TRACTION is an inter-active, online magazine by and for women in "the industry", and proudly spawned by the Women In Film/General Motors Alliance.

The ambition of TRACTION is to provoke robust discussion and fresh thinking about women and media (women and film, women and documentaries, women and television). We hope the present and future articles and the access to real information will get our readers to think out loud and, not incidentally, to erupt into dialogue with the magazine and through the magazine.....

The dialogue so far has only been had in classrooms or covered in a great seminar on entertainment, or heard at inspirational women's conferences on our industry.

But daily? While we may delight in an article having a whiff of a woman's pov, we have no place to dissect our delight; we recognize that an institutionalized system exists but are too busy 'getting through the day'; we might like reviews written frankly by a woman but don't know if that matters; we may miss certain kinds of opinions but can't hear our own above the de rigueur noise.

The information, perspectives and opinions simply aren't stacked up anywhere they can provoke deeper thought and further commentary. Let's use this magazine to expand people's way of thinking about women and this ubiquitous, attitude-forming industry of images. Women who aren't in the industry need to think about what they are seeing or when they like what they see versus when they simply accept it. Within the industry we need to dialogue more - not to carp, not from a crouch, but to wonder out loud about being affecting and effective, getting credit for it, having that turn into impact.

There's a great section called The Virtual Mentor. Born of our fundamental belief at all women in film chapters in truly mentoring women, trusted as the true basis to the power of " the old boys' network" - look for information here. They are of course sometimes about career choices in media, but also about foreign production, bonding a film, adding music on a film/documentary or video, fair use doctrine, minority images in media, children in media, etc.

And reviews - when there is something pertinent to say - film reviews, documentary reviews, television reviews, media criticism and media commentary.

And articles - articles on film, articles on television, articles on documentaries , articles on media and even articles on chick flicks.


Explore!!