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A day dedicated to presentations, discussions and Wikipedia editing, addressing gender issues around the theme of heroines, with guests Catherine Lenoble and Clara Thomine.
Despite Wikipedia's efforts to come up with solutions to live up to their motto “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit”, not only do the contributors predominantly identify as men, but the contents published also show partial gender representations. With platforms as Wikipedia becoming more important in our society these issues require attention. As a symbolic example, the article ‘heroine’ is automatically redirected to the article ‘hero’, and its emblematic figures are mostly male. Next to the issues of authorship and subject matter, the writing style and article structure that have become idiomatic on Wikipedia cause their own issues. A classic example of this is the amount of articles about women that starts with “this woman was the sister/wife of this famous man” in their first or second sentence. During Heroines, we will take these observations as the point of departure for lectures and discussions, and intervention—the day includes a crash course in Wikipedia editing.
Catherine Lenoble is a Brussels-based writer who explores ways of reading and writing in present time, experimenting with cross-genre narratives and hybrid fictional objects (print, online). She is engaged with writing in different collaborative environments and co-initiated the research group Algo-lit (algorithms & literature) in 2012. Her project Anna K, is currently shown at Constant vzw and online, and a fiction, Anna K, is to be published by HYX editions in 2016.
Clara Thomine a Brussels-based performance, video and installation artist. She studied at École nationale supérieure d’art de Nancy until 2011, after which she obtained an MFA in installation, performance and video from ERG, Brussels in 2014. She recently won the Prix de la SOFAM Médiatines Bruxelles (2014), and the Prix de l’Institut français at the Mulhouse Biennale (2015) and is currently having a solo show at c-o-m-p-o-s-i-t-e gallery in Brussels.
Register here!! (24 people present, with a few extra after 17:00)
Heroine or Hera
SUPERHEROINES https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_superheroines The following is a list of superheroines (female superheroes) in comic books, television, film, and other media. Each character's name is followed by the publisher's name in parentheses; those from television or movies have their program listed in square brackets, and those in both comic books and other media appear in parentheses.
Markham’s autobiography, West with the Night (1942), is more than just a story of being the first person to fly non-stop from England to North America.
Ms. Parks stood up for her rights by remaining seated, and in doing so, sparked a movement that led to long-overdue equal rights for African Americans.
When this 17-year-old WWII nurse was mistaken for a man on the field, she didn’t protest. Instead, she fought in several battles and was appointed as the leader of a reconnaissance squad. Even after being wounded four times and her gender was discovered, her platoon continued to fight. She received more than 40 medals of Honor for her act of valor.
This heroic abolitionist escaped from slavery herself at the age of 29 and helped others obtain their freedom by leading 13 Underground Railroad missions. She was later employed by the Union Army, becoming the first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war and liberating more than 700 slaves in South Carolina.
Helen Adams Keller was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the first deafblind person to earn a bachelor of arts degree.
HEROINE AS A RADICAL CONCEPT [1]
We also learn about history on the micro level, with Cecelia as the representative peasant. She owned land, attended church, served as head of her household, and bought and sold goods and land. Cecelia’s history turns into a woman’s history only when we realize she never married. Because of her spinster status, Cecelia was the sole owner of her land, could will it to whomever she wanted, and made business decisions regarding her property and her farm without having to consult anyone or worrying about heirs—all radical but historically accurate concepts. And all about girl power, however unintentional. Other radical but historically accurate concepts include girls receiving education, women earning the right to vote and own property, women playing sports, women serving as heads of state, women making important scientific discoveries, women taking to the skies, and eventually, women outnumbering men in college. Radical concepts inspired by radical women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Benazir Bhutto, Madame Curie, and Beryl Markham should be celebrated because they were firsts or were important to society or both. They should be recognized not just within the sub-category of women’s history but as part of all of history, threads that altered the pattern of history for everyone.
In those headlines we do find extraordinary people who just happen to be women, and these models of the extraordinary serve as inspiration for current and future generations—for both women and men. A few notables: Lady of the House Congresswoman Jeanette Rankin, who was elected to Congress in 1916, four years before the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote; the African-American contralto Marian Anderson, whose fans included Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower even though she was often not allowed to sing for white audiences; Corazon Aquino, the president of the Philippines who survived six coup attempts and almost made us forget Imelda Marcos’ shoe addiction; and Coco Chanel, the once-impoverished child of France, whose little black dress endures and whose legacy is bottled in pretty, one-ounce containers.
The working session and its goals were announced on the Village Pump (used to discuss the technical issues, policies, and operations of Wikipedia).
Explaining all the today changes why and propose them to contribute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Hero