Kickstarter Documentaries

I backed a couple of important-looking documentaries on Kickstarter the other day.  I want to write a bit about them, why I backed them, and hopefully encourage you to back them too if you have the means to do so.

But first, if you don't know what Kickstarter is, it's kind of like online Dragon's Den.  People pitch projects that they don't have enough funding to get off the ground, and if you want to help them out you make a donation.  The cool part is that if they don't reach their funding goal, they don't get any of the money.

I saw the link to Project Wild Thing on one of my favourite blogs, Free Range Kids.  Remember hearing about the New York mom who let her 10 year old son ride the subway alone a few years ago?  That's the Free Range Kids lady and she's awesome.  Her whole mission with the Free Range Kids movement is to empower parents to stop being so overprotective and raise independent, well-rounded kids.  It's basically the parenting philosophy that existed up until very recently, before shows like Law and Order: SVU struck the fear of abduction into the hearts of parents everywhere on a weekly basis.

The goal of Project Wild Thing appears to be getting people, especially kids, to enjoy nature again, and starting conversations about how to do this.  The way they go about trying to "market" nature like it was a consumer product is really neat, and I really hope this documentary can get finished and start its outreach.  It looks super interesting and very important.

She's Beautiful When She's Angry is one I found while just randomly browsing, but it's another one I'm really hoping will reach its funding goal.  The interviews they've done and the footage they've shot and collected all sounds so rich and fascinating that it would be such a shame to not be able to finish this important film.

It's billing itself as "the first feature documentary about the birth of women's liberation in the 1960's."  I think, as women in this day and age, we take for granted so many of the rights we have.  In fact, we are often encouraged to take these rights for granted as so many out there insist that there is no longer a need for feminism; we have reached equality.  "Feminist" has become a word that is twisted to the point that many women shy away from it because they're worried identifying as such means they hate men and burn bras.

More women, and especially young girls, need to understand how hard the suffragists and feminists before us fought to gain us the rights we have today, and to recognize that total equality has NOT yet been achieved.  Male politicians are still making decisions on what women can do with their bodies and what medications they are allowed to take, courts are still ruling that women are "asking for" rape because they were dressed like "sluts".  And in so many countries around the world, baby girls are given up or aborted because families want boys, women are beaten to death in front of their communities for "shameful" acts like sex outside of marriage, women are arrested for simple things driving or being out in public without a male escort, and young girls are shot by the Taliban for simply wanting to get an education.  Recognizing that feminists were not just a bunch of whiny women in the 60's who wanted to wear pants is vital to ensuring that complacency does not set in, so we don't start to move backwards and lose some of the rights we had, like what is happening in many US states.

Anyway, I encourage you to check out the Kickstarter pages for both documentaries and make a donation if you can!  Be a part of something important.