The Westfield State community was recently honored as the site of the inaugural lecture of the Beverly Wettenstein Women’s History Lecture Series sponsored by the Women’s Media Center, a national non-profit organization organized to raise the visibility, viability, and decision-making power of women and girls in media. The event brought Dr. Cristina Azocar of San Francisco State University to campus to present “Pocahontas Chic: Damaging Media Representations of Indigenous Women”.

Doctor Cristina Azocar hosted the lecture, “Pocahontas Chic: Damaging Media Representations of Indigenous Women,” with the main message of how Native American women are represented in American media. 22News stopped by to speak with Azocar about what she wants the public to retain from the presentation.

“I want them to understand that the women’s media center has a lot of resources for women to ensure that we do have representation and that the students should also be looking beyond headlines, beyond the traditional media coverage, and looking at other sources,” said Doctor Cristina Azocar, Professor of Journalism, San Francisco University.

Today, the Women’s Media Center tracks gender and race representation in print, broadcast, and online, in biannual-ish reports it began issuing in 2013.

One hundred and fifteen years after the protests that would become the first International Women’s Day, women around the globe are still fighting for equal pay, the right to make decisions about their bodies and the ability to be treated as full and equal citizens.

Billie Jean King is a pioneer for gender equity, winning the landmark “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match in 1973 and devoting the next 50 years to fighting for equal pay for women. Gloria Steinem founded Ms. magazine, the National Women’s Political Caucus and the Women’s Media Center and is one of the most prominent feminist leaders of the 21st century.

Less than 13% of all guest appearances on the most influential Sunday morning shows in 2020 were women of color, according to a review by the Women’s Media Center.

68% of all guest appearances on the shows reviewed were men, 53% were white men, according to the Women Media Center.

The Oscars have a long way to go when it comes to recognizing non-male, non-white talent. So says a new study conducted by the Women’s Media Center, a nonprofit working to improve representation for women and minorities in film, TV and more. The effort analyzed 17 years of Academy Awards nominations – and found that women received just 22% of all non-acting nods.