Welcome to another edition of Feminist Friday – that time of the week where we fangirl over our fave videos and share them with our readers! This week we’re on a crowdfunding campaign kick because we’re all about supporting projects and ideas that are headed up by and feature badass women.
The first campaign, which is an experimental short film supported and hosted by Women’s Voices Now, sheds light on violence toward women in Peru. ‘Trapped Women’ uses dance, performance, music, cinematography, and art with the objective of raising people’s awareness of this social problem.
The story shows us a woman, born into a completely white world full of light. Through a dance she begins to discover the world, but in her life she faces a harsh reality of extreme violence including rape and murder. Her white world begins to turn red, drowning in blood, coagulating into the shape and colors of the Peruvian flag.
In 2018, authorities recorded 149 cases of femicide, with numerous murders going unreported. Already in 2019, 29 cases have been reported.
For the film’s director, Nataly Vergara, a woman and filmmaker, this project is a battle outcry: “We need to show and talk directly about this problem, otherwise these voices will continue to be silenced.”
“We want to screen the film in educational institutions, colleges, cultural centers, and film clubs. In this way we can contribute to research, round-table discussions, and conferences on the subject. Internationally, we want also to promote Peruvian cinema and the use of cinematographic language to deal with social problems,” said the director in a press statement.
Nataly and her production team are eager to finish this film and to bring it to audiences in Peru and around the world.Watch the video below, and click HERE to donate to this campaign:
The next video is for a campaign to raise money for a female-founded construction company in West Fargo, North Dakota. A.M.P. Contracting LLC was founded by Denise Rodriguez in 2014 with the dream of creating a company where anyone could succeed, regardless of gender. They launched a campaign on Indiegogo to raise $25,000, money that will go directly into building the business and ensuring the female-majority company are taken seriously in this male-dominated world.
“Women make up almost half of the working population in the United States, yet only 5% of all construction companies in the United States are owned by women. And while the construction industry employs almost 11 million people nationwide, only about 9% of those employees are women. Why? We believe women are capable of succeeding at anything, including obtaining roles in the construction industry. As the construction industry as a whole faces a shortage of laborers, it is time for us to create an industry where women will both want to work, and feel accepted in the workplace. It is our mission to take A.M.P. Contracting to the next level this year, with the goal of creating a work environment that will make women feel welcomed. We want women to apply for positions at our company and help lead our jobs, while inspiring others in the industry to follow suit. It is our hope that this campaign will create a ripple effect that will both inspire other companies to realize the potential of women employees, and for women employees to realize their own potential and feel confident enough to apply for these traditionally male held positions,” says the campaign description.
They will use the funds raised to invest in advertising campaigns for outreach about the company, and also to have capital that they can use to grow the campaign as they are being denied funding from other traditional sources such as banks. The company’s founder is not always taken seriously by lenders and is told to “prove” she knows what she is talking about – something a male owner of a construction company would never be subjected to.
Watch the campaign video below and please donate and share to support these badass women in North Dakota who are blazing trails for even more women:
The final video this week is a campaign for an independent print magazine called Rabbel. The focus is on replacing image-centric and stereotype-heavy narratives with inspiring, uplifting, and validating content focused on creativity and global female role models. While it’s primarily targeted to girls aged 8-12, the bold design and diverse creative content make it appealing to a much broader audience.
“Nearly 8 in 10 girls want to feel more confident in themselves. We can’t ignore that…Studies show that at the critically formative stage between ages 8 and 14, girls’ confidence levels drop by 30% and more than half of teen girls feel pressure to be perfect. Girls are likely to be held back by powerful internal forces; self-doubt, lack of confidence, people-pleasing, perfectionism. Rabbel’s mission is to acknowledge that these challenges exist and learn to live alongside them. We want to share stories that reflect the limitless capacity of the female spirit to show how real women and girls can navigate their discomfort to find and express the unique gifts they bring to the world,” says the campaign description.
Created by Julie Comfort (with help from her daughter Tully) who hail from New Jersey, and Estrella Bonilla who hails from California, the team are raising money specifically for the production of issue #3 which will contain the following badass content:
- How organization Amplifier is using art for social activism
- Mother/daughter collaborative dance performance in nature, BOAT
- Healing through documentary photography in rural Northern Thailand
- An autobiographical poem by a preteen girl living as an expat in Germany
- Romani women exploring visibility and identity through their art
- Selections from the 100 Black Females Project
- And more, including DIY projects, essays, and artwork
If you like the sound of this content and want to support a magazine that is empowering, donate HERE while the campaign is still running, and watch the video below:
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