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| Film series gears up
for Women’s History Month |
Jusitn Boulmay
Multicultural Beat
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Jacque Lenz | The AppalachianDr. Sandie Gravett, associate
professor in the department of philosophy and religion, helped
form the Women’s Reality Film Series.
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March is Women’s
History Month, and the Women’s Studies Program at Appalachian
State University will be celebrating that history with the Women’s
Reality Film Series.
The series takes place every Monday starting Feb.
24 and will continue throughout March, excluding Spring Break.
Dr. Sandie Gravett, associate professor in the
department of philosophy and religion, was formerly the director
of the Women’s Studies program and a part of the committee
that decided to do a film series for women’s history. |
“There
are different films every year,” Gravett said.
“Loyalty” will be the first film of the series, Director
of Women’s Studies Betsy Beaulieu said. It is a story about
a professor and her African-American graduate student. The two realize,
through genealogical research, that the white woman’s family
owned the black woman’s family during the slavery era.
Beaulieu was the director of the film series for three years.
The first film of the series for every year is always chosen as
a way to “integrate black history month and women’s history
month,” she said.
The second film will be “Just Mom and Me,” a film on student
mothers.
There is a support group on campus for single mothers, Beaulieu
said, and added it will be interesting to explore the concept of
single mothers and children who are raised in that environment.
“The Female Closet” premieres during the third week and
is a documentary about three not-so-well-known female artists.
“Women and War” is a film about the involvement of women
during recent conflicts, such as those in South Africa and Bosnia,
Beaulieu said, and noted the showing of the film “will be very
timely,” referring to current world events.
“The Biography of Victoria Woodhall,” the final film in
the series, is about the first woman to run for President. Woodhall
ran for office in 1890, 30 years before women gained suffrage, or
the right to vote in America.
One year, two women came to Appalachian who had made a film about
females in Yugoslavia who had been systematically raped, Gravett
said.
Another speaker who works with women suffering from genital mutilation
was invited to come, as well as a former model who made a film about
the modeling industry, Gravett said.
“The last couple of times that I did it, the first year we
were surprised,” Gravett said, regarding attendance. “We
set up 75 chairs a week and always had to get more.
“I would say our audience started out … as 80 percent
women, 20 percent men,” Gravett said. The percentage of women
to men attending the film series has remained stable, she said.
Some students offered their opinion on reasons for low male attendance
at the films.
“It’s just like a mindset,” sophomore Josh Hayes
said, who also is involved in one of the women’s studies classes
at Appalachian. “Maybe guys don’t think that it pertains
to them, and that they wouldn’t be interested in it.”
Junior Spanish major Somer D. Privett said she shared Hayes’s
view and said she thought men would not think there would be anything
in the films of interest.
Junior pre-law major Christopher L. Posten said he would not go
see the films.
“I want to go see action, and guns blowing stuff up,”
he said. “That’s not something I would find in a women’s
movie. It’s going to be talking about sewing and making clothes.
I know that’s really stereotypical, but, you know, women aren’t
accustomed to guns and action.” |
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