The Feministing Five: Jehmu Greene

Jehmu Greene is the new President of the Women’s Media Center. The WMC was founded in 2005 by Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan and Gloria Steinem, whose goal was to make women visible and powerful in the media. As readers of Feministing know all too well, women and people of color are drastically underrepresented in the media, and the WMC aims to change that by campaigning for just and accurate reporting of gender issues, and by teaching women how to find and use their own voices. Jehmu is a graduate of their Progressive Women’s Voices program, a year-long media training of which our own Courtney Martin is also a graduate.
Greene, who grew up in Austin, began her political career by working on Governor Ann Richards’ 1994 campaign, and followed that up by running the women’s office at the Democratic National Committee. She is the former president of Rock the Vote and a member of the board of directors of The American Prospect, where Feministing’s Ann Friedman is a writer. In all, Greene has worked on over 20 political campaigns, including Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign. Greene has worked in LA and in DC, but her new role as the WMC brings her to New York City for the first time, which is something of a change for a woman who says she thinks of herself as small city girl. But “with this challenge and this opportunity,” she say, “nothing would stop me.”
And now, without further ado, the Feministing Five, with Jehmu Greene.

Chloe Angyal: How did you come to be involved in media activism, and with the Women’s Media Center specifically?
Jehmu Greene: I have spent the better part of my career as a political animal of sorts, from campaigns to working directly with the Democratic National Committee, and working to get people and women engaged in the political process from a voter registration activist and organizer standpoint, so I started off as a grassroots organizer. And I will always consider myself a grassroots organizer who has an incredibly appreciation of the power of the media to address disparities when it comes to which voices are participating in important decisions. I was fortunate enough to be accepted into the Women’s Media Center’s Progressive Women’s Voices program, and I participated in that earlier this year, so I saw firsthand how impactful the media and leadership training was. And it’s definitely helped my to increase and amplify my advocacy, and I grew to love the organization, so when the opportunity came up and this position was open, I was thrilled to throw my hat in the ring and to be able to work with women I have admired from afar my entire career.
I grew up in Austin, and when we moved there when I was five, Austin had just elected its first female mayor, who went on to be elected for three terms in a row. Clearly, it’s the home of Anne Richards and Barbara Jordan, so I feel like I come from a place where, as Ann Richards would say, “a woman’s place is in the dome.” And that definitely helped push me to work to make sure that women were included in the political process. My parents both immigrated from Liberia, so I definitely understand and appreciate the immigrant experience, as the daughter of immigrants who’s gotten to live the American dream
CA: Who is your favorite fictional heroine?
JG: I love GI Jane. I think she had such an outward strength, that we rarely see. Having appreciated and seen on a daily basis the inward strength that women have, it was nice to see it reflected from a physical standpoint.
I think that women absolutely have a place in the military, and I think that the more women that are enlisting and the more women that are engaged in all levels of military service, the safer we’ll be as a country and the more effective the military will be.
CA: Who are your heroines in real life?
JG: My mom. Ann Richards, definitely, and Barbara Jordan, Hillary Clinton. Having worked to get young people and women’s voices heard within our democracy, and also from a media standpoint, I’m attracted to women whose voices are able to cut through all the clutter, and who have very strong, unique voices for social justice and equality, and who have been heard.
CA: What recent news story made you want to scream?
JG: Definitely Stupak. That was late at night on a Saturday, and more than wanting to scream, I thought heads should roll. I think that the leadership in the Democratic Party that came up with the strategy to reach out to anti-choice Democrats, should be held responsible. We clearly have an issue with Catholic bishops getting preferential treatment. I think that reproductive rights organizations should look at this opportunity and realize that strategically, we have to ask for what we want and not just be on the defensive. It’s time to change the conversation, because those organizations were just caught on their heels.
The Democratic Party shouldn’t take women’s votes for granted, which they clearly did in their decision to legislatively throw women under the bus. And when any piece of legislation is moving through Congress, there are a number of constituencies, and members decide who they’re going to upset. Clearly in this situation, they thought that women were going to be their target, and they would never do that with trial lawyers or union bosses. And given that the Democrats can’t win without women, they need to do some readjusting.
Changing the conversation definitely starts with asking for what we want, and not asking for a compromised position. In this debate specifically, we should have been working to remove Hyde, instead of working to appease anti-choice members.
CA: What, in your opinion, is the biggest challenge facing feminism today?
JG: I think we have to find a way to reconnect with the younger generation, which potential struggles to define itself but which faces all the same challenges. And from a media perspective, there’s even more that they’re going to have to tackle. I think there are some great lessons to be learned from the work that’s been done, and the barriers that have been brought down, but for me, and for my vision of the Women’s Media Center, is to connect with that next generation and to focus strongly on diversity. On what feminism looks like and on what it should look like.
CA: You’re going to a desert island, and you’re allowed one food, one drink and one feminist. What do you take?
JG: Avocado, Jack and diet and Courtney Martin. Because it would give us a lot of time to figure out how to reach out to young women.