Constellations for the Future Curating Consent Through Media

welcome

to the future

my name is emily morehouse i’m

organizing for a future without sexual

[Music]

violence

of my old teachers used to tell his

students

something i now like to tell mine a lot

of you

are smarter than me as students we would

always laugh because we weren’t used to

hearing this

we were used to things like stand up

straight take your hat off

spit your gum out but our teacher always

reminded us

that we all had incredible potential and

that what we do

has an impact in the world even if we

don’t realize it yet

we’re seeing this come true today youth

around the globe

are amazing us in their political

mobilization and a lot of their work

is done through social media locally

we’ve seen things like we the students

do not consent

and the march for education where

students are standing up to governments

globally we’ve seen the fridays for

future hashtags

and climate strikes organized by young

people like autumn peltier who’s a water

protector

and greta thumb burke this is all very

exciting to me

both as a human living in a politically

charged moment

but also as a researcher who studies

creative media

and sexual violence prevention now you

might be thinking

what are the connections between these

two things

we all know that sexual violence is a

global problem

we also know that the media regularly

reproduces violence and oppresses

stereotypes

what we know less about is how to

actually prevent sexual violence in our

own communities

what kind of programs and tools will

work and where

because not all programs are

transferable around the globe

more importantly when they’re not

working we have to ask

why a big part of answering this

question

is relatability a lot of the public

school education programs around sex

consent and relationships

aren’t relatable take my health class

for example

my health teacher walked up to the front

of the room she pulled out a condom

and she looked at us and she said don’t

trust

anyone that says that they won’t wear

one of these because it doesn’t fit

she then proceeded to open it and shove

her entire forearm into the condom and

held it up

and was like see it fits

you can laugh it’s okay it was awkward

then and it’s kind of awkward now

but beyond all the giggles that we had

it got me thinking

wasn’t something else missing from this

conversation

what about all of those moments that

lead up to before you actually want to

have sex

i want to be with a partner that would

lie to me

how would i know what good qualities to

look for in a partner how would i know

that i’m being a good partner how do i

know what to say

if we’re not having these conversations

in school where are we supposed to learn

about these things from

as a researcher i can tell you that

young people living in north america

today

regularly cite mass media and pop

culture as the main places they learn

about sex

relationships and consent we definitely

learn things from our family we know

this from psychology

and we learn things in schools i never

forgot that lesson

but let’s do a quick poll here in the

room where do you think you actually

learned better

did you learn more in school or did you

learn more in the media in pop culture

maybe your favorite tv shows

music videos so hands up for me who

thinks they actually learn more from

media

okay so as a researcher this is

interesting to me for three reasons

the first is that most of the media

messages you receive are inaccurate

they’re unhealthy or they’re reproducing

those violent stereotypes we’re critical

of in other situations

the second interesting thing comes from

media psychology

media psychologists have actually found

that creativity doing something creative

can get us to change our attitudes and

behaviors but violence prevention

and consent programs don’t often have a

creativity component this is an

underdeveloped area of work

the third interesting thing is the

political moment that we’re living in

we’re living in the era of the metoo

movement so as many of you may know it

was founded by the grassroots activist

tarana burke

and i had a lot of people getting really

brave they came online and they shared

the hashtag me too

and they talked about a story of sexual

violence

so what this did was it obviously mapped

the larger problem for us

but it did something else it also

connected us

it let frontline workers and survivors

know that we’re not alone

when people ask me how i feel about the

metoo movement or they ask me about my

anti-violence work

a lot of people tell me that they’re

overwhelmed

i hear things like emily i’m overwhelmed

i don’t know what to do

i don’t know what to say so i’m not

going to do anything

when i push people and tell them that we

all have a responsibility we all have

something to contribute to this movement

sometimes people ask me a problem at a

question they ask me whether i’m

passionate about this because of my

story

i’m not here to talk about that story

i’m here to talk about solutions

i believe that the solutions involve

young people in the movement and they

involve using media

together with young people we can make

media

star maps constellations to guide us

into a brighter future

free from sexual and gender-based

violence we can literally make our own

media

and map what the brighter future is

going to look like

what’s going to sound like and what it’s

going to feel like

so you might say it’s just a fancy

metaphor but i’m actually testing this

in my ongoing doctoral work

i explore whether media literacy

approaches can enhance the way that

young people learn about sex

consent and relationships so what is

media literacy

media literacy is an approach that

teaches critical analysis of media

messages

rather than just assuming that what

we’re consuming is true

we learn to analyze the connections to

things like profit

power privilege and stereotypes

so beyond using media to actually

analyze the world around us

we actually try to make our own media

this is really empowering

how many of you in here feel represented

by hollywood

i don’t i don’t see everyday people that

look like the people in this room

when i see media i want to see my

families represented my communities i

want to see people that look like people

in scarborough

immigrant families queer families we

want to see indigenous love people with

disabilities in love a diversity of

representations

and we can do this when we make our own

media

so you might say okay media is cool what

does this have to do with violence

prevention

as a researcher i know that the media

literacy approaches

align with best practices and violence

prevention programs

this is because we take what’s called an

ecological approach

this is just a fancy way for saying we

target the problems at multiple levels

so we can look at individual problems

problems within ourselves

relationship problems and those dynamics

that aren’t working

but most importantly we analyze

structural violence things that actually

upholds violence

and justified in our society in the

canadian context

we have to talk about colonization we

have to talk about the historical

and ongoing colonization things like

residential schools

churches and religious organizations

hiding perpetrators of violence

institutional violence and this happens

everywhere from harvey weinstein in

hollywood

to right here in academia and it needs

to stop

the way that we’re going to do this is

we’re going to educate young people

we’re going to involve them in our

movement we’ll be introducing them

to media literacy and teaching them

consent at a young age

this is how we change culture this is

how we build consent into the very

fabric of a culture

so what do i mean when i say consent

the folks of planned parenthood have

come up with a really great acronym to

teach young people the basics

which is fries everybody loves fries

you’re smiling

consent must first be f freely given

so there’s no pressure or threat i

wouldn’t for example say

i’m going to leave you if you don’t have

sex with me i’m going to tell everyone

all these bad things about you

that’s not being in a good relationship

consent is also reversible or revocable

you can stop what you’re doing at any

time it doesn’t matter who started what

consent also needs to be i informed you

need to know what you’re doing you’re

conscious you’re not drunk you’re not

high

you know what’s going on consent is also

e-enthusiastic

so this is communicated both verbally

and non-verbally it’s not just the yes

coming out of your mouth it’s the body

language are you and your partner both

wanting to engage in what you’re doing

so if somebody says yes and they’re

crying your partner’s probably not okay

and you should check in

if somebody is saying okay but awkwardly

moving away from you

that’s not consensual consent also needs

to be

s specific so you know what you’re

agreeing to

for example if somebody agrees to go on

a date with you

it doesn’t necessarily mean they want to

have sex with you doesn’t mean it’s not

going to happen

but checking in and communicating and

negotiating what those wants are is

really important

for young people the netflix and chill

moments

agreeing to go over and watch a netflix

movie is not the same thing as hot as

consenting to sex and i’m glad that

you’re smiling because it means you know

what i’m talking about

so to teach all of this i developed a

program for young learners in toronto

to teach them about consent and media so

we’ll start the discussion with peer-led

definitions asking people what does

consent mean to you what does that look

like

getting young people to lead the

discussion is a practice of consent in

itself

consent consensus core is about

communication and negotiation to come to

a shared understanding

it also brings the lesson back to what i

had mentioned earlier

young people are really smart some of

them don’t need a teacher to stand up

with awkward examples and give them a

textbook-based lesson

they can actually lead discussions and

co-teach their peers

because media is a relevant way that we

learn about relationships

we’ll be introducing youth to media

literacy

they’ll be analyzing messages with those

pop culture examples

this gives them positive models to look

up to we can look to our favorite

characters and say okay

that was a little shady i wouldn’t want

to do that or we can say

i want to strive for those relationships

those those models that i love so much

i hear a lot of i want to strive for the

ross and rachel or i want to be beth and

randall on this is us

we can also see what we wouldn’t want

ourselves or our friends to do

i wouldn’t want to be justin in 13

reasons why because i know what happens

with bryce and hannah

so following all the analysis of what’s

working and not youth actually get to

create their own

media productions we get to tell stories

in a way that matters to us most

and this is really empowering because we

get the diversity of representations

that we need

how many of you in here are media makers

put your hands up for me do you make

youtubes blogs radios podcasts

to engage in social media i know you

love tick tock which is also a form of

social media

the point is you are already using media

and this topic affects all of us

relationships we all have relationships

we all want to be in better

relationships

so getting youth to start thinking about

these things young

is how we build a sustainable movement

what kind of models do we want moving

forward

reflect together are these things that

we want to be looking up to

when i reflect on the theme of the

conference 2020 vision

i think about what i want our future to

look like i think about what young

people would want our future to look

like and actually spending time to map

this

through media is really powerful

young people find media to be so

powerful because it literally lets us

move our vision

into action it also connects us across

borders we can start local in our

communities supporting programs like

this

but we can also expand out to connect

across borders

to create a better future this is what

gives me hope in our young people

and this is what gives me hope doing

heavy anti-violence work

thank you

you