Comprehensive Distribution and Outreach Plan
In keeping with the goal of generating dialogue, the outreach plan of A WOMAN'S PLACE is designed to maximize use of the film by community-based groups and educational institutions and to help make video a natural part of the social change process. To this end, we distributed the film free of cost to grassroots groups and educational institutions. International producers have complete ownership of the materials in their home countries. Working with their own set of field tapes, producers reversioned the pilot episode for broadcast and distribution in a way that works best for their audiences, thereby expanding the reach of the film.
The extremely successful strategies from this first phase will be used for the remaining parts of the series as well. Future episodes of A WOMAN'S PLACE will be distributed and reversioned by the international producers in a similar way. Further, all the films will be available for reversioning and distribution to all producers-across episodes-in the countries featured in the series and not just to the producers who have worked on that particular episode. This will promote the use of A WOMAN'S PLACE as a series, in keeping with our aim of generating a dialogue on gender and power-not just on particular situations and issues.
OUR EXPERIENCES WITH THE PILOT EPISODE
The most important thing we learned from the outreach process for A WOMAN'S PLACE was about dissemination: People really want to see and use films like A WOMAN'S PLACE, but most don't have the access. Formal distribution channels price films from $50-$150 a tape and, for most organizations, this is prohibitive. We made the video and educational guide available free. We distributed nearly 3,000 tapes by partnering with organizations like Women, Law and Development International, the National YWCA, and the Girl Scouts of America, in the USA; the Centre for Education and Documentation in Bombay; and the Tshwaranga legal center in South Africa. Requests continue to come in, by phone and email-not just from the countries featured in the film but also from Australia, Sri Lanka, Russia, Bulgaria, Pakistan, Brazil, Belgium, Indonesia, the UK, Papua New Guinea. People have written to thank us for making the film available free, and many people wanted to know when the rest of the series would be available. (See quotes at end of this section. For more details, contact us for pilot episode Outreach Report and Audience Survey for responses.)
Organizations who contacted us for tapes were working on a wide spectrum of issues. There were:
- people working on issues of health, government, policy and aging as well as violence and legal empowerment
- educators, businesswomen, advocates
- individuals, some facing personal crises like divorce
Alaska Pro-Choice Alliance
Asian Women's Shelter
Association of Women in Business
Body Image Task Force
Chicago Teachers Union
Chico Peace & Justice Center
The Children's Rights Counsel
Diversity Dialogue Sessions at the NASA, Lewis Research Center
Duluth Job Training
Forest Hills Community House
Foundation for African-American Women
HIV/Health and Human Services
Indianapolis Juvenile Correctional FacilityInternational Forum on Food & Agriculture
International Women Judges Foundation
Journalism and Women's Symposium
Life Education Action Program
Menorah Park Center for Aging
Merrill Lynch
Mexican American Cultural Center
Migrant Health Services
Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights
National Museum of Women in History
National Arts Club
National Women's Property
Older Women's League
Neighborhood, Youth & Family Services
Peoples' Decade for Human Rights
Psychologists for Social Responsibility
Sex Discrimination Clinic
Sister Care
Sisters of St. Francis
Teenage Parent Program
The Tuskegee Airmen
West Hollywood Municipal Employees
W.E. A.R.E. Human Rights
Women's Environmental Leadership
Women for Peace
RESPONSES TO A WOMAN'S PLACE: EXCERPTS FORM CORRESPONDENCE
The film was screened by our university chapter of Amnesty International...Audience members said that in contrast to many other films about human rights, this film demonstrated a process of empowerment at work rather than portraying a static, negative and remote situation. As a fellow filmmaker, I appreciated the way the producers of this film visually reinforced the film's themes. Thank you again for making the film and for allowing us to screen it free of charge. It was, in short, excellent.
-- Aaron Karnell, Lexington, KY
Wow! What an incredible film. My class loved it. We spent a whole class talking about it and social change. I'll definitely continue to use the film.
-- Denise Brennan, Professor, Georgetown University, Washington, DC
I would like to thank you not just for the video itself but for undertaking to create such a wonderful vehicle for exposing the plight of women and celebrating the advances that have been made. One of the key reasons for the success of the film in my classroom was the balanced perspective: women are not where they want to be but they are also not where they used to be. The sense of hope for the future allowed the students to view the film as more than just 'male bashing.' It showed the strength of women to rise due to their own intelligence and courage, despite the inherent difficulties in the struggle.
-- Mary P. Hassenplug, High Point Regional High School, Sussex, NJ
I help court-based local gender bias and gender fairness committees throughout New York State organize a variety of programs, and I am always on the look out for new materials. A WOMAN'S PLACE is a prize find! I plan to show it immediately to a subcommittee working on programming for local committees and it will be used for presentations on Domestic Violence Awareness Day. Please let us know about future films. We have an audience for them.
-- Jill Laurie Goodman, New York State Judicial Committee on Women in the Courts
What a wonderful film and educational guide you have made! I am planning to show the video to the Women's Rights Committee this fall. Committee members are teachers in the Chicago Public Schools and will want to use the documentary and educational guide with their classes. We will also share it with our other colleagues in the high schools.
-- Helen Ramirez-Odell, Chicago Teachers Union
The film was shown at our annual meeting and was an enormous success. Although I myself have seen the film a number of times now, I never cease to enjoy it. It reinforces my belief in the law as a powerful tool and confirms the realities of its use in social change.... A newly elected member of our Board of Directors teaches at an alternative high school and was so enthused that she wanted to show it immediately to her students'-- especially the boys.
-- Ruth E. Zeller, President, The Metropolitan New York Chapter for UNIFEM
We will show the film at our annual national meeting of JAWS -- Journalism & Women's Symposium at Sundance Ranch, Utah. JAWS is for working female journalists and is committed to the personal growth and professional empowerment of women in newsrooms and works toward a more accurate portrayal of the whole society. I often dreamed of doing a similar project as your film...Glad you did it while I was only thinking about it!
-- Rita Henley Jensen, Journalist, New York
Women for Peace in Berkeley showed the film at the local Rickridge Public Library. I was asked to introduce and facilitate discussion of the video. It is one of the top I have seen in this field and I wanted to thank you for making it available. It is a pleasure to have such a sophisticated, accurate, and rounded view of the rights the video tackled. Please keep me informed of your future videos.
-- Rita Maran, University of California at Berkeley and Consultant for Amnesty International
Congratulations on a wonderful documentary. Through this work we can once again celebrate the connection that women's experiences can have across cultural and geographic barriers.
-- Donna Dunn, Minnesota Center for Crime Victim Services
I am requesting a copy of the video because I think it tells a message the population our clinic serves needs to hear. We are committed to providing education, prevention, and empowerment to the low-income patients in our community. This tape will be beneficial in training on domestic violence, perseverance, and the recovery process.
-- Jeannetta Fuller, Social Work Coordinator, MetroHealth Clement Center for Family Care, Cleveland, Ohio
[COMMENT1]We are interested in obtaining the film for use in our Diversity Dialogue Sessions (DDS). It is an excellent film. The presentation was very well done and it would be very good for stimulating dialogue/discussion on the topic of gender in a DDS session. Our purpose is to foster the development of an environment which can lead to a model workplace. Your video would be excellent for not only 'dialoguing' but also for taking the topic into the "discussion part of the stage for the groups."
-- Betty J. Waszil, NASA, Lewis Research Center
The film is terrific...I shall be teaching a course on Women's Leadership and most assuredly will use the tape as part of the required reading. The issue of confidence among women is universal at all levels of society. Keep me posted on future viewing information so I can tell others.
-- Michaela Walsh, Founder, Women's World Banking
It has come to my attention from one of the faculty members in our community that the video is available to us at no charge. The video has received rave reviews from several members of the sociology department here and at North Dakota State University in Fargo. We would very much like having a copy of the program.
-- Jane Krajeck, Moorhead State University, Minnesota
I am writing to request a free copy of the video. I am a professor in the M.S. Counseling, Marriage and Family Therapy option at California State University, Fresno. I teach, at various times, a number of courses where I include gender issues. (Of course, I discuss gender issues in every class, but in certain classes gender issues are a specific topic.) The courses I would like to use the film in are: Multicultural Counseling; Feminist Issues in Counseling and in other clinical classes and with the group supervision for Fieldwork students.
-- Sari Dworkin, Professor, California State University, Dept. Of Counseling
My fight is here on the South Side of Chicago, but I believe we are all inter-related. Whatever changes and improvements I can make here will eventually affect them there (in other places of the world) and vice versa. We will use the film to discuss how women are challenging their traditional roles in different societies and how this will impact what we can do here in Chicago. Also, I will discuss with the girls in my program the courage that was and is needed for women to stand up and challenge the laws and traditions in our male-dominated societies.
-- Vertis Burns-Sims, My Sister's Keeper Project, Chicago
We also heard from individuals. The segments on domestic violence and divorce, particularly, evoked very personal responses. One 16-year-old, wrote to us following a screening at a community group in Snoquaimie, Washington. She asked if she could get a copy of the film because she wanted to show it to her mother who was in an abusive relationship. Our audience feedback study reveals that many young women wished the film could be seen by a female relative for similar reasons.
The friend of a South Indian woman going through a divorce requested a film and wrote to tell us:
She didn't realize the learned behavior of keeping quiet as a sign of respect/deference was being used to her husband's advantage in court. The film has really empowered her. She now speaks up and states the facts. She has shown that tape to a lot of her relatives as well as her lawyer. Thank you so much.
-- Rinna Johnson, Tennessee
I saw A Woman's Place over the Thanksgiving Holiday with my family. Since my family is of Asian Indian origin, the segment on the Indian women particularly touched us all. You will be happy to know that the documentary inspired a family discussion on the way Indian society views women.
-- Usha Shastry, North Andover, MA
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