The importance of the female voice and consent

As a person who identifies as female and was born female, i could relate to the films being shown to us during class. Though we live in a male gaze type of world, there are a lot of different story telling opportunities that can be told through the eyes of a woman.

Stories that can be shown to be more along the lines of more emotional, intamate and possibly more vulnerable in nature. The films shown during class are great examples of this type of female view. The film Un Jour is a great example of showing what happens to a woman once they have entered a relationship and also what happens if that relationship ends suddenly. The Feather Tale is another great example that tackles the female perspective of not having power in a relationship. Women are sometimes seen as something nice to look at, not always as a person. Once the feathers are ripped off,  feelings of venerability and being uncomfortable can occur. Showing the female view can be a way to give those who do not know these feelings a window to look through to see what it is like.

Other times the female view can bring up important issues in the mostly male natured world.

The tale shown in the film Give Us A Smile is a good example. Now rights for women have gone a long ways since this film has been made, but this film tackles the issue of the roles of which a husband and wife have in a marriage in the UK in the 1970's-80's. As the film is animated around the recordings of an actual court room trail on how a man killed his wife over her not being the "perfect obdeiant wife", the imagery in it is very cartoonish and portrays things in the almost literal sense. 

At one point even going so far as to in bold letters to say "NO MEANS NO". That one point i actually think is still relevant to this day in the wake of more and more reported rape cases in college campuses. For years people have been trying to prevent these situations by either enforcing a strong dress code or to teach girls that boys cannot control their sexual urges; not teaching teen boys and young men the meaning of consent. Though i do not consider myself a"feminist", i do believe that it is important to talk about issues of consent around the sexual nature for both genders. 

Here's a funny and yet effective video about the topic of sexual consent and putting it into the situation of what it's like to ask a person if they want a cup of tea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGoWLWS4-kU

If someone says no, they mean no.

( Thank you for reading and hopefully the next topic i blog about will be a wee bit lighter ^_^ Happy Halloween!!!)