Rumors that began circulating in the fall have been proven true today: in a press release Monday, Vice announced that Gloria Steinem is executive producing a series for their new channel Viceland called WOMAN, about “how violence against women drives global instability.”
As seen in the trailer they’ve released, the series looks to cover issues facing women around the globe, but will specifically focus on how, in Steinem’s words, “violence against females is the most reliable predictor of whether a nation will be violent within itself or will use violence against another country”:
...the weekly series tells the stories of women and men on the front lines of fighting gender-based violence. Episodes to air include reports on the impact of sexual violence in DRC; the epidemic of femicides in El Salvador; the prevalence of sexual assault in the U.S. military; the devastating effect on American society of incarcerating mothers of young children; and a special episode produced by Oscar-winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy on how the rise of extremism in Pakistan is both rooted in and reflected by violence towards women.
(Obaid-Chinoy just won her second Oscar for Best Documentary Short for her film about honor killings in Pakistan.)
“From small villages to whole nations, we now know that the well-being of women determines the well-being of society,” Steinem says in the trailer, reiterating an argument she’s long-held. Vice also points out that the series was made with “all female journalists.”
The company has long worked with a bevy of high-profile names, though Steinem is perhaps a more surprising connection than, let’s say, Ellen Page, who is seen in their new show Gaycation. WOMAN will premiere May 10.
DISCUSSION
Viceland has been my go-to, nothing-else-to-watch channel for a few weeks. I haven’t seen a show I didn’t like yet, including surprisingly the fat guy rapper does Bourdain show. All that in spite of the first impression of it being the “White People Investigate How Brown People Live All Over The World!” channel.