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| ISSUE WATCH |
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Charity fund-raisers becoming a must for fashion industry
From Naomi Campbell donating "every single
penny" of her New York Fashion Week earnings,
estimated at $100,000, to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and hosting a charity fashion show for the cause, to Linda Evangelista presenting a £100,000 check to an Indian AIDS charity on behalf of M.A.C.
Cosmetics and London fashion designers, it seems that fashion weeks are not complete these days without the
rattle of a donation box.
Two top British models, Jade Parfitt and Jasmine Guinness, with their friend Zita Lloyd founded the charity Clothesline to help Africans affected by AIDS. They hosted their third fund-raiser, an
auction of more than 70 prints donated by the likes of David Bailey, the photographer Rankin, Stephen Meisel
and Juergen Teller, and raised more than
$90,000. Read Story


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| NONPROFIT WATCH |
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Investing in Women Campaign The Investing in Women Campaign is a groundbreaking
effort to respond to the urgent challenges confronting women worldwide. This $20 million campaign has two complementary board-designated funds: the Now or Never Fund for immediate action and the first-ever Legacy Fund for the world's women.

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| POP CULTURE QUIZ |
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1. Which singer had “acid reflex” while performing the song “Pieces of Me”?

a. Ashlee Simpson
b. Lindsay Lohan
c. Full house
d. Hilary Duff


2. Which flick of 2024 bombed in the box office starring Nicholas Cage?

a. National Velvet
b. National Gold
c. National Bucks
d. National Treasure

3. Daniel Russo, "The Karate Kid," dressed up as this for the Halloween school dance:

a. The Invisible Man
b. A shower
c. A skeleton
d. A tea bag

4. This "Facts of Life" character was from the Bronx, NY:

a. Jo
b. Natalie
c. Blair
d. Tootie

Answers to Pop Quiz below.

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| ETCETERA |
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Boxed In: Women On Screen and Behind the Scenes in the 2024 -
2024 Prime-time Season Women comprised 25% of all creators, executive
producers, producers,
directors, writers, editors, and directors of photography working on situation comedies, dramas, and unscripted programs airing on
the broadcast networks
during the 2004-05 season.

In the 2024-04 prime-time season, women comprised 23%
of all creators, executive producers, producers, directors, dramas airing on the broadcast networks. This percentage has remained virtually unchanged for
the last six seasons. The percentage of women writers reached a recent historical high of 31% while women editors plummeted to a recent historical low of 10%.

>>>>ABSOLUTLY INTRIGUING OR ABSOLUTELY SUBLIMINAL?

At a recent Voices of Hope workshop on Women in the Media, participants were asked to choose a few print ads that they felt were interesting or that affected them in some way.  The ads were taken from a number of diverse magazines including, but not limited to: Vogue, National Geographic, Women’s Wear Daily, Food and Wine and others. One participant chose an Absolute ad that read ‘Absolut Yoga.’ Most of us are familiar with the two decade old Absolut Advertising campaign. When asked why she chose this ad, the participant said she found the ad to be clever, as was the campaign in general, but mainly the ad gave a sense of peace and relaxation and she was able to relate to that message. The dialogue that ensued from critiquing of the ad was quite interesting. It’s true that the Absolut campaign is creative, conceptual, clever, and consistent; generally qualities that make an effective and memorable ad campaign, but more importantly— generate sales for the corporation.

However, once the ‘Absolut Yoga’ ad was isolated and analyzed individually, we wondered how its message was associated with yoga. For the group, yoga represented health, relaxation, inner peace, even spiritual connection. Is the ad’s message suggesting that buying and drinking vodka will make us healthier, relaxed and more spiritually connected? How might a parent whose child died as a direct result of a drunk driver view or perceive this ad?

In our fast-paced society, advertisers, broadcasters, networks—the media in general— count on consumers to just ‘graze’ the surface of a message. By taking only a few moments to think critically about whether vodka actually delivers a healthy, peaceful choice, one recognizes that when put in the context of alcohol, the message clearly lacks corporate social responsibility.
 
As a nation rife with consumers, we owe it to ourselves to at least briefly take the time to analyze media messages that we are constantly being barraged with. Only when we begin to discuss our thoughts about these messages with friends, family and colleagues, will we be on our way to becoming educated consumers of products and media. Absolut Gallery
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>>>>ON MEDIA >>>> 5 VOICES

Book: The Lovely Bones: Alice Sebold's haunting and heartbreaking debut novel, The Lovely Bones, unfolds from heaven, where "life is a perpetual yesterday" and where Susie narrates and keeps watch over her grieving family and friends, as well as her brazen killer and the sad detective working on her case. As Sebold fashions it, everyone has his or her own version of heaven. Susie's resembles the athletic fields and landscape of a suburban high school: a heaven of her "simplest dreams," where "there were no teachers.... We never had to go inside except for art class.... The boys did not pinch our backsides or tell us we smelled; our textbooks were Seventeen and Glamour and Vogue." Watch for screen adaptation coming in 2024.

Website: WomensMedia.com - Women’s Media is the leading site providing in-depth information for working women interested in advancing in the workplace.They promote a positive attitude in women, a respect for women’s talents, and a way out of the cycle of seeing women as victims. With the same positive attitude, they see men - with gender awareness - as our allies, helping remove obstacles to women in business. They also give back to society through their foundation, Computers Are For Girls.

Audio: National Radio Project - The Women’s Desk produces programming that explores the issues and perspectives of women with a particular focus on the intersections of gender, race, class and sexuality. Major topic areas include: Reproductive Rights/Justice, Domestic Violence, Equal Rights, Healthcare, Housing, Poverty, Public Education, Racism, Sex Trafficking, International Gender Issues, Labor, Lesbian Rights, Human Rights, Welfare, Women in Prisons, Women Peacemakers.

TV: Commander in Chief (Airs Tuesday 9.00 p.m. EST ABC, check your local listings) For the first time in American history, there will be a female president. Commander-In-Chief is a political drama surrounding the nation's first female president. This series will examine not only the shock of a first woman president, but the issues she will face. Not only will she take charge of a grieving nation, but also the care of her own household.

Magazine: Women in the Arts - Women in the Arts is the only magazine in the United States dedicated exclusively to covering the achievements of women in the visual arts as well as in music, theater, film, and literature. Its editorial range is broad, its topics lively and engaging, and its voice aimed at the general public. The magazine is free to members of the National Museum of women in the Arts

WIDENING THE DEFINITION OF BEAUTY Unilever's 'Campaign for Real Beauty' was launched over a a year ago and has been highly successful in creating an awareness about its Dove beauty products. The campaign has literally created a media culture of real beauty on their website. There's a book club, interviews with real women, a million faces photo album with over 3700 faces in the gallery and every photo collected supports a donation to the Dove, teen Self-Esteem Fund. In the spring of this year the Dove Real Beauty Photo exhibit was launched and toured the US in collaboration with nationally recognized women photographers. Another event was a contest for teen girls to offer their ideas of beauty which recieved over 1000 essay entries. Their million faces of beauty section on the website includes women of all ages, with their quote about beauty and a screen name. At a quick glance it feels as if you are on a dating web site. Real Women have Real Curves. Dove's memorable campaign includes a teen Self -Esteem Fund, book club, teen essay contest, touring photo gallery and online photo album of real women. Is the campaign selling more product? Certainly Dove has created quite a 'buzz' with the campaign and the use of traditional and viral marketing. But we got to wondering—How has it translated to sales? It all started with a study of 3200 women that Unilever conducted with Harvard University and London's School of Economics to learn how women in 10 countries viewed beauty. The strategy for the campaign was to challenge society's definition of beauty. Apparently after the first phase of the campaign, sales of the products featured in the billboard advertising increased by 600 percent. Some critics say the motivation to buy beauty products is the promise of transformation, but Unilever executives explain that they want to encourage women to take better care of themselves. Clearly the campaign rises above the advertising clutter, and appears to be performing well in sales. Unilever is banking on their strategic marketing plan, solid corporate social responsibilty, fresh branding and word-of-mouth to keep their major product line healthy for years to come. We are likely to see more of this strategy from other personal product companies in the future.

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>>>> SAUDI WOMEN RESENT MEDIA DISTORTION
US media are being disingenuous in portraying Arab women as unhappy and wronged, a close aide to President George W Bush on a PR visit to Saudi Arabia has been told. And it has come from the horse's mouth. "We are happy. We want to show that image (but) the general image of the Arab woman in the American media is that she is not happy," a female student at Jeddah's private Dar al-Hekma University said during
an encounter with US Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes, drawing thunderous applause from colleagues. <<Read Article>>

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>>>> CZECH EXHIBIT SHOWS ADS THAT DEGRADE WOMEN | Dinah A. Spritzer, Source: PRAGUE, Czech Republic (WOMENSENEWS) | Prague is hosting a photography exhibit that documents the sexually degrading ads that pervade the city. Women's rights activists say it's a chance to talk about a subject that receives little critical attention in the former Soviet bloc. A woman's cut-off torso, bound in leather, towers 50 feet above a heavily trafficked city street here. For the thousands of people who pass the billboard of the giant, enslaved torso each day, her enormous and exposed cleavage blocks the view of the sky. <<Read Article>>

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