Women faculty are invited to attend one of two workshops later this month on writing opinion pieces for newspapers. Former journalist, award-winning author and activist Shari Graydon will be leading the workshops. Graydon created the not-for-profit organization Informed Opinions, to encourage more women to make their voices heard through the media.
Here is Graydon explaining, through an opinion piece of her own, why she feels women need to speak up more often, and position themselves as experts in news stories.
There’s nothing like being called a “feminazi” or member of the “Bitch-of-the-Year Club” to reinforce your resolve — if you’re ornery.
If you’re not, the kind of gendered attacks typical of online trolls aiming to shut down women deigning to share their views in high-profile media, can effectively do just that. This is one of the reasons that male perspectives in most Canadian opinion media still outnumber women’s views by a ratio of four to one.
That’s a problem — not just for women, but for all of us, misogynist trolls included.
And it’s why, decades after receiving my first piece of hate mail as a contributor to the Vancouver Sun, I now devote all of my working hours to training and supporting other women to speak up in the media, too — haters be damned.
