My first weeks at the aSHEville Museum have been a whirlwind. I am also working full time at a chocolate shop in Asheville, so these first weeks have found me seeking a balance between my two commitments. I have a bit of history at aSHEville Museum, so settling in was not so difficult. I remember things like the way the computers work and I already know the woman who runs it. One of the exhibits I helped with when I volunteered for them in high school, 100 Years of Sexism in Advertising, is still hanging on the wall of the entrance. There are currently four other exhibits in the museum: A Day in Her Life photographed by Ami Vitale, Loving Families: Conversations With LGBT Families, Her NOBEL Words, and Appalachian Women, featuring an interview with Sarah Gudger (my personal favorite).
At our first meeting, Heidi, the woman who runs the museum, told me to start researching women’s rights around the world. She was ultimately looking to create an interactive quiz style exhibit on women’s rights currently, globally, and historically. I began with directions to a few specific resources and areas and the goal of two hundred separate facts. The specific questions and areas to focus my research for the exhibit were female representation in politics, statistics on education, reproductive rights, women in Hollywood and the media, and motherhood around the world (midwives, birthrates, breastfeeding, infant mortality etc.). I began this research and kept it in a Google doc.
Later that week I saw Wonder Woman and I was floored. I was talking to my supervisor Heidi about it and she was just as excited. The film made both of us feel empowered and inspired, which is a rarity for superhero movies. Heidi told me to pause the women’s rights research and start looking into doing a Wonder Woman exhibit. She is looking to get people into the museum by advertising an exhibit on the history of Wonder Woman. I am thrilled to begin this research and I have already found some neat facts about the origins of the character that, funny enough, are related to my methods paper. I foresee it being difficult to narrow down my research as I delve into a topic that has so many ties to suffragettes, women’s lib, and the free love movement, all things I find extremely interesting.
Before my next blog post, I hope to be nearly done with the Wonder Woman research and continuing with the Women’s Rights exhibit.
