Women's Studies

Films

Anonymously Yours This extraordinary documentary on sex-trafficking in Southeast Asia interweaves four young women's stories to reveal an institution that enslaves as many as 40 million women worldwide.

Between Light and Shadow: Maya Women in Transition This vibrant, wide-ranging documentary examines the impact on contemporary Maya culture of changes in the lives and expectations of Maya women in Guatemala.

Beyond Our Boundaries This engaging documentary explores a wide array of issues faced by international and American students when developing working relationships and friendships with one another. It serves as an excellent discussion-starter on interchanges between students of varying nationalities and ethnicities, as well as a thought-provoking illustration of how intercultural contacts help break down cultural stereotypes and ethnocentrism.

Beyond the Politics of Life and Choice: A New Conversation About Abortion This timely and exceptionally thought-provoking documentary moves the divisive and highly emotional debate over abortion away from politicized battle lines and into a compassionate and sensitive space, where people with opposing views can better understand the deep concerns of one another.

Body Image: The Quest for Perfection In this candid and thought-provoking video, seven diverse college-age women share their feelings about their bodies during a three-day retreat. They explore some of the complex sources of their feelings and examine images of women's bodies in the mass media.

Dance With the Wodaabes This widely acclaimed and visually stunning ethnographic documentary explores, from the point of view of its participants, the complex cultural significance of one of Africa's most spectacular but frequently misunderstood and sensationalized ritual celebrations.

Daughters of Ixchel: Maya Thread of Change This illuminating documentary explores the lives of Maya women today, portrays their ancient weaving processes, and examines the economic, political, and cultural forces that are profoundly affecting the women and their weaving.

Discovering Dominga This unforgettably dramatic and powerful documentary relates the extraordinary story of a young Iowa housewife who discovers she is a survivor of one of the most horrific massacres in Guatemalan history, committed in 1982 against Maya Indian villagers. The film follows her remarkable journey of transformation and discovery as she returns to Guatemala in search of her heritage and ultimately joins efforts to bring the perpetrators of the massacre to justice.

Gender and Communication: Male-Female Differences in Language and Nonverbal Behavior This provocative and richly discussible video explores the impact that gender has on both verbal messages as well as the nonverbal channels of communication such as vocal paralanguage, haptics, kinesics, proxemics and other "unwritten" languages.

Gender and Relationships: Male-Female Differences in Love and Marriage This often humorous, often poignant, and always profound video explores the differences in the ways that men and women experience the love relationship. It features men and women from a variety of cultural and social backgrounds who provide eloquent -- and sometimes rueful -- testimony on how gender differences affect love, courtship, "couplehood," marriage, emotions, understanding, and sensitivity.

The Human Body: Appearance, Shape and Self-Image This often poignant and always compelling new video, by the noted producer, Prof. Dane Archer, examines with sensitivity and cross-cultural insight the variety, meaning, and importance of the bodies we inhabit. It explores 12 different facets of the human body, each of which impacts our preferences, our ideals, our attitudes, and -- perhaps most important -- our self-images.

Kamakha Through Prayerful Eyes This "finely crafted, lyrical exploration of a sacred site" creatively captures the complexity and mystery surrounding Kamakhya Temple, an ancient place of fertility worship in India's northeastern state of Assam. This temple is unique among Hindu temples of the Devi (the Goddess) in that it enshrines no image of Her.

Keep Her Under Control: Law's Patriarchy in India This provocative documentary, which explores the role of women in a Muslim-dominated village in Rajasthan, in northern India, is original, compelling, and instructive, and it is sure to stimulate discussion and analysis in any course that studies gender roles, Islam, India, or cultural anthropology.

Kypseli: Women and Men Apart -- A Divided Reality This celebrated ethnographic study of male and female roles in a small Greek village shows how the separation of the sexes and the principle of male dominance have become part of the village's most basic social structures, affecting the daily activities and thoughts of everyone there.

Madres Unidas: Parents Researching for Change This unique and inspiring documentary follows five immigrant mothers who became involved in an effort to start a new small school for their children, and later became researchers and videographers to document their journey.

Marriages in Heaven Arranged marriages have been an important aspect of traditional Indian culture since ancient times, and they are still common today. This illuminating documentary explores the ways in which globalization and modernization are affecting young people and changing the traditions of marriage among Indians living both in India and in America.

Monuments Are for Men, Waffles Are for Women: Gender, Permanence and Impermanence The unwritten rules governing the traditional activities of men and women are sharply but subtly defined. Women's work has traditionally been repetitive and ongoing, and its end result short-lived and impermanent. In contrast, the activities of men are traditionally long-lived, durable, or permanent.

My Louisiana Love Every few years a new documentary comes along that so powerfully resonates both emotionally and intellectually that it can truly be deemed unforgettable. "My Louisiana Love" is such a film. This profoundly poignant exploration of environmental injustice and loss focuses a revelatory light on an otherwise invisible American tragedy.

No Place Like Home This brilliant documentary explores eight months in the life of a broken family in Seattle and powerfully depicts the cycles that keep families tied to poverty and violence from one generation to the next.

Peruvian Weaving This informative documentary examines warp pattern weaving in Peru, an ancient Andean Indian tradition handed down from woman to woman for some 5,000 years.

Playing House This incisive and compelling documentary chronicles the lives of five seventh- and eighth-grade girls through their first year at the elite Fay School, the oldest junior boarding school in America. With great sensitivity to individual nuance and a sharp eye for significant moments of interaction, the film reveals how deftly these 12- and 13-year-olds learn and practice "womanly" arts of psycho-social warfare while dealing with complex personal issues such as body image, class and sexual identity, family dysfunction, and self-worth.

Pomo Basketweavers: A Tribute to Three Elders This remarkable documentary provides an in-depth introduction to the history, culture, and basketweaving traditions of the Pomo Indian women of northern California.

The Pornography of Everyday Life This trenchant and provocative documentary essay incorporates more than 200 powerful images from advertising, ancient myth, contemporary art, and popular culture to demonstrate how pornography (defined as the sexualized domination, degradation, and objectification of women and girls and social groups who are put in the demeaned feminine role) is in reality a prevalent mainstream worldview.

Roots of Health This thought-provoking and insightful documentary employs incisive case studies from around the world to explore how people's health and well-being is primarily determined by where they live, their educational, social, and economic status, and the degree of control they have over their lives.

Sexism in Language: Thief of Honor, Shaper of Lies Designed for use in a broad range of educational settings and disciplines, this lively and provocative video analyzes the gender bias that permeates our everyday language.

Sisters and Daughters Betrayed Sex trafficking is a global crisis of growing dimensions. Millions of women and young girls have been illegally transported from rural to urban areas and across national borders for the purpose of prostitution. This compelling video explores the social and economic forces that drive this lucrative underground trade, and the devastating impact it has on women’s lives.

Six Billion and Beyond This thought-provoking documentary is, stated simply, the best and most comprehensive introduction available on video to the interconnected issues of population growth, economic development, equal rights and opportunities for women, and environmental protection around the world.

Sixteen Decisions This remarkable documentary explores the human face of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh's micro-lending experiment of small business loans, usually of $100 or less, that has transformed the lives of millions of Third-World women and their families.

Some Alien Creatures In this carefully observed and richly nuanced film about a progressive co-educational boarding school in South India, young boys and girls jokingly accuse each other of being like "alien creatures." In exploring this gender divide, renowned ethnographic filmmaker David MacDougall examines the lives of three boys at the school.

Still Looking This film documents the recent work of Janet Adler, the noted movement therapist whose earlier work was profiled 20 years ago in the classic film, "Looking for Me."

Still Revolutionaries This compelling documentary explores the lives of two women who were members of the Black Panther Party between 1969 and 1975.

To Catch a Dollar: Muhammad Yunus Banks on America This thought-provoking and powerful documentary follows Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus as he brings his revolutionary microfinance program to the United States, establishing Grameen America. The first stop: Queens, New York, 2008, just as the financial crisis explodes and the American economy plummets.

True-Hearted Vixens This remarkable documentary follows the fortunes of two women during the Women's Professional Football League's inaugural season of six exhibition games. One of the women is a young political consultant-turned linebacker and the other is an elite amateur basketball player and single mother taking a shot at wide receiver. Both traveled from afar, trading security and leaving jobs and loved ones for this long-shot at stardom.

Wedding Advice: Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace With an engaging blend of humor, personal testimony, and expert analysis, this thought-provoking documentary explores the history and contemporary relevance of the institution of marriage.

The Wedding Camels One of Lorang's daughters is going to marry one of his friends and age-mates, but all does not go smoothly. The second part of renowned filmmakers David and Judith Macdougall's classic "Turkana Conversations Trilogy."

A Wife Among Wives This ground-breaking ethnographic documentary investiges the views of the Turkana, and especially Turkana women, on marriage and polygyny. The third and final part of renowned filmmakers David and Judith Macdougall's classic Turkana Conversations Trilogy.

Womanhood and Circumcision: Three Maasai Women Have Their Say This thought-provoking documentary sensitively explores the cultural context of female genital-cutting practices among the Maasai. It will stimulate discussion and reflection in a wide variety of courses in cultural anthropology, women's and gender studies, African studies, and development studies.

A World Without Strangers This engaging and innovative documentary explores the common misperceptions and stereotypes of one another shared by young people in the Middle East and the United States. It connects five college-age women from the United States with five from the Middle East in a media-based dialogue that illuminates and challenges cross-cultural misconceptions.

Woven Ways Filmed amid the dramatic landscapes of the Navajo reservation lands in eastern Arizona and western New Mexico, this multifaceted documentary incisively explores the profound relationships between the Navajo people, their land, and their livestock, and examines how environmental issues now threaten the Navajo's health, culture, and well-being.

XXXY The most frequent question posed to new parents is: "Is it a boy or a girl?" But this question can't be answered in an estimated one out of every 2,000 births. This thought-provoking documentary is the first film to provide an intimate look at the long-term emotional, psychological, and physiological effects of being born "intersex," or with ambiguous genitalia.

You Don't Know Dick Simply put, this is the most profound, compelling, and thought-provoking documentary ever made on gender identity. It may also be the most entertaining. It provides extraordinarily honest and riveting portraits of six men who once were women.