Women in the World Summit


On March 21st, I attended the Women of the world Summit In Harlem, NY. This three-day summit was geared toward sharing the stories of women that often go untold but often shape culture and industries as we know them. Here I attended two seminars that directed related to the communications industry and how we approach communications at large.

Session #1 – In Conversation with April Ryan.
 
The first session was a dynamic interview session with April D. Ryan, white house correspondent.  We all know of the tumultuous relationship between the leader of the free world and Mrs. Ryan. Throughout his presidential campaign and his current term, the office of the president has taken a unique approach to communicate their message.

This nontraditional candidate took to nontraditional mediums to address the nation, reflect the party in office’s opinions and ridicule them free press.

Ms. Ryan opened this discussion by explaining the role of the free press and how it was established to communicate truth to American citizens amidst an entangled legal system. She then went on to share that since the transition to the Trump administration the free press has been abused in two ways.

First, the administration bypasses the free press to make announcements and declarations, disrupting the credibility of the information shared. The lack of journalistic due diligence has resulted in a fairly new term coined “fake news”. Those receiving information can no longer separate information that has been validated from that which may just be an opinion. 

Secondly, she talked about the advantages and disadvantages of social media from a governmental communications perspective. The benefits being, this generation is the most empowered to have a continuous dialogue with their political leaders. For the first time in history, receivers of information are also contributors – “and that’s powerful”. (April D. Ryan). The shortfalls of the social media age, especially in governmental communications, is that whatever Is posted in previous years, even if a legislator has since changed their position, can be resurfaced and reframed against them.

She closed her discussion with a beacon call to those who are receiving information, “Validate, validate, validate… you have the tools to fact check…so please do”
 

Session #2 - TELLING WOMEN'S STORIES ON THE BIG AND SMALL SCREEN

The second session, entitled “Telling Women’s Stories On The Big And Small Screen”, examines the crippling culture of suppressing women’s assault stories in mainstream media.  Although the crowd remained eerily silent as the panel of unpacked this very important topic.

For 20 years, talk about R. Kelly and his alleged relationships have been circulating in Black communities around the country. A few journalists have written articles on the subject, but by and large, it remained hidden until the recent docuseries on the Lifetime network, Surviving R. Kelly brought the voices of the women involved to national attention. This panel explored the galvanizing power of television, its impact on the social justice issue of abuse, and the effect it has had on the women in the series and those behind the scenes.

The dialogue was led by two powerhouse women. The first person was Salamishah Tillet, Chair, African American and African Studies and Creative Writing, Rutgers University and co-founder of A Long Walk Home, a nonprofit that uses art to help end violence against girls and women.

The second speaker, Aishah Shahidah Simmons is the creator of #LoveWITHAccountability; and a scholar at the University of Pennsylvania.

Together they talked through mainstream medias responsibility to depict more uncomfortable stories. The aversion to this is that advertisers are unwilling to align with riskier or challenging content. The duo pleaded with the decision makers in the room to tell more relatable coming of age stories for women because when she feels empowered to be her authentic self no matter what, she can then empower the world.

Overarchingly the Women of the World Summit was an amazing experience and has charged me to bring my full femininity to the table in my industry.


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