted stupid sexually active" female character however, although she was an example of a negative female stereotype, she was not like the other stupid big breasted female characters from other olden horror films as she was brave and snappy when it came to very dominant male characters in the film. Something I found quite interesting about horror films are their rules on "How to survive a horror film" and one of those rules consist of not having sex or else, one will be severely murdered by a killer. I would have expected that this rule is for both male and females however, from researching, these horror film rules only apply to women/females. ​
B L O G N A M E P O L L
In the process of creating my online feminist blog, I had come up with two blog names for my blog with the help of my peer. One of the names are feminine gazette and the other name is candid feminist however, I found myself in a crisis as I didn't know which blog name to use for the WordPress blog therefore, I had decided to create a Survey Monkey poll to find out what blog name my peers in my class would prefer. Survey Monkey was the perfect platform in creating my poll as it is the easiest and most quickest platform when it comes to creating and making a poll, moreover, Survey Monkey allows me to email my poll to as many email addresses and it also gives me the option whether to send my surveys and polls in a specific time or within 5 minutes. When I had collected my responses and answers to my poll, the result was that the majority of my peers had elected and chosen "Candid Feminist" to be my online feminist blog name.
O P P O R T U N I T I E S F O R W O M E N B E H I N D T H E C A M E R A
From discovering an article on indiewire.com written by Casey Cipriani, she states that there's been a 2014 report that had been studying on screen representations of genders and the chances for women to participate behind the camera and she states that the report by Dr. Martha Lauzen, Executive Director whom works for the Center of the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University discussed how the resulted report was not a good report but a discouraging report as films portrayed women following a gender role stereotypical representation and that women were not given as much opportunities to be part of the BTS crew compared to the number of men that were part of the BTS. Moreover, from another report in 2014, it has been stated that 75% of protagonists in Hollywood films were males but only 12% of protagonists were female and that is a jurassic statistic difference as the statistics are nowhere near each other and do not compare but I think hearing and reading this statistic is quite disappointing and upsetting because I would've expected the percentage of female protagonists to be much higher as I've seen quite a number of films where there are female characters that are taking the lead in the film however, I did not know that there were a lot more films that dominated the films that have female leading characters. Girl On The Train British actress Emily Blunt had stated in a BBC news article that film
However, from a BBC article about Hailee Steinfield discussing portrayal of women in film. Hailee Steinfield expresses how she's personally noticed how female characters represented in films are beginning to change and how female characters now have a part in implying the message of a film. As films usually depict women as minor characters or characters that are not as significant as the male leading role, Steinfield states that women are no longer rendered as the "love interest or a sidekick or a best friend" as she stated in the article.
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HOW DID THIS INSPIRE MY PROJECT:
Researching about the negative stereotypes in films, TV shows and even in games had allowed me to come across articles that had discussed how horror movies have slightly evolved when it comes to their way of portraying both men and women. From researching, I had noticed that there was a change and a difference with how females in particular are depicted as in previous horror films from the 60's to the 70's, horror films did not have female lead roles but almost all horror films had a male protagonist and there were only few female characters that were on screen and if they were on screen, they were killed off violently which is a subtle way of portraying women and from that, I can tell that the producers of the film may be sending a subliminal message that women are weak and this is to me is quite a misogynistic portrayal of women. However, what had truly inspired me to base my online magazine spread article on negative stereotypes in horror films is researching about how horror films in the 80's and 90's had surfaced and cast female actresses to play the leading roles of a strong female protagonist and to me, having a female character that plays the lead is inspiring since I am of course a girl and it is nice to have a character that I can relate to and I think it is the same for females that enjoy watching horror films.
G E E N A D A V I S : I N S T I T U T E O N G E N D E R I N M E D I A
Geena Davis is an actress and a campaigner for a feminist movement. In 2007, she had launched a research organisation called the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media and this organisation focuses the representation of men and women in the media and also focuses their attention on advocating an unbiased representation of women as women are usually not portrayed as equally as men. Geena Davis had noticed that there were not many female actresses cast into mainstream TV shows or even a great number of TV shows in general and this had sparked Davis to investigate and conducted very extensive research on the true percentage of women in film and how gender roles are rendered on the media such as TV show and films.In her organisation, they also state educating information on how to improve the representation of gender roles and break their gender role barrier in media but also to support and advocate to make changes in media to make the portray of both men and women better. From conducting her and her organisation's research, it was concluded that only "29.2% of all speaking characters in TV shows and films in mainstream media are female" but these women were sexualised or objectified by men and these statistics were very disappointing for Geena Davis as seeing how women are being largely outnumbered by men in film is very troubling since men are likely be to portrayed more in a leadership role than women and this could lead to the audience whom are watching whether they are adults, teenagers or even young children, this could easily indoctrinate the younger audiences to believe that women should not participate in the same jobs or situations that men are in such as being a political worker, social worker, police worker and as children are more easily influenced by older role models that they see, they can be their parents, older siblings or even what they see and watch on television. Davis had stated a quote when she was speaking to an interviewer and that quote is had said is "The more hours of television a girl watches, the fewer options she thinks she has in life. So, we're clearly not showing enough opportunities for girls, showing female characters doing and achieving things and being in leadership positions." This quote to me is very inspiring and true because the more the media only focuses their representation on men rather than women, young girls will inherently think that they do not have that chance or are given the opportunity to do what men can do in the future but it is a deception as women do have the chance but they are made to think that they do not and I find that sad that some young girls think this way. Gene Davis' intentions is to get Hollywood to produce more films that cast more female actresses to play female characters that have a major rather than a minor role so that this could spread positivity towards women in film and also to introduce more female role model for young girls that may be easily influenced due to the media. With Davis' Institute on Gender in Media, they have been researching for longer than 20 years on how the media depict's gender and stereotypes of genders and has also administered a large amount of new research and information but what is needed to be done is to promote change to occur in film industries so that women will receive the opportunities to work on screen and behind the cameras.
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From looking at the website of Geena Davis' Institute on Gender in Media website, I had come across their research findings and executive summaries and her research had concluded that females are still being stereotyped in different film genres and females are being sexualised by the media. A statistic that proves this is that according to a table that the institute had created, in prime time programmes, 36.2% of female characters wear sexy attire clothing compared to men, it was only 8.4%. Moreover, 34.6%of characters that show exposed skin are females whilst only 11% of male characters had shown exposed skin. And lastly, there was a statistic that had stated that 37.4%, 37.5% and 34.3% of female characters in all family films, prime time programmes and children's shows are all thin and have slender bodies, this statistic portrays how mainstream media only portray women in an universe way as when a younger audience watch these shows, films or programmes, young little boys would be indoctrinated to think that women should be attractive, have a slender body and not wear much clothes in which may gradually nurture them to become shallow when they are older. Furthermore, with young girls, seeing this kind of representation on the media can allow them to become insecure about their physical appearance and have them focus on being pretty or thin to be accepted by society or the opposite sex to be deemed as "attractive". These kind of representation of women can have a negative effect and impact on young girls as this will brainwash them to think that they cannot do what men do and they cannot look like what media's representation of women are and this is sad since the media's representation of both male and females are over exaggerated at times and not diverse. According to a statistic located in the Institute of Gender in Media website, they state that children spend up to 7 to 10 hours a day being involved on media or any media platform and this has a big impact on how the media influences a child's social and cultural behaviour in which may also impact a child's self worth or behaviour in the future. Not every one is as muscular as some characters from action films, not every one is as beautiful or thin as some female characters on films and tv shows as everyone looks different and has a different physical appearance. Furthermore, when it comes to statistics of women behind the camera, Geena Davis had concluded that women are diminished and belittled as from her institute's research study, they had come to the conclusion that out of 1,565 content creators for the filming industry, only 40% of the writers, directors and producers are female whilst the remaining percentage are all males. This statistic portrays how women are not receiving the same opportunities to work in film and behind the cameras as men and there are not enough females having the chance to produce films or gain any experience in the filming industry hence why the filming industry does not have much gender diversity.
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HOW DID THIS INSPIRE MY PROJECT:
Reading about Geena Davis' work and her committed research on gender role portrayal on films and TV shows had really influenced me to think about including in my blog article that a film's Mise En Scene especially the costumes and makeup and the characters within the frame are very significant and symbolic as from her research, she had concluded how female characters are most likely to be the ones that wearing revealing clothes and female characters they are not most likely to be on the screen for as long, compared to male characters which have a higher chance of being on the screen for a longer period of time. This had influenced me to include this in my online blog article as since my article is about the unequal representation in films and including facts and statistics that have been concluded by professional researchers will support my article that is stating that there IS sexism occurring within the film industry, both behind the camera and on screen.
S E X I S M I N T H E F I L M I N D U S T R Y
Sarah Gavron is a female British director who has directed multiple infamous films such as Suffragette and Brick Lane and she tells her own personal observation of her experience in the film industry. She further states that she had felt as if her opinion did not matter in meetings with other employees that were men and that the men did not want to hear her own thoughts and opinions when it came to films due to the fact that she was a women and she saw this as an act of the men diminishing her. In the suffragette film, Sarah Gavron had ensured that she would employ a huge number of females that were skilled in the areas of writing, producing, production/post production etc because she saw this as empowering omen in the film industry and giving more opportunities to participate in film making. Moreover, when it had come to the male actors, according to Sarah Gavron, the male actors were very supportive and enjoyed the environment of having women playing the leads in the film and having the men play minor yet important roles and usually in Hollywood or in the film industry, men would undoubtedly be playing the lead roles however, times have changed and tables have turned and females now have the chance to be able to play a significant role that can implement a powerful message in the film, Suffragette. Moreover, according to Emma Watson in her UN Nation speech on feminism, she had stated that she had been directed by 13 directors but has only been directed by 2 female directors and the ratio between the two are large. Another sexism experience that has been experienced by a woman in the film industry is by female and German director, Lexi Alexander and she has stated that a male leading actor had refused to do a film as he did not wish to be directed by a female director. Hearing about this experience is saddening as it's hard to believe that an actor would drop millions of dollars that they could earn from an action film all due to his refusal of being directed by a woman, it's very unnecessary and petty for one to refuse to participate in the film because of gender. Not only do female directors experience sexism, but other women that have a different role such as a cinematographer, as a screenwriter or as a costume designer. Agnes Godard is a cinematographer and shush claims that she had managed to produce a shot and the director insisted to know who had produced the framing as it was "It’s really good" yet another worker in the film crew had stated it was a male assistant that had filmed the shot rather than Agnes Godard. I think that it's disappointing that no one expects women to produce good quality outcomes and that women have talent in cinematography. Furthermore, from reading more of her experience on this article from The Guardian, she did not speak up as she felt far too shy to admit it was her own work, it's annoying that women have this feeling of not speaking up because they feel intimidated by men because I personally do not think women should feel daunted as there is no equality in that.
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HOW DID THIS INSPIRE MY PROJECT:
Reading about sexism that occurs within the film industry and especially reading about some of the experiences of sexism and inequality that previous female cinematographers, directors and producers had really influenced me to write an online blog article about how my younger target audience, the ones whom are over 16 years old that aspire to get a career in the film industry whether it is a job role behind the camera or in the film screen, to not allow sexism to prevent them from achieving their goals and to not let inequality stop them as both men and women are capable of achieving what ever they wish if they are willing to work hard.
C H I M A M A N D A N G O Z I A D I C H I E : W E S H O U L D A L L B E
F E M I N I S T S
# A L W A Y S L I K E A G I R L C A M P A I G N
Although this campaign has nothing to do with sexism or discrimination against women in the film industry, I had come across this campaign that is led by the Always brand and I had found this campaign video very interesting and inspiring, especially for my project. This campaign video consists of a variety of people that are different in their age, gender and ethnicity and they are all in studio with cameras and lights set up and the crew present and these people are asked questions in which consist of them attempting to "run like a girl", "fight like a girl", "throw like a girl" and some of them had reacted in a stereotypical way where they are running quite girly, they had threw punches in the air where it seemed as if they couldn't punch and they had pretended to throw something into the air as if they could not throw properly and these reactions are what some of these people think how girls do these actions. However, gradually in the video, the director and crew had asked the same questions to young girls and these young girls had
reacted in a much different way and a more uplifting way as when these young girls were asked to run, fight and throw like a girl and they had all ran, fight and threw a ball at their best abilities and to their best performance they could do and this had truly made me feel very proud and delighted that these young girls were not indoctrinated to think that doing things "like a girl" is not an insult and it is not diminishing a girl's performance. Later, the director asks the young children what it means to do things "like a girl" and some of the children had responded feeling quite confused as to what it means as to them it could either be an insult or a good thing and I think this video has definitely done a good job in making it's audience think because it reminds us to not bring children up thinking that performing "like a girl" would not be an insult as girls are capable of performing actions in their own way, whether it be bad or good.
P R I M A R Y R E S E A R C H : G R O U P D I S C U S S I O N
industries have a insufficiency of female workers and helpers and also mentioned how she wishes to be an activist in the order of helping and producing more job opportunities for women to be able to work in the film industry. I had also read another article from the BBC news website and there is an article in which talks about how the infamous and successful British female director Andrea Arnold wishes for more employment of women in the film industry due to discovering how atrocious facts and statistics of the shortage of women making and producing films. Andrea Arnold then states how the film industry must employ more women as there are a large amount of competent women that have the capability to produce good films. Also reading from another news article from variety.com written by Brent Lang, it was reported that only 7% of all film makers and directors are women whilst the remaining 93% are men and one thing I must say about this statistic is that it is not acceptable as there are many females that are gifted and talented enough to be able to produce a great film that could be very successful in Hollywood or film festivals and there should be more diversity in the film industry rather than excluding women and accepting only men. Another statistic I found within this article was that women were not employed when it came to high budget films such as in action blockbuster films and horror films but females were employed in films that are not as popular such as documentaries and drama. From reading an article online from the directors.uk.com website, only 3.3% of high budget and feature length films are directed by women and that UK films are 6x likely to be directed by a man rather than woman. These facts and statistics prove that film industries do not have a gender diverse working environment and should employ more women into film as since 50.1% of all film students in the UK are female according to the same article on the director.uk.com site, this means that there are plenty of females that have knowledge of film and film making and have enough talent to produce good successful films.
T U T O R I A L : H O W T O M O R P H E F A C E S O N A F T E R E F F E C T S
According to the tutorials I have found on YouTube or tutorial sites, to achieve this morphing transition effect on After Effects, I must use the Liquifying tool as this will allow me to have the ability to warp between two subjects within the frame. From researching and watching YouTube tutorials online about the morphing effect, I will need two separate videos or photos of two different people and using the Liquifying tool whilst decreasing and increasing the opacity of the photos/videos will aid me in editing and adjusting the faces in the photo so that the faces are both aligned and similarly positioned on top of each other. From the tutorial, I have also learned that I need to make sure that I am being specific and careful using the Liquifying tool therefore, I must zoom into the image or footage when using the tool so that I am more precise with the changes I am making using this tool.
gaming that is occurring because as someone that enjoys playing games and watching game walk throughs, I notice myself that the way videos games portray female characters are very similar as they all appear to have a slightly muscular, fit and slender body shape and I have always questioned myself why all female characters in video games look similar to each other. As I had begun watching the video by Feminist Frequency, they had compared the male characters and the female characters of the game Overwatch. They had mentioned how all the male characters in Overwatch have a significant range of different body types of men in which, games explore a diverse span of body image however, when it comes to the female characters, they all share a similar resemblance as well as most female characters in all video games. Feminist Frequency passionately talks about how videos games do not explore other body types of women for female characters such as a bigger body shapes of women. Limiting the body diversity of women in video games could result in women feeling less valuable compared to women who are slender or resemble similar body shapes to females in video games as bigger women or fat women do not receive any appreciation on their kind of body image but their body image is usually portrayed as less worthy when it comes to female beauty standards. What I undeniably adore about this video that Feminist Frequency's video about body diversity in video games is that they are making their viewers aware of the issue that there is lack of recognition in body image for females moreover, they also address the issue of sexualising women due to the representation of their bodies as video game producers enhance particular parts of a woman's body such as enlarging the breasts and buttocks area and slimming down a woman's face whilst designing a female character's face as very attractive to heterosexual male gamers. Feminist Frequency state that the problem with women involved in gaming is not the lack of female characters within a game but how fat women and larger women are not being presented in games but if they so happen to be featured, they are not rendered as a beautiful female character but an unattractive character that is mostly unlikely to be loved by gamers hence why body image is such an issue for games. Watching this video from Feminist Frequency has truly inspired me to make blogs or videos that address an issues or discrimination women go through and expand on why being prejudiced for our differences is so wrong.
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HOW DID THIS INPSIRE MY PROJECT:
I had researched many online blogs that have a feminism theme to it and coming across Feminist Frequency was very helpful for me as when I was reading through their articles, watching their videos and listening to their podcasts, I had become inspired to not just write articles in a casual writing style for my target audience to relate to but creating a podcast and a video that is educational on feminism and sexism are brilliant outcomes that I should consider producing to publish on my own online blog. I really enjoyed how they had mixed humour in a video that discusses an important issue in the world and had still made the video very educating and informing which is what I want for my own videos and podcast that I will produce soon for my blog.
has come forward and his only remark about the negative controversies and boycotts is "What controversy?" I think that is rather barbaric to prevent children from watching a film that is already aimed towards the younger generation and the youth all due to one single scene that may contain homosexuality and it's disappointing reading these online articles that many people have been attacking the film due to their negative opinions towards homosexuals. As an update with this particular case study in my research, I went to the cinemas and watch this new adaption of Beauty and the Beast myself and from watching the film, I had seen that quick "gay moment" in the film however, I am still quite confused on what the controversy about this gay moment is so heated on social media and on the news as I did not see what was so bad about that rapid moment as it only lasted for about 3 seconds maximum. If anything my views on that moment is that it should have been a bit longer to promote LGBT views and belief to children so that they learn from a young age to accept the LGBT community rather than being homophobic.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian writer of non fiction stories and novels and she is infamous for giving a lecture talk on TEDXEuston back in December 2012 and her talk was specifically about feminism and she called it "We Should All Be Feminist". Her speech discusses her own personal experiences with sexism and I really enjoyed hearing her own experiences because it reminds us as the audience that is listening to her talk that sexism can occur and happen to anyone, moreover, hearing her experiences allows the audience yet again to think of times where they must have undergone sexism or received any sexist comments in the past, maybe when we were younger in school and how there were always roles for what boys and girls should do or some of us may have not been able to do something in particular due to being a boy or a girl. What I truly adored about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie feminism talk is the valid points that she had stated, during her talk, she states "We define
Everyone has their own opinions and thoughts on particular subjects however, I wanted to know the opinions of my peers about feminism and sexism, especially within the film industry because I wanted to get their insight of what they think is going on within films and behind the camera. I had gathered my peers into a classroom and set up a camera to record our discussion and conversation about this specific subject and I had found out many interesting things about their thoughts as when asking if they personally think if the portrayal of both men and women are equally the same and whether if there are more men than women in the film screen: In the discussion, some had agreed that men are portrayed more positively and there are ore male characters that are seen on the film screen rather than female characters and there is a limited amount of female characters that are in the film overall. On the other hand, there were also some of my peers that had thought that yes, there used to be an unequal representation of men and women but now in this present day, representation and portrayal of
women have improve as Hollywood is beginning to come out with more films that have female characters as the leading role and more female actresses are given more opportunities to play roles that have a significant role and part of the film. I found it interesting how my peers had debated on whether Hollywood portrayal is still fair or not and the discussion had led to discussing the issues of negative stereotypes of gender roles in horror films I particular as horror is the film genre that had previously never had much female leading roles until recently yet they still portray stereotypical gender roles. Horror films was a difficult thing to explain when we linked it to sexism as one of my peers had stated that using stereotypes can be helpful for the film to make it successful in box office and amusing for the target audience however, some had also argued that horror films are conditioning their target audience to see and deem women as objects and to sexualise women due to the way they are portrayed in film such as being nude, sexual "nymphos" and stupid.
HOW DID THIS INSPIRE MY PROJECT:
This discussion was very helpful to me as I had manage to make some conclusions to myself about sexism within the film industry and this discussion had inspired me to focus my online magazine article on sexism in horror films and the negative stereotypical representation of men and women and the difference between their portrayal as I am personally passionate about feminism and equality between men and women and I also love and adore wtching horror films as it is one of my favourite genres of films.
masculinity in a very narrow way, masculinity becomes this hard, small cage and we put boys inside the cage. We teach boys to be afraid of fear. We teach boys to be afraid of weakness, of vulnerability. We teach them to mask their true selves..." I think this statement of hers is very important especially to my own beliefs on feminism as usually, most people I know think that feminism is only about the equality of women and attempting to achieve equal rights for women however, that is not what feminism is at all. Feminism is about equality for both MEN and WOMEN and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's point on how society teaches men to always act "like a man" meaning to not feel any emotions that will allow them to be perceived as "fragile" or "weak" is not equality as men are too suffering from stereotypical gender roles and are expected to act a specific way due to society's standards is not the way all of us, male or female should be living. I adore how she does not just discuss a female's problem with sexism but males' problems too as discussing sexist problems that male could undergo is rarely talked about as some may not deem it as important or significant as a female's problem with sexism and that is already sexist to think that one's problem is less significant than the other.
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HOW DID THIS INSPIRE MY PROJECT:
I was really inspired to look into Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's "We Should All Be Feminist" speech from hearing a snippet of her speech from Beyonce's song called Flawless and I really liked the points that were stated in the song and these were points that I could relate to because I believe in the same points that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie discusses such as fragile male masculinity and inequality of women socially and politically, these points are so important to discuss because although there has been improvements for treatment of women through the years that had come, however, there has always been inequality still occurring to this very day and my aim for my online The Candid Feminist blog is to promote equality of both men and women hence why her talk and speech is very influencing for me.
F E M I N I S T F I L M S
For another article I will write for my online blog site, I wanted to look more into films but films with the themes of feminism and women's independence in particular. I wanted my article to still be in a casual writing style but I also wanted to the style to be similar to a film review where I will state what I really adore about these films, discussing their feminist messages. I had noticed that a lot of films that were made in the 90's had a lot of feminism themes to them especially some of the Disney films such as Mulan, Pocahontas and Beauty and the Beast. I had re watched all of these films to take notes for my article: Mulan is a great example of a film that portrays these feminism themes as she is a young woman whom chooses to go to war to save her father and also to prove that she is not a laughing stock as a young woman. In this film, I really like how the first 20 minutes of the film is based on Mulan attempting to pass her test on being the "perfect daughter" and the "perfect bride" as during the time Mulan was set in, traditional gender roles were still perceived as normal and there were expectations from young women and men and in this film, Mulan is the complete opposite and cannot meet these expectations because that is not who she is as person and that is why she is a great role model for young girls to promote feminism to. Another Disney film that had always captivated me is Pocahontas, not because she is someone I can relate to when it comes to
culture and skin tone but her beliefs in no violence and going against what is expected of her is something I had always looked up to even when I was younger. In this film, Pocahontas consistently questions her father about her duty to lead her people and questions her father's wishes for her to be married. Not only that but Pocahontas risks her life to save a man that is not part of her people and interfere's with her father's violent actions as she had followed her own beliefs and this particular message of film is very inspiring and something that we as the audience who watch films such as this should contemplate about. In Beauty and the Beast, although she is not a warrior or an adventurer such as Mulan or Pocahontas, she is someone who dreams about adventure and exploration and wishes to do things that is not expected of women during the time of 18th century France. Belle is considered a woman who enjoys reading books and wishes to learn more and this is something that goes against expectations of women as traditional gender roles state that women should not be educated but the men must be and women must be stay at home housewives and this is definitely important for young girls to take in as education is very important nowadays if we wish for our futures to be brighter and successful. Moving on afar from Disney films, I had decided to look into the film 10 Things I Hate About You because I personally really relate to the main character, Kat Stratford as she is a feminist who doesn't believe in doing the same things as everyone in society is doing just because it is trending which is yet again another important for the audience to consume. Some may think and consider Princess Diaries 2 is a romantic comedy and that is all but there are far more important subliminal messages in this film which promote feminism, for example, throughout the whole film, the main character Mia is constantly looking for a suitable male candidate for to marry so that she may become Queen however, in the end of the film, Mia was able to be crowned Queen without getting married to a man and she is ruling as Queen without a King by her side and I think this message is very subtle but the message is telling the audience whom are watching that women do not need a man or do not need anyone to be successful which is very heart warming.
I had decided to change my subject and refrain from basing my project on the topic of LGBT as although I personally feel as if my project is going well, especially my research on LGBT however, I want to base my FMP on a subject that I am very, very passionate about and a subject that I can personally relate to as this would be easier for me to understand the topic and I do not think I can fully understand the topic of LGBT no matter how much I research about it as I am personally not a member of the LGBT community and I am not either lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender and I do not have the complete insight of LGBT. However, I think that the subject of feminism is a great topic for me to focus on as I have always been a feminist, even in my younger years such as the beginning of my teenage years as I have always wondered to myself why women/girls are treated differently as to how men/boys are treated and I have always found it unfair due to personal experiences of sexism hence and this is the perfect reason why I think my FMP would be better if I hcanged my subject into feminism.