Debate with four International Women who speak up. Ive. Made sense and so many. Thank you over all my welcome to this special edition of arts twenty one at the Global Media Forum today here in bonn my name is karen homestead and its a great pleasure to be here eight months into the post me two era weve seen it spawn countless other protests most notably the times up campaign and the interesting thing and striking thing about these protests is that they started in the cultural sector which raises of course the questions how powerful is culture how powerful are women in culture in the wake of me to Time Magazine made the silence breakers its collective person of the year for two thousand and seventeen saying their actions and least one of the highest velocity shifts in our culture since the one nine hundred sixty s. Well wed like to see just how much that statement can hold up can this movement empower women globally or are we with our western perspective perhaps overestimating its reach. Thanks here are my guests from all over the world the renowned indian feminist author and publisher. She spent her entire career bringing womens stories and subjects like Sexual Violence into the public discussion and she says the Womens Movement in india is one of the strongest in the world please give her a warm round of applause thank you know her winning poet publisher and journalist from lebanon is with us today breaking taboos and sparking discussions of womens sexuality in the arab world are her main beat since many years most recently she ran for a seat in the Lebanese Parliament welcome that thank i had yellow is a french journalist author filmmaker and activist such a long list i can hardly read it all has published racism a guide and shes very outspoken on issues of freedom of expression and how in her experience harassment can be closely related to racism or round of applause please thank you and last but not least Ellen Harrington is an american curator and film programmer in january she took over as director of the German Film Institute in frankfurt for over two decades she worked for the academy of Motion Pictures arts and sciences in los angeles and as such experience the need to debate at very close range a warm welcome to all of you round of applause thank you for joining us thank you coming on thank you very much to our studio audience i mean wow ladies and gentlemen rather than fade out need to continue to have an almost daily Ripple Effect in the news and so before we get started were going to have a quick recap of the. Turbulent times of me two. Women in surely are protesting its become a huge demonstration like never before in this country against sexism and violence she may be the one who got the ball rolling inadvertently Harvey Weinstein once a powerful movie mogul now indicted on charges of rape he ruled over a cartel of silence. That is over no more shame no more silence he led me to his bathroom pleading that i just watch him masturbate time was up a world wide outcry followed a flood of revelations among them the Swedish Academy install calling it announced that the nobel prize in literature will be cancelled this year the Venerable Institution now a shambles after a Sexual Assault scandal. Across all industries cultural political or big business women are speaking out and men are forced to face up even if some wish it would all disappear sooner than later yeah right. There we look into the future what will remain of me to end times up in five ten fifteen years. One thing certain hollywood will turn it all into a movie director Brian De Palma is currently working on a script based on the Harvey Weinstein scandal a real horror film. We are definitely not going to put that one of the top of our to celestine pretty sure but just back from l. A. Ellen harrington you spent twenty five years at the academy of Motion Picture arts and sciences in the middle of weinsteins world so to speak how did you experience the weinstein affair and the ensuing need to debate well what i think is so fascinating is that what the journalists who discovered this story and got the women to go on record with the New York Times and the the new yorker magazine did. Was they broke through a cartel of silence and an actual system of intimidation that was incredibly pervasive and ironically Harvey Weinsteins attorney last week stated that his defense was that he didnt invent the casting couch and its true the entire history of the industry of the movie industry entertainment in general women are a product and generally men are the architects of whats being shouted and its always unfortunately been this way ironically in the silent era there were more women directors and writers than there are now and so when you look at this says the statistics and whos going to tell the story is what im really hoping as that the normalization of that kind of institutional sexism and abuse which really you know from top to bottom people really did know about this and journalists tried to break that story for decades and there was a conspiracy of silence and a lot of intimidation tactics actually to prevent it from being told im hoping this flips the script and that the new normal and the new normalization is that women do get a seat at the table and they do get to start being the architects of stories that are told in the culture are we seeing any changes already whats the atmosphere now you were just in l. A. Its very different than six months ago i was definitely say in terms of who the agencies are submitting for director of jobs looking at the actual hard facts that you know theres three percent of films that are shot by women in Cinematography Department nine numbers are astounding its ridiculous nine percent of the top two hundred fifty films made in hollywood last year were directed by women and when you see films like black have there for example that not only address the strong women roles but you know minority and and diverse performances those films actually get a very high amount of profit in very high herships compared to their investment and the people in charge in the industry have been ignoring the business facts in order to stay comfortable. So have we i think weve been seeing some change though at some of that for instance can Film Festival the belly not in berlin were seeing actually a rise in whats being bought up by the Production Companies of female driven narratives yes already and absolutely having Cate Blanchett and that group of women on the jury in cannes all of them being at the staging of a protest on the steps of the Film Festival it is actually a change in Business Practices the inclusion waiver which is something where if someone has power in the industry of a strong cast producer they can actually require that theres a certain amount of diversity in the below the line cast and in the the staffing of the production and it makes a difference when women are in charge they hire more women when a Diverse Group of people are in charge they hire more Diverse People and thats how you get more representation in the industry people need the door open they need a job opportunity ok they have been six months in germany its not a long time but im sure you have some impressions youve been youve been dancing at a lot of weddings tell us how how you see things here is the industry moving here well germany already has a very different funding model and theres a lot more women directors here and when women who are getting their films just about if you know in narrative as well as documentary and the cultural political scene here is addressing me to quite directly certainly at the opening of the berlin wall and also at the touch of film prize the awards commentators and also the presenters and the government ministers who spoke very specifically addressed me to and times up and said its a big part of their agenda to make sure that this doesnt fade away ok so a relatively Seismic Shift in the us i suppose we can say me too of course started off as a protest of well to do hollywood stars but very quickly achieved global dimension and across multiple industries how relevant was it in your country or brushy butalia because im thinking women in india are also looking to some other moments in history as perhaps. Seismic yeah for us actually what youre now calling the me too moment in the west wasnt what you addressed in your introduction or Ripple Effect to whats happening in the United States because much though you know i respect what the United States is doing in many respects but its not the center of the world from where things ripple out and there are things going on in other parts of the world which are born of the local histories so for us actually it was in the early ninetys that the process of giving a name to this really widespread problem began and it began because of the history of a poor village woman who performing her task as a government functionary was raped in the village where she was working by four men and they raped her because they didnt like her trying to stop Child Marriage and it led to a huge debate inside the Womens Movement about what comprises the workplace for women is it just the four walls of an office space or is it out in the fields inside or domestic space and so on and so forth and thus began the battle we filed a petition with the government of india to bring in place a law on Sexual Harassment in the workplace that came in twenty thirteen after which it has become mandatory for all businesses universities educational institutions everybody who has more than ten employees to have committees in place and to deal with the subject and that has coincided with a sort of expansion in which women who are coming out into the public space and facing discrimination and seeing how male bias operates in the public space they are speaking out more and more and demanding change so its a very live subject its everywhere of course it is a little course yes a lot of a lot of women to address the subject yes and the the more an item is the articulation of it is of course with. Electorate and over nice women who can speak out and who have access but its not to say that for all women in india im not complaining of the lack of safety and lack of security in working so its sick to be a big movement lets see what happens ok and its very rooted in the culture of the home being the women space in the public space belonging to men ok thank you russia for that lets come over to you tomorrow were talking about five hundred million women in india. Much smaller number in lebanon how relevant it was me to in lebanon has it has it had an impact of tangible and well i personally didnt feel of real impact obviously there has been people talking about it but to tell you the truth. Even though i know that healing starts with breaking the silence this is the first most important step in any culture in any problem but. We still lack the courage to address this issue and a very. Open way i mean i know that a Sexual Harassment is widespread that sexual intimidation is widespread as well at work because you know have rassmann is a very broad word what does it mean does it mean my boss trying to intimidate me into doing something just because im afraid to lose my job which happens a lot many times and in my country and in other countries or does it only need you know touching someone or you know its about power its a power play the fact that you say it makes it easier for others to say it as well but unfortunately it always takes a famous person to say it in order to a lot of well theres another element of shame isnt you are like a waitress being harassed by a bar owner and in a small american town. We wouldnt have heard about it maybe as much as we did because of who Harvey Weinstein as and who the actresses are yes exactly. Were going to come over to you because of the reaction in france initially in france or rather uncomfortable backlash and something that yes it was a candle description see between the reaction that you could see on social media among the Younger Generation of feminists and the generation of the most famous french actress says yes there was so there was there was a journalist name and some home you know who started the ball which was the global translation isolation of the Media Movement but there was also a column that was written by several actressy including get in the now and many of the many other i mean yeah yeah yeah i think levy and some other leading french women who were saying that there who were rather supportive to men and saying that they were defending the freedom of bothering of annoying women in the public spaces so i was quite difficult because they have a wide echo out of france so it was difficult for us french feminist to say that we you know there was not an animals voice against the me too in france but i have to say that before to me to have making friends at the have been kind of first wave of reaction related to something that happened to a woman it was in two thousand and eleven when the diminished horse can yes i was running for our. Father french presidency was you know involved in a rape in new york that was something that really had a wide echo in france that made us understand that many that there was a much sort of that sort of verity between some men that for standing with them in it once again but to me it was the start of you know a new generation of women used to raise and to be to go public and the me too movement. Finally make people make people able to say and to prevent harm and put on q four for example hosting a very prestigious ceremony or in cinema exactly what you mentioned obviously famous people need to speak up in france of course we also just saw the process the protest a very high profile women in film and black actresses also took advantage of the cannes Film Festival to stage a protest which was also widely reported. Do you think need to as we see it become more and more inclusive can be leveraged for more change in terms of women of color women and women of color being taken seriously in terms of as artists as creative agents is it helpful actually that to me to movement is attached to celebrities measure yes it means that there are some women who do work on the ground at the Grassroots Level and who are not a knowledge by you know the media and we really need to choose to say and to tell that its thanks to them that were here today and the need to movement can really inspire a very diverse type of womens shoes kind of. Tackle their very specific position i was being you know women whether they care whether theyre women of color or you know do you have a living women or other kind of womens im just wondering if their thoughts on why the time was right was so right now for this to just take off the way we had house yeah but before that i would like to say one thing because you mentioned that i was saying that more famous people should have the guts to speak up and i was actually saying the opposite we should pay more attention to regular people speaking up i think thats why there needs its very important unfortunately they seek without generalizing the sensational part of any story so an actor famous actor saying that this producer has asked me or great me is way more sellable than. A regular person a regular woman saying that while it happens every day to regular women and they do try to speak up but no one is listening so its very important for us to learn to listen and not just length give importance to those who are famous to the shiny part of any story because it also deprives it of its strength and of like so you know depth i mean of course they have suffered i mean all these actresses have suffered but in no way im going to be the bad woman saying that they also have waited all these years in order to speak up while it would have been a way better to many others just say you know what earlier meaning im not i dont want to blame the victim but i have to speak about a certain responsibility thank you very much for that comment thank our round of applause for that to me too obviously was all about speaking up and jumana very early on and long before me too as well you were breaking taboos and bringing the body and issues of womens sexuality into the conversation in the arab world not an easy task lets have a quick look at this. Shattering taboos in the arab world the art magazine just side celebrates the female body and female sexuality. Jumana her dad is founder of the provocative magazine and is demanding selfdetermination for women she says womens power lies in their femininity and eroticism in her books puts an end to the traditional arab image of women she says i killed. The malleable playmate and want emancipated combative women and angry reckoning with patriarchy revolutionary in the arab world. And the man. The silent submissive arab killing show heroes trying to create a new model what reactions did you get to the well obviously which was very much expected i had the haters and you know the threat nairs and i had the supporters i mean its because i mean these issues were not only for me about challenging my own society and what they have been telling me to be or say or do since my Early Childhood because this was i think depriving me of one of my most basic and sacred rights which is my freedom but it was also about challenging that the stereotypes and the wests you know and not all arab women are submissive or oppressed or very old or i didnt park my camel outside of it you know all these images and you do you think that its a joke but some people still think this way about arab women until now i mean this is unfortunately why you need to have a healthy kind of career yachts and and why the media is important its important to you for the media to not just seek the story of the woman who has been abused by her husband and has been stoned to death because poor veiled woman she was as she dared to love someone else but also the successful arab woman and there are lots of them out there lots of them its interesting looking back at just sad that one of the biggest scriber groups that you had was from saudi arabia obviously a country where big big changes have been happening for women and that was of course cause for great optimism in recent months the driving ban for women supposed to be lifted on the twenty fourth of this month and then very surprisingly in the past weeks really harsh crackdown on prominent saudi women this multiple arrests and the. Into an expanded troubling and contradicting situation we actually have a saudi viewer in our in our audience im coming back tomorrow but im going to go over to her and just introduce her for a second and a fact lets get you to stand up and get her round of applause. Arafat allegedly from saudi arabia id like to know what you what are your thoughts on these developments in saudi arabia and how hopeful are you for real change for women in that country because of the last. Months that havent answered our crown prince is supporting women now and we are so happy about that because if the last come from satie and a cultural change if its come from them to it will not have in saudi arabia im talking about my country because the system in my country working like this it is very difficult to make move from down to should he come from up to down on the other hand it looks like he thought things were going just a little too quickly with all the crackdowns and arrests of saudi women activists so what does that tell us obviously people within so i dont think it will stop anything it will continue the liberation the opening a little reaction and i think after a few days as a very clear action to prove to all the wall that the change and so do i but its real ok so obviously optimism on your part part out of that thank you very much for for actually tripping that. Id like to come back to you as you know. What are your thoughts on whats going on in saudi arabia and how hopeful are you i mean youre looking at the arab world. A different a different view on the arab world a different arab country in love with me im not hopeful at all about to know because we are witnessing the times where religious radicalism as on the rise its you know its like a graph its up and down and now its up and you cannot mix religion with governance and expect the things you cannot i mean this is a luxury that i cannot afford ive been disappointed too many times and the arab world and most arab countries are very far from this separation nowadays and i mean i do im im glad that finally a women in saudi arabia can that can be and the Twentieth Century theyre still not in two thousand and eighteen but im glad theyre at least able to to drive cars can you imagine that we are applauding a country just because it allows people something so absurd and there are a whole lot of women as as to drive a car why should we i mean they should have done this a long time ago i mean at least allow women to decide for themselves going to top it was a want to do how they when they want to travel how they want to lay it and i think that its very important that women owned their marriage too because what we can see in france for example is that there is a movement to force muslim women not to wear the hijab and i fink that was really next point ok and just ahead. The veil liberation or suppression what do you think and what to our International Guests say part two of the debate next week on arts twenty one the controversy about religion sexuality need to end the question whats next. As a woman you should be free to do whatever you want to do with your body if you want to wear hijab you should be free to wear it so even if you try whatever you can it is the men who are. What is your own price to haul me you and times up movement was generated by celebrity but theres been really millions of people empowered its a white woman led movement and black women are for rocking the fact that our women have disappeared from it to join us next week. On. A boat bringing humanity untruthfully aquarius sea rescue ship morning sons voice twenty sixteen. A dedicated crew helping lucy meet the new permanent mission. To do the same old battle come on his forehead mr bush recalled i was on the mentioned so what aquariums risking the moon times in fifteen. W. O. This is the governors come july from bud and lets go right to our correspondent news in central istanbul and we have our political correspondents here come studio along those stories in just a minute but first this news just getting some about the perspective closer to. A good. Coach a bit difficult. To link to news from africa the world or link to exceptional stories and discussions somebody has a visit i want website to debbie that comes to come join us on facebook j w for. The news almost immediately just not seeing the one single. Goal of the socalled change get sucked into this concept so i bought. A. Plane. People had put big dreams on the big screen. Playing the movie magazine on the w. Conservative eve on to k. As one colombias president ial election with nearly fifty four percent of the vote he pledged to build consensus and unite the country following a polarizing campaign against leftist challenger to start low paid zero samples to pay also promise to tackle corruption and modify a peace accord with leftist rebels without breaking it. An earthquake has struck the japanese city of osaka killing at least three people and injuring dozens the magnitude