Thanks to those of you who recently sent your ballots in, voting to raise divisional dues from $3 to $6 per year. ICA Director Michael Haley said that 90 percent of the 100+ ballots received were in favor of a dues hike. The new amount goes into effect in October and will pertain to all FSD members. Increased revenues will better enable us to fund routine administrative activities through the year, as well as organize program events at the annual conference.
Speaking of the annual conference, I hope to see many of you in Seoul this year. Cindy Carter, FSD's vice chair, has done a beautiful job of planning all sorts of panels and sessions, both for the airing of new feminist scholarship and for exploring the conference theme of "reconciliation and communication." The theme has never been more important. Like you perhaps, I follow both mainstream and alternative news sources and am disturbed at the levels of animosity and violence in so many places around the globe. Why, we must ask, are so few women able to speak publicly to these events and the causes that underlie them, when these so deeply affect women's lives?
In a separate piece in this newsletter ("Women and Media Policy"), I explore the some of the structural issues related to women's invisibility and silence in media. If ever there was a time for feminist communication scholars to increase their activism, that time is now.
One model for action comes from our sisters in India, who held the "First National Workshop on/for Women in Journalism," January 28-30, in New Delhi, to develop a national strategy for women's intervention in news practices. Sponsored by the NGO "Voices," dozens of female journalists, academics and activists from 16 cities in India met and formed a formal network, a list of 11 concerns, and a plan of action. Concerns ranged from globalization and increased commercialization of media to employment practices. (For details, see separate story, "India: Women plan media reforms.") Imagine the possibilities if similar plans were enacted in other nations, enabling us to work both within and across national boundaries to address inequalities in media. The very thought inspires hope.
Finally, a few comments of a personal nature. Many of you have written to ask about the status of my civil lawsuit against my former employer, Ithaca College. The complaint alleging sex discrimination and retaliation was filed in December in US federal court, in Syracuse, NY. Since then, Ithaca College has responded by admitting to some of the allegations but denying most of them. The lawsuit grows out IC's denial of tenure and promotion to me in May 2000 on the basis of a selected group of anonymous student evaluations that criticized my inclusion of feminist, gay and lesbian, and other critical content in my journalism courses. The complaint says that the college was retaliating against me for my advocacy for greater gender and ethnic diversity in the faculty and in the curriculum. The case, which has received support from the US-based National Women's Studies Association, and attention in an August/September 2001 issue of Ms. magazine, makes its first appearance in court on May 7. Please feel free to contact me with your questions.
Indeed, my own situation has a bigger context, painful but familiar. Stories have circulated these last few years about feminist scholars being fired, denied tenure or promotion, or otherwise thwarted in their academic standing all over the world. The Media Associations Project (MAP) survey, coordinated by FSD member Sheida Shirvani, and sponsored by five feminist or gender divisions in five different communication organizations, grew out of growing concern over this very situation.
I urge men and women alike to complete the survey questionnaire designed by the Media Associations Project (online at www.zanesville.ohiou.edu/icasurvey/). We need broad input from our field to map trends in communication departments around the world. Preliminary data will be presented and discussed at the ICA conference in Korea. You can also watch this newsletter for a report on those findings. The data that this effort produces will enable an informed dialogue and consideration of how policy and legal issues can be addressed by our associations.
Like other critical scholarship, feminist scholarship has a dual mission -- to reveal the nature of relations of power, and to formulate strategies for change. In terms of gender relations in communications processes and industries, we have much to offer with our scholarship and activism.
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