Spotlight: Gender and Feminisms Caucus

Abstract

Spotlight:Gender and Feminisms Caucus Rebecca Harrison (bio) and Morgan Bimm (bio) We write this article during a period of crisis for people marginalized by gender around the world. Women and their allies in Iran face state-sanctioned violence in protests that respond to the killing of Mahsa Amini by morality police.1 In Afghanistan, the Taliban has banned women and girls from accessing high school and university education.2 Last year, scores of Indigenous women activists, including Sandra Liliana Peña Chocué, were murdered by political opponents in South and Central America.3 The Supreme Court of the United States has overturned the federal right to access medical abortion. In the UK, police officers commit gender-based violence with impunity, refugees are denied safe passage, and a quarter of women live in poverty.4 The fierce backlash against the #MeToo movement—#WoYeShi in China, #ArewaMeToo in Nigeria—has been felt around the globe. [End Page 1] Moreover, as scholars and practitioners of media, it's impossible for us to ignore the intersectional oppressions that erase women's voices in the industries that we study, the texts that we analyze, and the places that we work. Shabana, a journalism student in Afghanistan, described how her "heart was shattered" on being denied a career as a newscaster.5 India Willoughby has spoken about the threats she faces as the UK's first publicly trans newscaster.6 Heads of department in India's film industry are 90 percent male.7 Only 24 percent of creatives in major roles in Hollywood are women.8 Of the 22,000 professors in UK universities, only forty-one are Black women; 68 percent of researchers are on fixed-term contracts.9 These are the outcomes of divisive and cruel systems. These are not conditions in which solidarity is meant to thrive between people of different gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, class, disability, age, immigration status, language, or culture. Yet across our scholarly and industry networks, solidarity persists. Within the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), many of us have found a home in the Gender and Feminisms Caucus (formerly the Women's Caucus), which fosters community and encourages us to enact care. As one of the first SCMS caucuses, it has played a significant role in supporting members marginalized by gender. At a critical moment in our collective fight for a more just world, we reflect on the caucus's past achievements and look to its future. the women's caucus: building a foundation The caucus was originally founded in 1994 "to promote parity for women's intellectual and practical work in film, TV, and video."10 Over the years, the Women's Caucus made many achievements. Co-chairs set up an innovative mentorship program that provided graduate students and early career faculty with opportunities to learn from more experienced colleagues. It was (as far as we can tell) the first caucus to offer an annual graduate student writing prize, established in 2015 by Shelley Stamp and Jennifer Bean of Feminist Media Histories to celebrate emerging voices in the field. Thanks to the efforts of Chris Holmlund, Grrrls' Night Out became a long-running social and networking event that brought members together beyond the more formal discussions of the SCMS annual conference. [End Page 2] The caucus sought to [welcome] people and [make] supportive spaces where one could meet and connect with others, especially at [SCMS] itself, in an environment that can easily feel overwhelming or impersonal. —Deborah Jermyn, co-chair, 2005–2007 Members' activism both on and off campuses has been championed, too, in a series of panel discussions held during the annual caucus meeting. Contributors so far have included Jennifer Moorman, Christine Acham, and Philana Payton. A long-running commitment to labor equity has also sparked initiatives like the introduction of a Junior Faculty Representative position on the caucus board and conference fee waiver raffles that prioritize early career researchers, graduate students, and underemployed faculty. I was personally very heartened by the caucus's commitment to labor equity, among other forms of equity, and I saw the formation of the Junior Faculty Representative as a powerful first step in that regard. —J...