GlobalGirl Media: My Voice Is Important

My Voice Is Important, starring the Los Angeles' GlobalGirl Media Reporters, evolved from Professor Melanie Klein's introductory class to the Los Angeles GlobalGirls on women and the media on Tuesday May 11th.

Throughout the class (which took place at at GGM L.A. Headquarters in Chinatown), Professor Klein asked each citizen-broadcast-journalist-in-training why she thought her voice - her particular voice - was important. To answer that question, the class looked at both the dearth of women in decision-making roles in media and the types of images of women that the media and pop culture produces--Is there a correlation? What is it?

Empowered to discuss the role of mass media in shaping the culture around them, the girls brought up the fact that diverse voices - the authentic voices of young women their age - were mostly absent from our television screens, computer monitors, radio stations and movie theaters. With Professor Klein's help, each girl further developed her thoughts and searched for her answer over the course of the class, and the video shares each GlobalGirl Media's truth about why her voice is important. It was a great introduction for both the students and teachers, and it was the beginning a new journey through education, self discovery and truth-seeking.

My Voice Is Important was directed and edited by the husband and wife filmmaking team Ken & Jessica O'Keefe, of O'Keefe Films.

Melanie Klein is an Associate Faculty member at Santa Monica College, where she teaches classes in Sociology and Women's Studies. She attributes feminism and yoga as the primary influences in her life and fuses her academic background with her studies and experience in the healing arts. She is committed to promoting communal collaboration, raising consciousness, promoting media literacy, and facilitating the healing of distorted body images and healthy body relationships.She blogs at FeministFatale, tweets @feministfatale and may be found at the Ms. Magazine blog and Women in Media and News.