I was a huge fan of the series Mockingbird, from Marvel.
It was canceled way too soon. Actually, it was cancelled immediately after issue #8, the cover above.
If you don’t know Mockingbird (Bobbi Morse), she’s a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent on level with Black Widow (Natasha Romanov). The comic book series is hilarious and fun, and I’d recommend it even if you don’t normally read comics. I actually don’t read much, I’m more of a movie fan, but Mockingbird was recommended to me and I loved it.
I, of course, bought the same shirt that Mockingbird was wearing. It’s harder to find now. Don’t get me wrong, it’s easy to find that print, it’s harder to find it in the same peach color.
Sometimes I wear it in zooms or on socials (or even real life!), and people in fact, do ask me,
“So Josh, what is your feminist agenda?”
I’m so glad you asked. Mostly, I focus on representation:
- Vote for women
- Recommend women for promotions
- Recommend women for speaking gigs and podcasts
- Amplify women in meetings
- Watch movies and TV shows written and/or directed by women
- Watch movies and TV shows where main characters are complex women
- Read books written by women
- Read movie critics who are women
- Read political commentary by women
- Read literary criticism by women
Currently, women are underrepresented in positions of power, and often poorly represented in media. To try and balance that out, I make and advocate for all of the above choices.
Those are all simple things that we can do, whenever we’re in position to do so.
Sure, not everyone power and clout to recommend a woman for a promotion. But some of us do. That might be directly promoting someone, if you’re that person. Or, it could be advocating to a coworker or boss.
Same with recommending women for speaking gigs and podcasts. Back when I was speaking a lot (pre-pandemic times), I actually was in position to recommend women to speak at big fitness events, and did. Podcasts, also. It’s a small thing, but it’s a thing that I actually can do. So I do.
In the fitness industry, things are actually much better than they used to be. When I started, almost all of the speakers at big conferences were men. Then, more women started to filter into the general speakers pool, but never the keynotes. Now, we’re starting to see some women delivering the keynote speaches, and it’s awesome. It’s very cool to see it going that way, and I hope it continues.
If you don’t, you can still advocate for women in meetings. When you see women getting talked over by a man in a meeting, you can amplify them, “Wait, I wanted to hear what Jennifer was saying.” Or when someone takes credit for a woman’s idea, “Yes, I really liked Sara’s idea also.”
The choices about media are even easier. We can just deliberately look for, and add in, content created by women.
Voting, of course, is huge. No taxation without representation, right? It’s kind of ridiculous, in 2022, that we don’t have a pretty close to equal number of women and men in public office. It’s silly that, unlike other nations like Germany, Finland, and New Zealand (just to name a few) the United States has never had a president who is a woman.
I know, there are many, many more things we could work on. This is just what I’m focused on, right now.
—Josh