The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

Katie Halper:

“The First Time I Every Saw Your Face” May Be the First Time You Hear About Ewan MacColl

California’s Gay Marriage Ban Overturned & 5 Ways To Take Action

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Nicole Hughes:

“Bottlemania” Book Takes Bottled Water Industry To Task

Arnold Tells Automakers To “Stop Whining” About Tougher California Emissions Standards

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Andy Kondrat:

Department of Energy Forecasts Large Increase In Wind Power Usage

Edward Norton & Gavin Newsom Speak To Congress About Environmental Building Practices

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Jon Popham:

Spencer Tunick Strips Hundreds Naked

Lichtenstein Sculptures At Fairchild Garden In Miami

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Giulia Rozzi:

Does Being Ethical Pay?

Is the Anti-Female Genial Mutilation Campaign Offensive?

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Gina Telaroli:

A Global Look At Media On Pangea Day

Everything Cinema: Brody Takes On the Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard

Feministing commented on the new anti-female genital mutilation campaign by the Association of Women against Genital Mutilation (AMAM). The ad copy reads: “More than 140 million women in the world are condemned to feel nothing” and features the image here of a blow-up doll. Feministing had this to say about the ad:

I’m all for raising awareness about FGM, but this campaign really rubs the wrong way. It reduces women to their body parts and the issue to just a sexual one. Using a blowup doll to depict a woman who has undergone FGM is incredibly offensive - they’re literally being portrayed as no longer human, just a sex toy.

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Thanks to Feministing.org who so often leads me to great stories like this one about Wajeha Al-Huwaider, a women’s rights activist in Saudi Arabia marked International Women’s Day this past weekend by defying the ban on women. Not only that, but she video taped the action and posted it on YouTube!

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Several topics really stood out this week, including the Oscars as social advocacy inspiration, civil rights and Black History Month, and lots of hot news on entertainment going Green. Check out our most popular posts of the week on these subjects, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites.

Katie:

Happy Belated “Freedom to Marry” Week!

Rosa and Raymond Parks: Valiant Valentine #5

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Nicole:

Top 10 Oscar Picks to Inspire Social Action

Cornel West: Black Thoughts On Black History Month

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Giulia:

H&M’s “Fashion Against AIDS”

Ed Begley Jr. Goes Green

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Gina:

Top 10 Best Picture Winners That Inspire

Remixing “Chicago 10″

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Kerry:

How To Set the World On Fire Without Burning Out

Eco-Brokers Cater to Green Homebuyers

The 80th Annual Academy Awards are almost upon us, and I’m sure you all have your favorite films that you’re routing for. We here at TakePart have our fave films too, of course based on their relevance to social action and advocacy. Check out our picks for these top 10 Oscar categories, and how these films have left the world a bit of a better place than before they arrived on the big (or little) screen!

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Actor in a Leading Role: Tommy Lee Jones in In the Valley of Elah

Tommy Lee Jones gives an incredible performance as a war veteran searching for his son, a soldier who recently returned from Iraq, but has now mysteriously disappeared. The shadow of the Iraq war is cast across several films that have been nominated this year, but Jones’ moving performance highlights the emotional and spiritual battles soldiers and their families must face long after they’ve come home from the combat zone.

and find out what you can do to help Veterans for Peace seek justice for veterans and victims of war, and to abolish war as an instrument of national policy.

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