Q&A with Amy Sewell on "What's Your Point, Honey?"

Amy Sewell, the creator, writer, and co-producer of the award-winning 2005 documentary, “Mad Hot Ballroom,” has completed her second movie, "What's Your Point, Honey?" Through the stories of three groups of girls and women, it explores when women will become equally represented among candidates for U.S. president. A portion of the movie's DVD profits will support the Ms. Foundation for Women (purchase online). [Update: the video can also be rented or purchased digitally from Amazon.com. Download it today.]

In a recent telephone conversation with Amy Sewell we learned more about the film and its genesis -- namely, her concern for her daughters' future and an interest in the impact of feminism on emerging young women leaders.

Why did you make this film?

Amy Sewell: It started before we ever shot anything for "Mad Hot Ballroom." I was putting my six-year-old twin daughters to bed and one of them told me that girls couldn't ride motorcyles. I asked her why, and she said it was because she had never seen it before. It dawned on me that there may be many other things my young daughters do not see and therefore think impossible. After "Mad Hot" was done that insight returned and I started thinking about doing a documentary about feminism. I didn't quite know how to put it together because to me the topic seemed so big and vague.

Shortly after that I met Susan Toffler and she also wanted to make a documentary on feminism. She had been in the commercial production business for fifteen years and after she left to have a child she felt she had become invisible, and had ceased to exist in that world.

As we explored what and how to tell a story, we realized we wanted to look ahead, to explore the future of feminism. The only way to do that is to listen to the voices of future generations. So we decided to go after three age groups: tweens, teens, and twenty-year-olds. We found roles for each of the groups and got lucky finding the twenty-year-olds because they were interns in the 2024 Program co-sponsored by the White House Project and Cosmo Girl magazine.

The film tells its story through their voices and shows us where we're headed. We think it worked out magically. The tweens played the role of three little Michael Moores, asking boys their age and people of all ages on the streets of New York questions about the possibility of woman president. The teens show us something about the realities young women face in a society where the commercial culture bombards you with sexualized images. The seven twenty-something women are the focus of the movie, and they provide us with a compelling view of the promise of young women to be the leaders of tomorrow.

The key in the movie is that the goal is not one candidate who is a woman running for U.S. President, but a slate of women running. Then we will, as Marie Wilson notes in the film, "get beyond gender to agenda."

Can you explain the title?

We borrowed it from a Jim Borgman cartoon from January 2007. One of our investors sent it to us, and we saw it and laughed immediately. Documentary film titles have to attract attention and make people wonder. In this movie we wanted to wake people up. We wanted a title that was not sappy, nor angry, sarcastic, or erotic. We wanted to keep people guessing.

We tried many other titles, but nothing seemed to stick like this one. (As we made the film we found ourselves joking about it, turning to each other and asking "What's your point, honey?" The result is that the sting of the message is blunted.) Finally, we're pleased that the result of seeing the film is enthusiasm about seven young women who might become political leaders in the future and the knowledge that if it's not one of them, there are many others out there preparing as well.


What have you learned from the screenings?

We have shown the film in locations around the country, and will be in San Francisco, Columbus, and Asheville, North Carolina, then back in New York City in October. We have sold out in almost every city, and it's been very well received in the press.

I think that many young women do not realize how far we still have to go. They grew up with their mothers working and they are told they have any opportunity out there. They don't see that women still are paid 77 cents to the dollar earned by men, and that the discrepancy is larger for women of color.

One of the responses we have been getting from younger audiences is usually a big “wow." We knew that we did not have a solution to the challenges facing women, but hoped that we could start a conversation between fathers and daughters, mothers and sons. We wanted also to mark a moment in time when the political participation of women is still much too low for our representation in the population.

How should someone use the DVD?

Our goal is for someone to buy a copy, and walk up to their local theater and ask "can we show us and bring a group in?" or to assemble in someone's living room and invite thirty friends over and watch the movie together. They can use the viewer's guide, which comes with the DVD -- though I guarantee they won't need it -- to discuss the issues the film raises. You can also watch it at home with a loved one or a friend.


How did you select the organizations supported by DVD sales?

When we made this movie, we realized it was very American, and some of us are very fortunate in this country. When we went out to find the three groups to "pay it forward with," we selected the White House Project, because it is bipartisan, and we want to get all women more involved in the positions of political power; we went to Girls, Inc. to help build the pipeline with their 98 chapters across the country. Finally, I knew I was not doing enough for women who are less fortunate, and I knew that other women are feeling that way, too. So we chose the Ms. Foundation. And if we can get every woman in the country to buy a DVD, and get a few dollars from each one to the Ms. Foundation, wouldn't that be great? The Foundation is going to take those funds to the grassroots groups where women face the intersection of race, class, and gender, and are building change that affects women and their families.


Do you think we will see a roster of women running for president in 2024?

I hope so, though it’s likely it will take that long to see a critical mass of women running for president.

Many young women today don't realize that the personal is political -- it's the sidewalk you walk on, it's your library, it's your firehouse, it's something going on in the community -- and most women are already geared to run for political office, whether it's at the local, state or federal level. I don't think they understand they have so much to offer politics, and so much to bring to the table. The seven twenty-something young women in the film act as role models -- they are doing work in public service -- and that is what a politician does.

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The DVD of “What’s Your Point, Honey” has just become available for sale. Amy Sewell and Susan Toffler, the co-writers, co-directors, and co-producers of the film are sharing 30% of the DVD profits with the Ms. Foundation for Women, the White House Project, and Girls, Inc. The DVD can be purchased online.

Image: detail from Jim Boardman cartoon.

Chicken Soup for Whom?

NPR’s July 28^th Morning Edition tackled a real concern plaguing many of America’s workers: sick leave.

What it left out, however, was a discussion of how this issue disproportionately impacts women, who have always shouldered more of the responsibility nursing sick children and relatives back to health. Moreover, taking sick leave is especially challenging for low-income women, who are already confronting a number of other barriers to their economic stability and work-place flexibility.

Focusing on workers in two swing states, the poll (conducted by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Harvard School for Public Health) found that 44 percent of employees in Ohio and 50 percent of employees in Florida had gone to work sometime in the last year when they felt that should stay at home due to financial concerns.

Robert Blendon, of the Harvard School for Public Health, identified two main reasons why people are going to work when they are ill:

• They have no access to paid sick leave.
  

• They feel pressure from their employer to go to work, regardless of their health.

According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, 40 percent of women in America have no access to paid sick leave; another 13 percent of women cannot use sick leave to take care of an ailing child or family member. In other words, over half of working women must choose between serving chicken soup to a coughing child or bringing home the paycheck that pays for that chicken soup. Given that many women have limited access to health care, that financial strain adds another layer of expense and difficulty.

For women living in poverty—who are disproportionately women of color and single mothers—the situation is bleaker. Three out of every four of these women sacrifices a day of pay for their own or a family member’s health.

Some cities and states have proposed legislation to guarantee paid sick leave to workers, but a piecemeal approach will not protect workplace safety and alleviate employee anxiety at the pace that our struggling economy demands.

A comprehensive, national response—like that proposed by Senator Ted Kennedy and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the Healthy Families Act—would have a uniquely positive impact on economic stability and job security of low-income women, single-mothers, and women of color and their families. A Ms. Foundation grantee partner and proponent of the bill, the MultiState Working Families Consortium, recently published this report discussing the need for family-friendly legislation.

As we at the Ms. Foundation have seen time and again, addressing the needs and prioritizing the solutions of low-income women and women of color lays the foundation for policy improvements that benefit workers and communities across the board.

Sara Gould Calls for Policy Reform for Women, Families in NYT Letter to the Editor

In a letter to the editor in today's New York Times, Ms. Foundation President and CEO Sara K. Gould responds to last week's article, "Women Are Now Equal as Victims of Poor Economy."

After years of increasing participation in the work force, women, you report, have reached a much less desirable milestone: a fall in the percentage who are working. But contrary to the suggestion that women are now on par with men because they're leaving the work force at similar rates, we know that women have always lagged well behind in good times and bad.

This is especially true for low-income women and women of color who face multiple barriers to economic security: race, gender and class.

Today, despite decades of struggle for job access and pay equity, women are paid 77 cents for each dollar a man makes; the disparity is worse for African-American women, who earn 62 cents, and Latinas, who earn 53 cents.

Nearly 10.5 million women are single parents (as compared with 2.5 million single fathers). For them, opting out for any reason — like motherhood or education — is not viable.

Already disadvantaged by years of workplace and legislative failures, women and their families face an increasingly insecure future if policies are not adjusted to meet their ever more pressing needs.

Simply put, while women's decline in workforce participation may be new, women's economic insecurity is not--in good economic times or bad, as the letter above says. So, with the economic crisis worsening day by day, let's call on our policymakers to rely on the solutions and leadership of those experiencing the crisis most acutely: low-income women and women of color. Given the spiraling state of affairs, they can't afford not to listen.

Southern 'Crisis' in HIV/AIDS Highlights Urgent Need for Change

An MSNBC article [Report warns of AIDS ‘crisis’ across South] on a manifesto by the Southern AIDS Coalition is a vivid example of what happens in communities nationwide when the relationships among socioeconomic factors and HIV/AIDS incidence are not taken into account.

This is just further justification for a policy demand currently being crafted by the National Women and AIDS Collective (NWAC) . NWAC, housed at the Ms. Foundation, and led by our Women and AIDS Fund grantees, is calling on the CDC to collect data about factors such as incarceration rates, domestic violence, or access to affordable housing as a part of its routine HIV surveillance--a data collection process by which health-care providers and state and local health departments report new HIV cases nationwide. Without more comprehensive data about issues known to elevate ones risk of HIV infection, prevention and intervention programs won't be adequately designed or funded to stop the spread of the virus. And people who live in poorly resourced places--whether it's the South or South Central, LA--and are denied sufficient access to health care, jobs, transportation, and housing, will continue to experience higher rates of HIV/AIDS.

Image from: Southern States Manifesto: Update 2008 / HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases in the South July 21, 2008 [pdf]

Minimum Wage Woes

On Thursday, 24 July 2008, the federal minimum wage will be increased to $6.55. Holly Sklar (a co-author with Susan Wefald of the Ms. Foundation of Raise the Floor) in her latest op-ed piece [Minimum Wage Raise Too Little, Too Late] shows how little this increase provides and calls for change. She notes that since 1973 the wage has gone down while productivity has risen, and that eight of the ten top-rated states for small business have had minimum wage levels above the federal rate.

The July 24 minimum wage raise is so little, so late that workers will still make less than they did in 1997, adjusting for the increased cost of living, and way less than in 1968.

She notes that since 1968, when its value in 2008 dollars hit its peak, the minimum has been worth less over time.

Sklar shares the effort of Let Justice Roll, a national faith, community, labor and business coalition, which is calling for a minimum wage of $10 in 2010. She notes:

Minimum wage raises are stimulus for an economy tanking from a housing bubble gone bust, sharply higher oil prices, extreme inequality, unsustainable debt, and fraud and speculation crowding out productive investment.

Higher wages benefit business by increasing consumer purchasing power, reducing costly employee turnover, raising productivity, and improving product quality and company reputation. They reinforce long-term success.

Read Sklar's full article and see the Ms. Foundation's Raise the Floor Project for more on how a higher minimum wage is necessary, but not sufficient for eliminating poverty. Policies are required to fill the gap between income and the cost of minimum needs, with particular focus on the earned income tax credit, health care, caregiving and housing policies.

Women's Interest = Nation's Interest

In an Alternet posting [Rigidly Male-Dominated Societies Are Violent; The U.S. Is No Different] of an opinion piece by Riane Eisler originally published by The WIP, the author raises the point we shared in our recent posting [Women's Solutions, National Solutions]: in meeting women's needs we improve economic security for all our nation’s people, women and men alike.

Eisler writes:

This relegation of "women's issues" to a secondary place is obviously terrible for half of America (actually the majority, since women are 52 percent). But it's also terrible for the political and family health of our entire nation.

While calling for progressives to make women's issues integral to their agenda, she notes:

The equal valuing of the two halves of humanity -- women and men -- will obviously vastly improve girls' and women's quality of life. But it's also essential if we are to move to a more democratic, peaceful, and sustainable future for us all.

The Alternet posting has an active comment list. Join it, or start the conversation here with your comment.

Women's Solutions, National Solutions

In a campaign season where the concept of “women”—as candidates and as voters—has generated a great deal of rhetoric, but not very much in the way of substantive policy, Barack Obama’s announcement of a set of policy priorities [pdf] targeting the needs of America’s working women was a welcome, albeit long-over-due change. We hope this announcement marks a turning point in the campaign, and that both candidates will hold themselves accountable to the millions of women—especially low-income women and women of color—who are bearing the brunt of the current economic crisis.

As Obama implied on The Today Show, women across America are finding themselves disproportionately affected by the uncertain economic environment. Women still are paid only 77 cents for every dollar a man earns (the disparity is worse for African American women, who earn 62 cents, and even worse for Latinas, making 53 cents for every man’s dollar) which puts them at a disadvantage even in a good economy. Moreover, women comprise the majority (59%) of the nation’s minimum wage earners, while simultaneously bearing greater responsibility for child-rearing (10.4 million women are single parents, compared to 2.5 million single-fathers according to the latest US Census). Also the majority of minimum and low-wage jobs do not guarantee affordable health care or even paid sick leave, and the result is that many working women must make a choice between their own health and putting food on the table for their families. The soaring cost of child-care further erodes working women’s chances at establishing any sense of economic security.

The sub-prime mortgage crisis rippling across the nation has also hit women harder: 32 percent of women hold subprime mortgages compared with 24 percent of men, a disparity accounted for by women’s historically lower wealth and income. The repercussions are even worse for African American and Latino homeowners who were 30 percent more likely to have received sub-prime loans. Furthermore, as the real estate market employs significantly more women (142,000) than men (42,000), the industry-wide downturn means that more women’s jobs are at risk.

Our grantee partners across the country, many of whom are low-income women and women of color, know personally the effects of economic injustice, made more acute by the current economic downturn. Based on their lived experience, they have vital recommendations for policy change. Being attentive to the struggles of low-income and middle-income women is a first step; truly incorporating working women’s diverse perspectives in policy development, however, is the only way to guarantee the practical, sustainable solutions our nation needs.

Most importantly, we must realize that meeting women’s needs—via affordable health care, accessible child care, paid sick leave, a living wage, etc.—will result in an improved chance at economic security for all our nation’s people, women and men alike.