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