Seven iL2L alumni from six nations have been invited to give the youth report on the findings at the 2013 annual Women’s Forum in Deauville, France. This year’s program’s theme is competition, cooperation, and creativity. Delegates will look at open digital innovation and the role women uniquely play in this arena. The program also examines the digital effect on Europe and what the future holds. The following Gen Y report comes to you from The Global Women's Forum on the Economy and Society.
We interviewed Abigail Disney, an American philanthropist, activist, and filmmaker. Abigail is the producer of PBS’s Women, War, and Peace, which shows a women’s perspective in several conflict zones, and films such as The Invisible War, Playground, and The Queen of Versailles. Disney also founded Peace Is Loud.
Disney’s series Women, War, and Peace shows war from a completely women’s perspective, and in doing so, works to change one’s perception of war. We asked Disney what other subjects should to be told from a woman’s viewpoint, and why women are so often written out of the landscape.
Imagine Sylvester Stallone, Disney said, sweaty and muscular with a bandana on his head and a huge gun in his hands. Now, put a women and a child next to him. What changes? “You can’t sustain the stereotypical images of male heroism, when women are in the frame, and I think that’s why they’ve been written out,” Disney said. She suggested that women are also written out of governance and leadership, because they pose a threat to the male narrative.
Disney’s first film, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, tells the story of Christian and Muslim women in Liberia, who started a peace movement that ended a long and bloody civil war. When Disney first returned from Liberia, she knew she had to find the best way to share the women’s story with the public. Disney chose film because she feels it is the most effective vehicle to tell stories that create a momentum for social change. She said a film in a dark movie theater has the unspeakable power to capture all of your senses and transport you to a dreamlike state. That is what makes film unique, when compared to other mediums. “Film is the medium for communicating not just ideas, but things of the heart,” Disney said.
Disney said that making documentaries comes with the responsibility of telling somebody’s story right. We asked how to manage balancing fact and emotion in a documentary, and how to use the two for the fullest effect. “The greater good is achieved by not only telling people what they need to know, but also, filling them with a sense of empathy and love,” she said, “more often than not, logic loses because the greater good is served by a kind of knowing, that isn’t strictly informational.”
Disney spoke to the obstacles young women may face in their path to leadership. “There’s no one on this earth taken less seriously in a leadership context than a young woman—everything is against you”. She said that a key part of being taken seriously is looking and sounding like a leader, which is a problem for women—young and old—when the mainstream idea of what a leader looks like is a middle-aged white male. She says we need to expand the idea of what a leader looks like “partly by being an example of something else yourselves, partly by making sure that the media gives us the full story, which is that leadership can come in any kind of a package.” Disney blames the media for often-sexist portrayals of women, and spoke about the lack of female main characters and speaking-roles in TV and film. “There has to be the creation of a positive, vital, real media written by, for, and about women for all people to see,” she noted.
Disney encouraged us to not be afraid of being bold. “We have a world minus a whole lot of talent that has stepped out of contention for leadership, only because they don’t want to seem too aggressive, too smart, unattractive, or too male,” she said. Disney declared that there needs to be a surge of new momentum for women’s equality and rights, and that our generation has to play an active part. She advised us to find the tools that will amplify our voice and stick to it. “Filmmaking can turn a mouse into a lion,” she said.
Elizabeth Woodward, iLIVE2LEAD Ambassador for the U.S., is a junior at Brown University, where she studies History and Comparative Literature. At Brown, Elizabeth is a Managing Director of the University's Ivy Film Festival, the largest student-run film festival in the world. As a passionate journalist and political advocate, she has interned at Vanity Fair magazine, in New York Congresswomen Carolyn Maloney's district office, and writes for Brown's College Hill Independent. Outside of Brown, Elizabeth and her mother manage a program in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, that offers educational and vocational opportunities to adolescent girls.
iLive2Lead is a youth leadership-training program based in Washington, D.C., that conducts training in various nations in each region of the world. iL2L brings the most exceptional young leaders together for International Leadership Summits and works with them to develop social initiatives which they lead back in their home nations, thus creating global examples of social responsibility and a ripple effect of impact worldwide.
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The Gen Y Reports from The Global Women's Forum: Interview with Filmmaker Abigail Disney
October 22, 2013
Seven iL2L alumni from six nations have been invited to give the youth report on the findings at the 2013 annual Women’s Forum in Deauville, France. This year’s program’s theme is competition, cooperation, and creativity. Delegates will look at open digital innovation and the role women uniquely play in this arena. The program also examines the digital effect on Europe and what the future holds. The following Gen Y report comes to you from The Global Women's Forum on the Economy and Society.
We interviewed Abigail Disney, an American philanthropist, activist, and filmmaker. Abigail is the producer of PBS’s Women, War, and Peace, which shows a women’s perspective in several conflict zones, and films such as The Invisible War, Playground, and The Queen of Versailles. Disney also founded Peace Is Loud.
Disney’s series Women, War, and Peace shows war from a completely women’s perspective, and in doing so, works to change one’s perception of war. We asked Disney what other subjects should to be told from a woman’s viewpoint, and why women are so often written out of the landscape.
Imagine Sylvester Stallone, Disney said, sweaty and muscular with a bandana on his head and a huge gun in his hands. Now, put a women and a child next to him. What changes? “You can’t sustain the stereotypical images of male heroism, when women are in the frame, and I think that’s why they’ve been written out,” Disney said. She suggested that women are also written out of governance and leadership, because they pose a threat to the male narrative.
Disney’s first film, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, tells the story of Christian and Muslim women in Liberia, who started a peace movement that ended a long and bloody civil war. When Disney first returned from Liberia, she knew she had to find the best way to share the women’s story with the public. Disney chose film because she feels it is the most effective vehicle to tell stories that create a momentum for social change. She said a film in a dark movie theater has the unspeakable power to capture all of your senses and transport you to a dreamlike state. That is what makes film unique, when compared to other mediums. “Film is the medium for communicating not just ideas, but things of the heart,” Disney said.
Disney said that making documentaries comes with the responsibility of telling somebody’s story right. We asked how to manage balancing fact and emotion in a documentary, and how to use the two for the fullest effect. “The greater good is achieved by not only telling people what they need to know, but also, filling them with a sense of empathy and love,” she said, “more often than not, logic loses because the greater good is served by a kind of knowing, that isn’t strictly informational.”
Disney spoke to the obstacles young women may face in their path to leadership. “There’s no one on this earth taken less seriously in a leadership context than a young woman—everything is against you”. She said that a key part of being taken seriously is looking and sounding like a leader, which is a problem for women—young and old—when the mainstream idea of what a leader looks like is a middle-aged white male. She says we need to expand the idea of what a leader looks like “partly by being an example of something else yourselves, partly by making sure that the media gives us the full story, which is that leadership can come in any kind of a package.” Disney blames the media for often-sexist portrayals of women, and spoke about the lack of female main characters and speaking-roles in TV and film. “There has to be the creation of a positive, vital, real media written by, for, and about women for all people to see,” she noted.
Disney encouraged us to not be afraid of being bold. “We have a world minus a whole lot of talent that has stepped out of contention for leadership, only because they don’t want to seem too aggressive, too smart, unattractive, or too male,” she said. Disney declared that there needs to be a surge of new momentum for women’s equality and rights, and that our generation has to play an active part. She advised us to find the tools that will amplify our voice and stick to it. “Filmmaking can turn a mouse into a lion,” she said.
Elizabeth Woodward, iLIVE2LEAD Ambassador for the U.S., is a junior at Brown University, where she studies History and Comparative Literature. At Brown, Elizabeth is a Managing Director of the University's Ivy Film Festival, the largest student-run film festival in the world. As a passionate journalist and political advocate, she has interned at Vanity Fair magazine, in New York Congresswomen Carolyn Maloney's district office, and writes for Brown's College Hill Independent. Outside of Brown, Elizabeth and her mother manage a program in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, that offers educational and vocational opportunities to adolescent girls.
iLive2Lead is a youth leadership-training program based in Washington, D.C., that conducts training in various nations in each region of the world. iL2L brings the most exceptional young leaders together for International Leadership Summits and works with them to develop social initiatives which they lead back in their home nations, thus creating global examples of social responsibility and a ripple effect of impact worldwide.
