by Lynette Long, Ph.D., President of EVE
July 5, 2010 · No Comments »
I’ve created a PowerPoint presentation that helps me talk about EVE. I’m personally not a big fan of PowerPoint since I feel in a dark room it’s hard to connect with the audience, but EVE is about visibility. Women’s lack of visibility is best seen, not just talked about, so I show slides of our nation’s statues, stamps, monuments, memorials, and currency. The constant barrage of male images is overwhelming. If one picture speaks a thousand words, than the series of pictures speaks a million words. The pictures are augmented with statistics that bring the point home. WOMEN ARE INVISIBLE.
The reactions to the presentation are strong. A couple of weeks ago I gave the presentation to Ignite DC, to a group of over 400 people, and I set the room abuzz. Actually, women’s invisibility set the room abuzz. I’ve spoken to a variety of groups, including women’s groups, and the result even among the informed when they see everything put together is SHOCK. Most people didn’t see what wasn’t in front of them. It’s easy to see what’s there, it’s harder to see what’s not there. Sure, everyone realized women aren’t on the paper currency, but many people are under the misconception that you have to be a president to be on the currency. Not true. The power of the presentation, in fact the power of EVE, is that it gathers data–hard facts–about our invisibility in a variety of arenas and puts it together in one place. People had seen the individual trees but missed the forest. EVE takes a fifty-thousand-foot view and says, “Look, we are nowhere.” I’ve worked too hard to be nowhere.
EVE isn’t a story to tell, it’s a story to see. Once you see it, you won’t forget it, since it impacts each and every one of us in subtle and not so subtle ways. EVE is about history, but it’s also about the future. It’s about leaving our children and grandchildren a world in which women aren’t invisible, tokenized, or marginalized. EVE is about symbols, and symbols are important, since they tell our nation’s history and communicate to all citizens who we value and don’t value as a culture.
