Gender equity in media access, representation, employment and ownership and a world in which a just media is considered essential to a just society. Women, action & the media (wam) connects and supports media makers, activists, academics and funders working to advance womens media participation, ownership and representation. Our work is part of an advocacy movement for gender justice in media.

Education

Women, action & the media (wam)is a people-powered independent nonprofit dedicated to building a robust, effective, inclusive movement for gender justice in media. We built a brand-new website, designed to support our new project, the wam community action network (wamcan). In late may, we launched our first wamcan action, the incredibly successful fbrape campaign, which forced facebook to start treating content that promotes or makes light of gender-based violence as hate speech. Our chapters continue to thrive, and the past 12 months have seen the creation of new chapters in ottawa and in chicago, as well as the beginning of a chapter in dc, which will bring us to 7 volunteer-run chapters across north america. Wam it yourself, our annual decentralized conference, was a success again this year, featuring 14 events in 7 cities and online, engaging hundreds of wammers over the course of two weeks in march. Women, action & the media (wam)is a people-powered independent nonprofit dedicated to building a robust, effective, inclusive movement for gender justice in media. Wam connects and supports media makers, activists, academics and funders working to advance womens media participation, ownership and representation. Our work is part of an advocacy movement for gender justice in media. Since its founding, wam has been leading efforts to build an inclusive media movement. Our work includes: organizing conferences, workshops and trainings to incubate new ideas for social change; provide tools, education and support to remove barriers to media access, production, employment and ownership; share information and foster collaborations among individuals and groups; build a media ecosystem that represents the diversity of our lives and stories. Overseeing an active membership listserv that analyzes media/gender issues and, when needed, formulates a response. Creating global and local (glocal) networks of allies working to confront false and inadequate media representations of women and other marginalized groups. Challenging ourselves and each other to address and heal differences and oppressions that can prevent us from working together for mutual justice. Because power and privilege is about who gets to speak and who is listened to. Most of the time, its not women. Here are just a few numbers were out to change: news - according to journalism. Coms annual state of the media report, in 2008,race and gender issues only accounted for 1% of overall news coverage. Print media - the 2008 racial and gender report card of the associated press sports editors (apse), which covers and grades 378 associated press newspapers, gave the apse newspapers and web sites a c for racial hiring practices and an f for gender hiring practices; the report card stated that women account for only 6% of sports editors, 10% of assistant sports editors, 6% of columnists, 9% of reporters and 16% of copy editors/designers (via media report to women). Radio - the state of the media report also states that in 2009, only 19% of radio news directors were women. From 2003 to 2008, the percentage of female general managers for radio stations has risen from 13. 7% to 15. 8% only a 2. 1% increase in 5 years. The percentage of program directors went up . 2%, from 10. 7% in 2003 to 10. 9% in 2009. Of the top 100 markets, that percentage decreases, with only 10% of programming directors listed as female (up . 1% from 2003) (miw radio group). Film - the feminist blog women & hollywood found that in 2008, only 6 of the top 50 grossing films starred or were focused on women. Other surprising statistics include that only 25% of production managers, 12% of writers, 9% of directors, 5% of sound designers, and 1% of key grips were women. The rest of the statistics can be found on the blog and are worth a look, because theyre equally as disturbing. Television - among late-night writers, few women in the room by bill carter. Published in the new york times on november 11, 2009.