Category Archives: Valuing Women

Gloria Steinem: why the women’s movement is more important than ever

In the following 3-minute clip from a recent BBC interview, Gloria Steinem explains why the women’s movement is more important than ever. (Spoiler alert: Yes, it does relate to the fact that more American women were killed at the hands … Continue reading

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Media exposure creates ripples of influence

There’s no predicting what impact your media intervention might have, but here are a couple of recent examples of the ripples created by published op eds… ****** Two days after Kathleen Wynn was elected leader of the Ontario Liberal party, … Continue reading

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“It’s not about you”

Will Dena McMartin’s recent op ed in the Regina Leader-Post help prevent a flooding disaster and save lives? It just might. And even if it doesn’t, the informed analysis of the University of Regina professor of environmental systems engineering offered … Continue reading

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Weighing In On the Work-At-Home Debate

Even if you lament some aspects of how the media cover Marissa Mayer (Yahoo CEO) or Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook COO), or note how different their realities are from those of most women, their significant responsibilities and high profiles offer strong … Continue reading

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New Year’s Resolution: How to disregard criticism by applying the “reasonable man” test

Celebrated American poet and critic, Ezra Pound, in his considered advice to beginning poets offered the following advice: “Pay no attention to the criticism of men who have never themselves written a notable work.” But he could have been speaking to … Continue reading

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WTF???

The confession made by the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies doubled as both a great tip and the best laugh of the day. Last week during one of three Informed Opinions workshops I delivered in Winnipeg (thank you, Jane Ursel, … Continue reading

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Hacked Informed Opinions website temporarily offline

On Thursday last week, Informed Opinions discovered that our website had been hacked. As a consequence, we’ve had to take it offline temporarily while we fix the problem. Our apologies to all of those who wish to make use of … Continue reading

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Women’s voices — on women’s issues — missing in action

The infographic below is depressingly self-explanatory — on one level. It makes clear how entrenched the gender skew is when it comes to who gets quoted in North American media. And — as MediaWatch discovered 20 years ago when we … Continue reading

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Most common errors made by aspiring op ed writers – part 2

Far too much research has already documented that when something goes wrong, women are highly inclined to blame the problem or setback on their own deficiencies. This tendency operates in stark contrast to men, who are more likely to blame … Continue reading

Posted in Better Writing, Effective Commentary Strategies, Reach and Impact, Scholarly Concerns, Uncategorized, Valuing Women | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Deferring to Jay Smooth on trolls

Don’t take my word for it… On the retrograde troll front, I defer to hip hop DJ and vlogger, Jay Smooth, who recently weighed in on the classic, cautionary Internet story involving media critic, Anita Sarkeesian. He offers a compelling and persuasive analysis … Continue reading

Posted in Media Literacy For Adults, Reach and Impact, Scholarly Concerns, Uncategorized, Valuing Women | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment