"Part of a pioneering movement."
TODAY SHOW
JOIN US FOR DENDROFEMONOLOGY: THE FEMINIST HISTORY TREE RING
ON THE NATIONAL MALL IN WASHINGTON, DC NOV 1-4, 2023
#ReclaimOurHistory #VoteOurFuture
Our goal is to inspire and galvanize with a new visual in our nation's capital and a powerful coming together to show the interdependence of so many issues facing us today.
There are over 93,000 races on the ballot this November that could affect women’s rights, trans rights, and reproductive freedom. Join us on the National Mall from Nov 1-4 as we gather around a new kind of monument -- DENDROFEMONOLOGY: A Feminist History Tree Ring, which tells a 50,000 year history of humanity through an intersectional feminist lens -- to inspire as many people as possible to #ReclaimOurHistory and #VoteOurFuture.
Together with an amazing coalition of organizations, the activation includes four days of live and live streamed speakers, robust voter and educational resources, art, community, and a powerful social campaign to engage and inspire people around the country.
Join us in inspiring as many people as possible to
#ReclaimOurHistory and #VoteOurFuture!
Share the video with your networks!
Created by feminist artist of DENDROFEMONOLOGY Tiffany Shlain
and trans producer Sawyer Steele, co-founders of Let it Ripple
Key Components of Activation:
-
Voter Registration, Education, and Activation: Registers, educates, and inspires voters, particularly young voters, with guides and materials for any region. This activation launches right before the 2023 election, and exactly one year before the 2024 election.
-
Live & Virtual Events: Nov 1-4 will be a series of live and livestreamed events on the National Mall and with presenting and participating organizations - including directing people to the National Women's History Museum exhibition We Who Believe: Black Feminism DC exhibition at the MLK Library in DC.
-
Speakers/Livestream: We will have a key period of the activation packed with inspiring speakers, speaking directly in front of the Feminist Tree Ring, in the dramatic setting of the Washington Monument. We will livestream and amplify these speakers through all of our, and our partners’, channels.
-
Educational Resources: The National Women’s History Museum has started a resource that links out from each of the lines on the Feminist History Tree Ring. Together with NWHM, we will build upon this resource, to link out from each and every line on the tree ring, and make it widely available to schools and the public. In addition to the Feminist History Tree Ring, we will provide powerful and curated resources from all of our partners.
-
Powerful Partnerships: Building off the model of 50/50 Day (watch 3 min video about the activation that engaged millions), this activation brings powerful organizations together for a collective activation, including Women Connect4Good, Feminist Majority Foundation, ERA Coalition, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Vital Voices, She The People, and more. These partners engage their networks, are part of our speaker lineup, and disseminate resources.
-
Participation / Inspiration: Everyone involved both on the ground and virtually will be invited to answer: What moments are missing from our collective timeline? What do you hope is the next historical moment on the feminist history timeline?” We will create further art from these responses, while simultaneously, these questions build the civic engagement muscle for both the 2023 and 2024 elections.
About the Artist and Team
Artist Tiffany Shlain is an activist, Emmy-nominated filmmaker, national bestselling author, founder of The Webby Awards, and artist. Producer Sawyer Steele is a transgender activist, an Emmy-nominated producer, and co-founder, with Tiffany, of Let it Ripple Studio, a 501c3 known for its award-winning films, global art activations, original series, and live and virtual experiences that inspire audiences to think about what it means to be human in today’s world. Tiffany, Sawyer, and their team have been making films and producing art activations together for 18 years. Their art projects and films have premiered at MoMA and Sundance, and been selected by the US State Department to represent the US at embassies around the world.
ABOUT DENDROFEMONOLOGY: A Feminist History Tree Ring
“I have always been fascinated by the tree ring timelines at the entrance of Muir Woods or any National Park. They illuminate how the trees are a witness to human history. However, I also felt like those timelines tell a colonialist and patriarchal story. The tree rings in Human Nature imagine what alternate histories could be told.”- Tiffany Shlain
DENDROFEMONOLOGY: A FEMINIST HISTORY TREE RING
Reclaimed Deodar Cedar Wood Sculpture
65" x 64" x 3"
Text burned onto tree ring:
-
50,000 BCE Goddesses are worshiped.
-
10,000-3000 BCE Women are healers, shamans, and warriors. A number of societies acknowledge multiple genders.
-
3100 BCE Literacy develops, and seeds of patriarchy spread.
-
2400 BCE Mesopotamian law declares: “If a woman speaks to a man out of turn, her teeth will be smashed in by a burnt brick.”
-
200 BCE Goddess worship is forbidden in Judaism, and later, in Islam and Christianity.
-
690 Wu Zetian becomes the first—and only—female ruler of China.
-
1100 Matrilineal and matriarchal Hopi tribe establishes the community of Oraibi in present-day Arizona.
-
1450 to 1918 50,000 women tortured and executed as witches across Europe and America.
-
1576-1610 Queen Amina rules over Zazzau (present-day Nigeria).
-
1690s Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz becomes the first published feminist in the Americas.
-
1776-1860s Abortion up to four months of pregnancy is legal in the United States.
-
1880s Inspired by indigenous and abolitionist leaders and British suffragists, first-wave feminism gains momentum in the United States.
-
1920 19th Amendment grants US women the right to vote, although most women of color are disenfranchised until the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
-
1920 The Soviet Union legalizes abortion.
-
1960 FDA approves birth control pill in the United States
-
1960 Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) becomes the first woman to be elected to lead a democratic country.
-
1962 Dolores Huerta co-founds US National Farm Workers' Association.
-
1960s Second-wave feminism begins with leaders including Dorothy Pitman Hughes, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinman, Flo Kennedy, and Shirley Chisholm.
-
1963 First woman in space Valentina Tereshkova flies a solo mission and orbits Earth 48 times.
-
1972 Title IX prohibits gender-based discrimination in US federally-funded educational programs and activities.
-
1972 The US Senate approves addition of the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. (The states have not yet ratified it.)
-
1973 Roe vs. Wade legalizes abortion in all US states and territories.
-
1974-1980 The Combahee River Women’s Collective calls out the interconnectedness of sexism, racism, and homophobia, and demands change in mainstream feminism and civil rights movement.
-
1975 Icelandic Women’s Strike held to protest inequality in the workplace and the home. 90% of women participate, and 15 years later Iceland elects a woman president.
-
1989 Kimberlé Crenshaw defines the concept of intersectionality and ushers in third-wave feminism.
-
1993 Women allowed to wear pants on the floor of the US Senate.
-
2006 Tarana Burke begins #MeToo movement.
-
2016 Hillary Rodham Clinton receives the majority of votes in the US presidential election.
-
2017 An estimated 5 million people attend Women’s Marches globally. #MeToo goes viral.
-
2017 Oregon becomes first state to include non-binary gender category on IDs.
-
2020-2022 US elects first female Vice President Kamala Harris and first trans State Senator, Sarah McBride; Ketanji Brown Jackson becomes first Black woman confirmed to Supreme Court.
-
2022
-
Roe v. Wade is overturned, eviscerating federal protection of reproductive rights in the U.S.
-
Globally, 65 countries have legalized abortions, four in the last year.
-
Globally, 86 women have been elected president or prime minister to date…
-
OTHER ART ACTIVATIONS BY TIFFANY SHLAIN + LET IT RIPPLE
OTHER FEMINIST ART BY TIFFANY SHLAIN
Film on reproductive choice premiered at Sundance in 2003
UNSTOPPABLE film for Planned Parenthood 2019
20 min film on the 10,000 year history of women + power
premiered on Refinery 29 and TEDWomen 2016
What's Your Pledge?- Interactive activation on Gender Justice
Roe V. Wade 6' x 9x' Lightbox
ABOUT THE ARTIST TIFFANY SHLAIN
Honored by Newsweek as one of the "Women Shaping the 21st Century,” Tiffany Shlain is an artist, activist, Emmy-nominated filmmaker, national bestselling author, and the founder of the Webby Awards. Working across film, art, and performance, Shlain's work explores the intersection of feminism, philosophy, technology, neuroscience, and nature. The Museum of Modern Art in New York premiered her one-woman spoken cinema show, Dear Human. Her recent art exhibition, Human Nature, was presented by the National Women’s History Museum. Her awards and distinctions include selection by the Albert Einstein Foundation for their Genius100 list, the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Intellectual Activity, and a spot on NPR’s list of best commencement speeches. Shlain is known for her dynamic cinematic talk experiences and lectures internationally. Shlain has had multiple premieres at the Sundance Film Festival, has received over 60 awards.and her films have been shown at US Embassies to represent America. Her book, 24/6: Giving up Screens One Day a Week to Get More Time, Creativity, and Connection, received the Marshall McLuhan Outstanding Book Award. Shlain will have an exhibition in the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: Art & Science Collide initiative set for 2024 in Los Angeles. @tiffanyshlain