Athena Magazine

Your Call.

2010-06-10T22:29:00.004-04:00

Hello again, Athenites. I'm back after a long hiatus - a little worse for wear, but with a very important message for all of you lovely girls tonight. This one is a big one, and although it is in a relationship context in this post, there's a more general meaning to it that I will emphasize at the end of the post. So read the whole thing.

Here it is, a lesson I have learned the hard way and am now eager to pass on to you (I hate to think of you guys making the same mistakes I did) : DON'T MISTAKE FAMILIARITY FOR HAPPINESS. For real.

We women have shown over time our uncanny ability to adapt to conditions, treatment or situations that may be hurtful, unhealthy or oppressive to us. Obvious. If it weren't for all those women who finally decided enough was enough and stood up to fight for women's rights, well, to put it simply, we'd be much worse off. Also obvious. But here's the rub: those ass-kicking awesome women fought for US - they fought for the women before them, the women of their time, and the women of the future, and I can guarantee that none of those women thought fondly of a future where we continue to allow ourselves to be oppressed.

That said, it may be easy in North America to not appreciate the freedom we have as women, but we CANNOT take it for granted, and that is why it is so important for every woman and every girl to have enough self-respect to say "enough is enough."

So if you find yourself in a relationship that you are unhappy with, you need to ask yourself if the problem is one that can be fixed, and if not, you need to GTFO. It may be hard sometimes, if you (like me) are the attached type that likes to hang on and work things out, but DON'T FOOL YOURSELF. At some point, you need to re-evaluate the situation and ask yourself if you are really getting what you want. More importantly - are you getting what you deserve? Never, never, NEVER settle for less than you deserve. Never let anyone treat you in a way you don't like being treated because you're afraid to let go, or because you're "used to it." Fear of loneliness is no excuse to allow anyone to treat you badly. Here is my solemn promise to you: something better will come along. Until then, learn to be comfortable with independence. You are a strong woman, and you don't need anyone to hold you up.

Outside of relationships, obviously the same goes. You need to respect yourself, and be strong enough to change anything that is negatively affecting you if you have the power to do it. Just remember: Your life, your time, your call.

Peace and love,
Av

Worldwide Wednesdays

2010-03-31T06:30:00.002-04:00

Hey Artsy Athenians!

As promised, I have attached the article I wrote on a photography exhibit by Palestinian-Canadian artist, Rehab Nazzal, entitled "Divide".

Yamz

Divide

In a topic as divisive as the conflict in the Middle East, one Ottawa-based artist puts politics aside in her photography, attempting to show in her exhibit the injustices in the occupied territories that she said can no longer be ignored.

“I’m focusing on, in this exhibition, the dividing of the Palestinian people from one another and from their land and their living resources,” said Palestinian-Canadian artist Rehab Nazzal of her fourth solo exhibit entitled, “Divide,” now showing at Gallery 101 on Bank Street.

Nazzal is a Palestinian-born artist who works in visual art, film and photography. In 2005, Nazzal was able to return to her country for the first time in two decades. She said she decided to begin taking photos of the images of the occupied territories.

It was through walking through the neighbourhoods, amid the cement blocks, watchtowers and checkpoints, that Nazzal said she reflected on the act of walking.

She said when she saw her homeland after being away for so long, she was shocked.

“ ... you come home and you see it divided and wrecked,” said Nazzal. “I mean, settlements all along the top of the mountains ... The shock. The pain. You see how people are living.”

She said the response to her exhibit has been positive. Employees of the gallery said over 200 people attended the show’s opening on March 5. Nazal said that more than anything, she found that people did not know a lot about the occupation.

She said one visitor pointed to the photo of an Israeli soldier kneeling with his gun pointing towards the ground, asking why he was doing that. She said the photo represented the fight for land between the two peoples.

She has another photo of a group of men of all ages, from young boys to grandfathers, standing among olive trees, facing a group of Israeli soldiers in protest. At their feet are prayer rugs. Nazzal said she stood with women behind the men. She said after the photo was taken, the soldiers descended upon the group, shooting tear gas.

But she said she avoided using images of violence. She asserts she is not a photojournalist.

“I have a lot of violent footage,” she said. But she said the goal of her exhibition was “not to catch a moment of death.”

She added she is optimistic about the future of the plight of her people.

“Because it’s a just cause -- that’s the power of it,” said Nazzal.

At the same time, Nazzal said she does receive criticism from those who say her exhibits are too one-sided. In the guestbook near the door, one visitor wrote: “This is a lie ... Try to look at the other side for it wouldn’t hurt.” Nazzal laughed as she read this. She said she feels nothing when she reads these comments and said this is not a matter of sides.

“When apartheid ended we didn’t say let’s try to be balanced,” she said. “No, there is injustice ... Even silence in a time of injustice is a form of oppression.”

The exhibition runs until April 3.

Harper ain't no help in healing

2010-03-29T12:53:00.003-04:00

In 2008, the Stephen Harper government drafted a nicely-worded apology to Aboriginal people for the government's funding of Indian Residential Schools (IRS). Those of us who follow government action on Aboriginal issues were appreciative of the symbolic gesture, but skeptical. And for good reason, it turns out. Just two years later, the government is making massive cuts to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. 134 AHF organizations will lose their funding as of this Wednesday, including (most locally to me) the Native Women's Shelter of Montreal. Many will simply have to close down, leaving no similar service available for people in the region, and others will have to cut programs to the bare minimum (the Sexual Assault Counselor position at the Montreal shelter is set to be cut, for example).

There will be rallies today on parliament hill demanding that the government live up to its promise to Aboriginal peoples. I encourage you to join the protests, if you are in Ottawa. Are you outside of Ottawa? Write to your MPs, the government, and sign this online petition at the Missing Justice Website .

I'm still not a feminist but..

2010-03-23T12:03:00.002-04:00

Article written for class on an event I attended.

-Yamz

It is a word that many women are said to shy away from due to its connotations, but on March 8, a coalition of women’s and human rights groups came together, with over 400 people in attendance, for an event to celebrate that word and the 99th anniversary of International Women’s Day.

“I’m still not a feminist but...” followed last year’s successful, “I’m not a feminist but ...” Held at the National Archives , it was an event organized by a coalition of local, national and international groups including Amnesty International, Oxfam Canada, Women Against Slavery and the Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women (OCTEVAW). Representatives from the groups saw this not only as a night to celebrate women, but also an opportunity for groups to network.

“It was a success,” said Lindsay Mossman, from Amnesty International. She added the event achieved its goals, which were “to raise awareness on feminist issues that allowed for dialogue that was also fun, funny and engaging.”

Just after 6 p.m., visitors trickled into the foyer, where tables from the various organizations displayed posters, buttons, pamphlets and fact sheets. It was a diverse crowd of men, women and children, some who claimed to be lifelong feminists, while others said they were new to the movement. While people mingled, servers zigzagged through the crowds with plates of hors d’oeuvres from sushi to mini fajitas.

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff made an appearance. He said he was there to celebrate women and show support for International Women’s Day because, “human rights are indivisible; if you don’t have rights, I don’t have rights.”

Erin Williams, executive director for OCTEVAW said the purpose of the event was to be fun and relevant for people.

She said she wanted to, “engage women who might not be using that word.”

The word to which Williams is referring is “feminist,” a dirty word for many because of its negative connotations according to Reuban Folkema, an attendee.

“Feminism is not about hating men,” he said. “To reach equality you have to work with men and women.”

Stephanie McBride, an attendee and member of Amnesty International, said those who avoid using the word are afraid of what she calls “feminist backlash.”

“People assume you’re a fat, hairy, lesbian--not that there’s anything wrong with that,” said McBride. “Women are afraid to claim the title.”

At 7 p.m., the crowd gathered in the theatre. MC’s Joanne St. Lewis, law professor at the University of Ottawa and Maxime Turcotte, theatre teacher at L’ecole sécondaire publique De La Salle, kicked off the event, getting the audience to cheer in celebration for the 99th year of International Women’s Day. Every seat was filled, with many standing against the wall.

It began with a traditional song from Isabelle Meawasige, an Ojibway Grandmother, traditional helper and healer.

St. Lewis and Turcotte also recognized the winners, Rayna Farr-Dutchin and Sarah Lavoie, of the event’s youth essay contest, for their pieces in English and French respectively on feminism.

Being accessible for all was important for the organizers, said Mossman. The event was presented in English and French. While last year the main event was a debate about feminism, this year, the organizing committee took a humourous and satirical approach, hoping to bring more hesitant feminists to the event.

Mossman said she wanted to “get comedy to raise issues and get people to think about them and engage.”

The evening followed with a short film which toyed with the idea of a world where men faced oppression in the form of a newscast presented by a “Petra Womansbridge.” Following this, two all-women improv troupes presented a series of skits, a satirical take on women’s issues. The Ladies, a group from Toronto, presented in English, while the Ligue d’improvisation étudiante universitaire (LIEU), from the University of Ottawa, presented in French.

Stéphanie Desrosiers, from LIEU, said she believed improv was a good way to discuss issues since it is an effective communication tool which is accessible to all. She added that when they do satire, the audience laughs, but is also forced to think.

Although attendees and organizers had different views on what feminism meant to them, most agreed that the term could be divisive.

One attendee Ed Petch said that he is neither a feminist nor a “manuist” (a term he used for pro-men advocates), but rather a “cooperative.”

While some attendees were hesitant to describe themselves as feminists, the organizers understood the irony in the title, “I’m not still not a feminist but...”

“This was a phrase we had heard in our lives,” said Mossman. She said women will begin with, “I’m not a feminist but...” and then will fill in the blanks with phrases such as “but I believe that women should have rights.” She said this event is about breaking down stereotypes, recognizing that historically, the feminist movement has made mistakes and not being afraid of the word

Attendee Ali Yasin, 11, suggested that men also needed a day for themselves.

“Men need a day to sit back, relax and enjoy steak and motor oil,” said Ali.

Ali added that although he respected the choice for a day celebrating women, he said he would like to see a “human’s day.”

The Ottawa poet Oni the Haitian Sensation brought the event to a close with a presentation of the Femmy Awards, recognizing outstanding feminist achievements in Ottawa. The winners were Andrée Coté, Erin Lux, Jane Stinson, Anna Besch and Awatef Rasheed, for their roles in women’s rights organizations, to educators, to organizers of self-defence workshops for women.

Elizabeth Van DenHanenberg, an attendee and member of one of the organizing groups, Peacebuild, said she is still learning what it means to be a feminist, but is learning that times are changing: “feminism is in the title but it seems like common values.”

Worldwide Wednesdays

2010-03-17T20:52:00.002-04:00

Dearest Atheneristas,

Super short post this week, as I am slammed at school. I am currently writing an article about a Palestinian-Canadian photographer on her latest exhibit on the occupied territories called "Divide". Hopefully I will post that next week.

But for now, I have this short video about women in Laos detonating "bombies". It's pretty amazing, so not much analysis on my part much is needed. Take 10 minutes to watch this thing. I know it made my tiny stresses of today about a zit or a history quiz seem trivial.

Yamz

Mental Health Mondays- Gendercide in The Economist

2010-03-15T13:43:00.005-04:00

Hey Athenites,

I'm digressing from my theme of mental health here a little bit, but I've come across an article that I find very interesting and of incredible importance.

The article "The Worldwide War on Baby Girls" is published in the March 6-12 issue of The Economist Magazine by an unnamed author. It's their feature story: the cover sports the title "GENDERCIDE- what happened to 100 million baby girls?" with a photograph of pink slippers underneath. The article opens with an anecdote from Xinran Xue- a Chinese writer and author of Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories of Loss and Love- who visits a peasant family in Shandong, China, where a woman is about to give birth. Xinran hears the woman moan and a man's voice saying "useless thing." Then she hears a slosh: the newborn girl has been dumped head-first into the waste pail.

This is common practice in both rural and urban areas of China. While in rural areas the means to dispose of baby girls might be somewhat more crude- they are usually strangled with the umbilical cord- couples in urban areas practice selective abortion, made possible by sex-determining ultrasounds. This isn't only practiced in China: according to the article, doctors in India started advertising ultrasounds with slogans like "Pay 5,000 rupees today and save 50,000 rupees tomorrow" (the cost of a dowry).

Sex Ratios

The article states that because of a slightly higher natural tendency for boys to die in infancy than girls, 103-106 baby boys are born for every 100 baby girls (in countries that record sex at birth). I gather that this is a natural phenomenon. However, because of gender preference, the ratio has grown to more than 120 baby boys for every 100 baby girls in China and Northern India. Why the preference?

In India, the high cost for a dowry has many families wanting a son. And because women will be adopted by their husband's family when they marry, parents will lose support as well as money. In addition to this, I think that there is a preference because boys (in general) make stronger labourers and can help their parents work.

In China, there is a 1 child policy for all urban areas. There may be exceptions to this in rural areas (55% of China's population). Sometimes families are allowed to have another child if they "suffer 'hardship'", or if their first child is a girl. However, there is even more pressure to have a boy if a daughter is born first. The author uses the sex ratios in Guangdong province to illustrate this: in first-borns, the ratio of males to females is 108-100. In second-borns, the ratio is 146-100.

Bare Branches

The Chinese call an excess of bachelors guanggun, "bare branches." According to the article's author, "a rising population of frustrated single men spells trouble:" the crime rate in China has almost doubled in 20 years, and the author sees this as correlating to rising sex ratios. Also, because of the skewed ratios, men in China and India will have a harder time finding a bride in a few decades. This happened in South Korea, and resulted in a higher number of mixed marriages.

I find this an interesting phenomenon: because of gendercide, societies that are quite homogenous may have to extend citizenship to outsiders. What could this mean? Would it reduce racism, xenophobia? I support the confrontation of racism and tradition, but the murder of millions of baby girls is a horrible way to do so!

Mental Health

In rural areas of China, suicide is the primary cause of death for women aged 15-39. Xinran Xie, the author I had mentioned before, believes that this is because women can't bear the grief of having to kill a daughter.

There is such a huge discrepancy between my experience and the experience of these women. I have access to birth control, condoms, and supportive clinics. I don't have to worry about having to kill my daughter for shame were I to bear one- I wish I could extend these privileges to all women in the world. This article has reminded me that while I live in quite a liberal country and have many options, a lot of people in the world, a lot of women, don't have the privileges that I do. They bear the responsibility for providing a son by themselves, and as mentioned in the article ("useless thing"), often shoulder all of the shame and accusation when a daughter is born. But it takes two people to make a child, and it should take two to raise one.

Micky

Are you serious?

2010-03-12T15:48:00.004-05:00

So. It's come to this, Mississipi.

You would rather cancel a high school prom than let a lesbian member of the graduating class bring her girlfriend as her date? You think that it's more important to prevent 18 year old Constance McMillen from wearing a tuxedo than it is to allow the coming-of-age ritual that is prom in North America?

This is so ridiculous on so many levels that I can barely muster an articulate and incisive commentary.

What's really the final straw for me is the douchehat fellow graduate who told Constance: "Thanks for ruining my senior year."

OMFG. GET OVER YOURSELF. Would you like to live with systematic discrimination for your entire lifetime, you uber-douche? No. So stop with your little self-pity parade about your prom being ruined. Ergh.

-Steph

Worldwide Wednesdays

2010-03-10T21:07:00.003-05:00

Hi all,

Just a short post this week. I came across this article where supermodel Waris Dirie called International Women's Day absurd. She is not only a model but also advocate for women's rights worldwide, having herself been a victim of genital mutilation when she was a young girl in Somalia.

So I am sort of torn on this issue and so this post will most likely be a series of questions. Is International Women's Day absurd? Do we still need to have one? Does singling out women as special or in need of recognition perpetuate the polarizing image that feminism puts out? Or is Waris just absurd herself? We have days for famous men, but few for women, why not a day where we can celebrate them and their accomplishments? Or are we in a post-feminist world?

Anyways, I am putting these questions out there to think about. I'm not sure where I stand on this issue, but I think it's worth talking about.

Yamz

"Feminists: 'Feministic' terrorists"

2010-03-07T17:41:00.004-05:00

Okay, so it is not Wednesday, but I was cruising youtube.com and found this video called "I'm not a feminst but..." It is essentially a compilation of interviews with random people explaining their views on feminism. My personal favourite is a man who somehow is able to make a link between feminists and terrorists. I would recommend watching the whole video but if you are strapped for time and just want a good laugh, fastforward to about 3.20 and watch this guy in aviators say: "women feel strongly about their viewpoint just like terrorists feel strongly about their beliefs." GOLDEN. I should also add that he describes feminists as women who are "feministic." This man should write a book.

I don't really have much to add, I think this video speaks for itself.

Yamz

Worldwide Wednesdays

2010-03-02T21:05:00.004-05:00

Breaking News: Aung San Suu Kyi is still under house arrest!

Now I will give you a moment to clean yourselves up if you have just spit your beverage all over white table cloth in disbelief, or perhaps you dropped a platter of food you might have been carrying, shattered glass dispersed across your carpet, now embedded in its fibers. Switching gears for a moment, if glass embedded in your carpet fibers or a red wine stain on your table cloth is your biggest concern right now, you have it way easier than Aung San Suu Kyi.

So I’m assuming most of you sensed the sarcasm in my tone, because if you have been following Aung San Suu Kyi’s case, Burma’s Supreme Court decision on February 26 to extend her house arrest comes as no surprise. Burma--or Myanmar if you want to be politically correct--is an odd case to put it lightly in that it is a country with 2,100 political prisoners according to the UN and yet, ask a person on the street what they think about Burma and they’ll say, “where’s that?”

Burma is not a hot media issue. There have been no protests in the last few years (in 2007, there were the massive protests led by monks, which resulted in a violent crackdown from the junta) and so not much “exciting” footage for CNN to show. Maybe if Bill O'Reilly showed an interest at least, we’d be invading the country and executing its leaders faster than you can say, “weapons of mass destruction.”

But why is there so little interest in Burma? Does the world not care about 2,100 political prisoners, most of whom are in prison simply for peaceful protests? Does the world not care that the country’s democratically elected leader and Nobel laureate has been under house arrest for about 13 of the past 18 years?

There could be a number of cynical reasons I could put out there, one of which is that the West has no vested interest in intervening in Burma...ahem...Iraq...But I don’t know how helpful that would be to the dialogue on this issue. My main concern is that this news of extending the house arrest of a democratically elected leader is not news. It is filed on the last few pages on the front section, maybe in between two or three stories about Obama and health care, or Obama and his high cholesterol -- you get the idea. I have attached a BBC profile of Aung San Suu Kyi just to demonstrate how amazing her story is . But so few people know about this. Or those who do most likely see it as a lost cause, something that is expected and can’t be changed.

What needs to happen in Burma for people to take notice? Do they need an earthquake? Or maybe we need George Clooney to mention it on the red carpet at the Oscar’s this week...that is, after he tells us who he’s wearing. Do we need some violent crackdown by the junta? People starving slowly, or children with no access to education or healthcare does not make a very effective eight-second clip when Peter Mansbridge does the world news headlines in between “post-Olympics depression” features. WAIT! The Olympics! That’s it! China had never received so much criticism about its human rights record until Beijing hosted the summer Olympics in 2008. I think I would like to see the junta’s leaders do the skeleton in 2020. That would put Burma on the map, and make it headline-worthy.

So read up on her. Or read up on any activist that you think is being ignored and make people aware. Or just spend the rest of the week in Olympics-withdrawal...and then do something about it.

Yamz

Mental Health Mondays- Olympic Observations

2010-03-01T18:02:00.007-05:00

Hey Athenites,

I live in Vancouver, Canada, and the past couple of weeks have been crazy with Olympic fever. Yesterday I accepted an on-call job at the Molson Hockey House, the largest of the temporary Houses built around the city where Olympic fans congregated to drink and watch events. I didn't know what to expect.

It was loud. Really, really loud. A generic rock band played hits like "Barracuda" and "We Will Rock You." Everyone seemed to be wearing red and white, running around with ruddy faces and ringing cowbells. The MC had a white suit on and appeared on the stage once in awhile to yell "GO CANADA GO" and pump his fists in the air spasmodically. I'm not a huge fan of the Olympics and, being completely sober, failed to see what all the nationalistic fuss was about. Yes, I'm very grateful that I live in Canada, proud even, but don't understand how sports are the best way to showcase this.

So I'm wearing my starched white blouse and black apron, standing in the corner by the scalloped potatoes with all the other food runners. One girl has been working 17 days straight. She seldom smiles, and when she does, it's after some kind of dark joke, or after she's burned herself on the steam from the hot holder. I can understand why: 17 days of ear-deafening roars and obnoxious drunks, standing 10 hours a day for $ 10 dollars an hour.

In the staff eating area, I'm surrounded by servers, bartenders, food runners and managers. Some of the girls there are Molson Girls. These are girls who are hired to hang out in the drinking areas. I notice that they're all blonde, clear-skinned, and thin. One of the guys I work with ask them what they do. "Oh you know," one of the many long-haired blondes answers with a whiny voice, "we talk to people and play games!"

The most sobering part of the night was seeing a group of security guards kick an over-zealous fan out. I'm not sure what he did wrong, but they threw him down on the ground as hard as they could and started punching him. This was during the closing ceremonies, when the head of the Olympic committee was giving a speech about how sport brought people together. I find myself thinking how can this be true when we're only being brought together to prove how much better we are than another group?

One part of the Olympics that hardly got any coverage were the protests: collectives, NGO members and community members gathered to protest Vancouver's lack of affordable housing, gentrification, and holding the Olympics on stolen Native land (Vancouver is un-ceded Coast Salish territory). I didn't go to any of the Olympic protests, though I have a very close friend who was deeply involved with them. She recounted to me a few of the goings-on at the tent city that had been assembled at Hastings and Abbott, surrounded by gentrified buildings. She said that one had a huge Canadian flag on it. On another one, someone had lowered a sign that says "Build Resumes Not Tent Cities." In one of the buildings someone can't sleep and keeps yelling "COCKSUCKERS!" at the protesters.

Numbers are flying everywhere, but the estimated cost of the Olympics is somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5 billion dollars. This money could have been spent developing social housing, but what's the glory in that?

What do you think of the Olympics?

Micky

Pivot Legal Society- Advocacy on behalf of marginalized people
http://www.pivotlegal.org/

No Olympics on Stolen Native Land

http://no2010.com/node/1350

Worldwide Wednesdays

2010-02-23T20:10:00.004-05:00

Boniou Athenites!

Boniou is Creole for hello, and this will allow me to transition to where I am taking all of you this week: Haiti! Maybe you’ve heard of it? Unless you have been living under a rock for the past month, you are aware of the devastating earthquake that has shattered an already fragile nation. Now, most of the stories (although fewer and fewer are making headlines as the suffering of the Haitian people becomes less of a hot topic) have been about how western nations are heroically coming to the rescue of Haitians. We are repeatedly reminded of how great and generous we are for helping them.

Now, don’t misunderstand my tone for someone who does not see the merit in all the aid provided to Haiti. While I completely support all of the work done by organizations like the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, how does Haiti rebuild when these agencies leave? How can Haitians rebuild for the long term and have a say in their own destiny?

This brings me to the expression: “Give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.” Now imagine an organization that is adding women to the equation. Although aid is important, we must now look for more effective ways to help this struggling nation so that it may stand on its own two feet. Haitians are proud of their country and want to lead in improving it. So when I came across this article about micro-financing for women in Haiti, I thought this was a great idea. Fonkonze is known as Haiti’s Alternative Bank for the Organized Poor. It provides financial services for poor women and their families through loans and business opportunities. I have attached an article that describes what the organization is doing and a video about its latest project.

In times like these, it is difficult not to get into the paternal mentality where we look down on the "developing world." It is our job as part of humanity to help our fellow residents in the global village, but at the same time, we have to let the people help their own country. And how do we do this? By empowering the most vulnerable, often women, and providing them with the tools to take themselves out of poverty. These women do not want handouts, they want dignity and respect. The only way they can achieve this is through taking their future into their own hands and creating their own wealth and success.

Orevwa (goodbye),

Yamz

Women and Health

2010-02-19T13:26:00.003-05:00

Hey Athenites,

While I don't have much in the way of Feel Good Fridays, I do have a really interesting article for you about women's health from Anna over at Jezebel.

Although Anna is writing from the perspective of a U.S. citizen experiencing the U.S. healthcare system (or lack thereof), something which may not be familiar to all of us, the issues that she explores in her analysis: lack of trust of women, doctor/patient relationships, etc. are definitely applicable to us all.

Take a look at the article, entitled: "Tales of My Vagina, or Why Women's Health is Totally F*cking Unfair."

Peace, and have an awesome weekend!
Steph

An Observation

2010-02-17T11:53:00.002-05:00

So, the other day, I was in the mall. I do not like the mall, because I do not like shopping, but societal convention dictates that I must wear clothes, so from time to time I find myself there.

I was browsing in the Gap (I know, I know) when the labelling of their jean line caught my eye. Stores do this super annoying thing where they give cutesy little names to different styles of jeans (low rise, skinny leg jeans are "Morgans" at one store, for example. Heaven knows why.)

It occured to me that the way Gap labels their jeans is pretty much a microcosm of the way Western society expects women and men to act.

Names for the women's jean line include: Always Skinny; Sexy Boot; Curvy; Long and Lean; Boyfriend Jeans; Perfect Boot. Names for the men's jean line include: Easy; Straight; Loose; Authentic.

Women must be hot. Men must be heterosexual and hypersexual. Buy our clothes.

--Steph

Mental Health...Fridays?

2010-02-12T16:09:00.003-05:00

Dear Athenites.
...Okay okay, I know it's not Monday so it is technically not a "mental-health" day. That being said, today we looked at "Mental Illness in the Victorian Era" in one of my classes, and I found some of the information so incredibly appalling, but also really enlightening and even slightly encouraging. That is, it's good to know how things have progressed.

(Pretty much all of this information I am taking directly from my classmate's presentation. I think her name is Keisha. But unfortunately I can't give her any more credit than my best-guess at her first name. Sorry, classmate.)

Alright. So most people who have done even a bit of an analysis of history know that women have been considered "the weaker sex" for a very long time. Women were expected to be passive, dependent, sexually disinterested, angelic, ...and were essentially viewed as baby making machines. The women who did not fit this criteria, particularly in the Victorian era, were diagnosed with a severe mental illness.

By this criteria, almost all of today's women would be diagnosed as needing to be contained in an asylum.

The common belief was that mental illness was a disease of the soul...and this had to be "fixed" by doctor's methods. Accordingly, patients were kept in cages, given small amounts of [often unclean] food, had little or no clothing, wore no shoes, and slept on dirt. Let's remember....this was all because they were not meeting the societal expectation of them, not because they had showed any outward signs of something that actually required "fixing."

When some doctors began to recognise that this "mental illness" was not actually a God-given-soul-disease, but had something to do with a different structuring of the brain (---side note, let's recognise that this WAS a good step....but it was so incomplete in that they still believed women's disinterest to fill their stereotypical role as an 'illness' ) and could be treated with various other methods.

Some of the "treatment" methods that they tried for different "mental illnesses" that they diagnosed??

Well, for "nymphomanics" (women who showed were sexually-interested, [or in modern terms, horny] ) the treatment included:
separation from men, bloodletting, induced vomiting, leeches, solitary confinement, straight-jackets, and a bland diet.

(What did they hope to achieve from a bland diet? A little less "spice" and a little more "nice" ?? Good one, doctors.)

Oh, and let's not forget...desiring to be either a spinster or a lesbian (apparently the two go hand in hand according to the doctors of the day) the "treatment" included:
- forced marraiges by family members. or encouraged sexual encounters in which the "mentally-ill patients" (that is, the lesbians/spinsters) were sexually-abused or raped UNDER THE CARE OF THEIR DOCTORS.

Sigh.

I think it's important to recognise how far mental health has come from this time period. Specifically to realise that in Victorian times, people were labelled to be "mentally ill" simply because they did not wish to conform to society's stereotypes.

Do you think we have smacked the "mental-illness" label onto anything similiar in our current day and age?

- nadya

Feel Good Fridays: Comics!

2010-02-12T09:50:00.005-05:00

For those of you who have not had the pleasure of experiencing the excellent comics of Kate Beaton, I hereby invite you to do so immediately!

Beaton is a Canadian comic who was born and raised in Nova Scotia, and writes delightful and (in my view) hilariously funny historical comics. If you always wanted to see a picture of a potato-shaped Napoleon Bonaparte eating cookies, but never knew where to find it, Kate Beaton is for you. An archive of her comics is available at Hark, a vagrant!

Peace,

Steph

Movie Time: "Crude"

2010-02-10T12:38:00.002-05:00

I'm going to add this one to the list of films I'll be watching this year!

Steph :)

Mental Health Monday: Portrayal of Mental Illness in Current Media

2010-02-08T09:41:00.004-05:00

I’ve been heavy-headingly making my way through these past couple of days with a nasty head cold, so unfortunately I don’t have any thing remotely close to incredible insight that I can offer for this week’s blog.

That being said, when I sat down at my computer this morning in order to decide what to write about, one thought came to mind: media portrayal. To give the media a fair chance, I will start by stating that they are not always entirely horrible. However….they do tend to be pretty inaccurate/upper-extreme in their portrayals of a variety of things.

i.e. What kind of people are feminists? According to media portrayals, they are generally the bitchy women who managed to make their way to the top of a business management, and will leave work (after an over-time shift) to return home to their lesbian relationship. Heaven forbid that a stay-at-home mom could be a feminist. Or her husband could be, for that matter. (I hope you notice my sarcasm.)

Anyway, noticing such inaccurate/incomplete/upper-extreme portrayals (such as the one mentioned above) made me wonder what kind of portrayal mental-illness is given in today’s media. I had one “positive” example come to mind, and that is the movie “The Beautiful Mind.” In the movie, the main character (John Nash) has a form of schizophrenia, causing him to form relationships (that, in his reality, are very much real) that are unaccepted as "real" by the standard measure of reality. He is not portrayed as someone who has "escaped from the looney bin and needs to be put back" but rather as someone who faces a struggle and tries to overcome it, much like one struggle against any other illness. You see parts of the personal aspect of treating mental illness...Nash informs his doctor with regret that he is stopped taking his medication, as he felt that it changed him entirely and he was no longer able to do things that he was formally able to do. Subsequently, you see the relapses that he endures into his [acceptably-false] reality as he re-establishes his relationships with characters who are simply creations of his own mind. And, toward the end of the movie, you can see the cautious approach that he holds in life, as to not unintentionally relapse into an active bout of schizophrenia.

However, apart from this movie, when I think of mental-healtl portrayal within the media, I can't quite put my finger on why this is (i.e. no immediate movies or TV shows etc come to mind as proof of this) but I recognise that, in general, there has been a very negative stigma attached to mental-illness. I can recall various TV shows in which the person facing a struggle in mental-health is viewed as an outcast, etc.

And this made me wonder........how on earth ARE we to portray mental health in our media? Part of me wants to fight for my belief that "people are people, regardless of medicinal diagnosis" and accordingly not have the media recognise mentally-ill people as any different than any other people....but then this fails to raise awareness on mental health issues. The modern-day media is undoubtedly the fastest way to bring people's attention to something, whether it is through movies, magazines, facebook ads, etc....the media is in our face all the time.

So, what do you think? How should the media be portraying mental-health? How can it use its resources to raise accurate awareness on the issues surrounding mental-health? Not simply exposing the "extreme" cases in a negative light, but to authentically educate our general public with the realities surrounding mental health.

I would love to hear your thoughts on:

- the way YOU see mental health being portrayed throughout our media

- the way YOU think mental health SHOULD be portrayed

- and anything else :).

Nadya

Sexual Health Sundays: Film Club!

2010-02-07T20:52:00.008-05:00

If you're looking for something to distract you from schoolwork, consider one of these fifteen films. Though by no means an exhaustive collection of what's out there in terms of sexuality/gender/queer-themed cinema, these titles are a good place to start.

1. Fetishes (documentary)

1996; directed by Nick Broomfield

Explores the world of Pandora’s Box, a prominent New York City fetish club.

2. Be Like Others (documentary)
2008; directed by Tanaz Eshagian

In Iran, homosexuality is illegal, but sex reassignment surgery is permitted.

3. Were the World Mine
2008; directed by Tom Gustafson

Gay boys, glitter, magic, and Shakespeare... what’s not to love?

4. Tipping the Velvet (BBC serial)

2002; based on the novel by Sarah Waters

Male impersonators, underground lesbian s/m communities, sex work, oysters... all set in Victorian England.

5. Fingersmith

(BBC serial)

2005; based on the novel by Sarah Waters

Have you ever read a piece of historical fiction and wished really hard that the wealthy aristocratic maiden and the servant-girl would get it on? If so, this is the movie for you.

6. Kinky Boots
2005; directed by Julian Jarrold

Lola, a well-known drag queen and cabaret singer, decides to help Charles save his family’s shoe business.

7. Saving Face
2004; directed by Alice Wu

Wil, a surgeon (and secret lesbian) has to negotiate family drama as well as her illicit affair with Vivian, her boss’s daughter.

8. D.E.B.S.
2004; directed by Angela Robinson

The D.E.B.S., a secret crime fighting unit, do undercover work for the U.S. government. However, during an important mission to capture Lucy Diamond, nothing goes according to plan.

9. Loving Annabelle
2006; directed by Katherine Brooks

Annabelle, the new student at a Catholic girl’s school, finds herself attracted to Simone Bradley, her English teacher... classic!

10. C.R.A.Z.Y.
2005; directed by Jean-Marc Vallée

From IMDB: “A mystical fable about a modern-day Christ-like figure, "C.R.A.Z.Y" exudes the beauty, the poetry and the madness of the human spirit in all its contradictions.” And I thought it was just a cute story about a gay guy growing up and being forced to deal with his family’s idiosyncrasies...

11. Gray Matters
2006; directed by Sue Kramer

Gray and Sam, siblings and roommates, live in New York City... and fall in love with the same girl.

12. Better than Chocolate
1999; directed by Anne Wheeler

A lesbian romantic comedy set in Vancouver! It’s like the L-Word with a lower budget.

13. FtF: Female to Femme (documentary)
2006; directed by Kami Chisholm and Elizabeth Stark

What does it mean to be a femme?

14. Farewell my Concubine
1993. Directed by Kaige Chen

From IMDB: “"Farewell, My Concubine" is a movie with two parallel, intertwined stories. It is the story of two performers in the Beijing Opera, stage brothers, and the woman who comes between them. At the same time, it attempts to do no less than squeeze the entire political history of China in the twentieth century into a three-hour time-frame.”

15. Aimee and Jaguar
1999; directed by Max Farberbock

In 1943-44 Berlin, an unlikely romance blossoms between Felice, a Jewish woman, and a German homemaker named Lilly.

So what do you think, Athenites? What are your favourite films?

Feel Good Fridays: Superbowl Edition

2010-02-05T10:46:00.002-05:00

So, I don't follow football.

Firstly, because I live in Canada. Secondly, because I think it's a stupid sport. Thirdly, because I have been indoctrinated to prefer hockey. Fourthly, because...I think it's a stupid sport. (I never pretended my reasons were complex.)

And when I heard about the pro-life ad for Focus on the Family that is supposed to air during the Superbowl, that gave me one more reason to avoid the Superbowl and one more reason to actively hate football. The ad features NFL player Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam, who was advised to terminate her 5th pregnancy due to medical complications. She carried her baby to term, and the result was little Tim. For a more insightful analysis of the ad, check out Latoya at Jezebel.

And THEN, I heard about a response ad from Planned Parenthood, featuring two other NFL players who I don't know because I don't follow football but who really seem like great dudes. Their emphasis: celebrate families by trusting women. (Good idea!) Here's the ad.

Also, Scott Fujita (a linebacker for the New Orleans Saints) has spoken out in favour of gay marriage, pro-choice, and in favour of general awesomess. This guy sounds pretty damn cool.

Now, lest I be accused of hatin' on free speech (although this blog isn't popular at all, so trolls aren't an issue), let it be heard that I'm fine with Tim Tebow being pro-life/anti-choice, whatever you want to call it. And I am even fine (sort of) with this ad. The thing I hate about it is not the ideological stance, but the hypocrisy.

Pam Tebow had the choice to erminate her pregnancy, and she didn't. Because that was the choice that was right for her. But now she doesn't want other women to have that option.

Let me know what you think.

Peace,
Steph

Top Ten Thursdays: "Tips for Single Ladies, 1938"

2010-02-04T23:00:00.001-05:00

So this is actually a list of TWELVE points. Not mine, and I wish it was satire, but no; it seems to be dated 1938. Sort of blurs the line between general etiquette and downright threatening warnings. But who doesn't enjoy a good laugh at at the expense of an ignorant era? Also, enjoy the pictures of Inappropriate Behaviour. I especially like the ones warning against drinking too much on a date:

Enjoy!

-Av

Support the women of Zimbabwe!

2010-02-03T12:45:00.003-05:00

Hello Athenites!

Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), a group of over 75, 000 human rights defenders in Zimbabwe, frequently suffers from political persecution from the government. Although the formation of a unity government in Zimbabwe has meant that day-to-day conditions have marginally improved, there is still a lot of work to do before good governance is a reality.

On February 2nd, 2010, 22 WOZA members were arrested in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo, because they were discussing the constitutional reform process. It is clear that WOZA needs the help and moral support of fellow activists all over the world.

Please use Amnesty Canada's campaign in order to send a message of solidarity to WOZA members or make a donation that will go to public awareness and directly to WOZA. Click here to get involved.

If you live in the United States, you may prefer to make donations or participate through their branch. you can find some information about their Valentine's Day campaign for WOZA here.

Your help, whether it is a simple message of hope or a financial donation, is appreciated.

Peace,
Steph

(WOZA Coordinator
Amnesty International Canada
wozacoordinator@amnesty.ca)

Mental Health Mondays- Thoughts On Power Intro

2010-02-01T21:06:00.006-05:00

Hey Athenites,

Lately, I've been thinking about power. Power to choose, power to lead, power over others. I'm finding that to me, power is a very abstract thing. I can't quite pin it down. I'm not sure if it's something to want or to fear, to welcome or to push away.. The theme of power gives rise to many questions:

What is power? What does it mean to have power? To give power? To relinquish power? Is that defeat? Can power be shared? Can power be bought? If so, how? By who? Who has power an how is that decided? What are the advantages to having power? Are there any advantages to losing power? And, most relevant to this blog: how does power affect our mental health: feelings, emotions, moods? How does power affect our relationships?

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think about power? For me, it's US president Barack Obama, his words echoing through a microphone out to millions of people during the State of the Union speech. "We are here to serve our people, not our ambitions." (I may be paraphrasing here.)

As a young white woman I have a lot of power in this world. Also, as a young white woman I'm rarely aware of the power that I have. I'm usually only aware of my power when I lose it. I'm a tad overwhelmed by this subject, so this is more of an introduction to themes I hope to explore in the weeks to come: Political power, sexual power, racial power, military power, personal power. I'll be examining the power of images, media, sound.

My apologies for the short post, I hope I can make it up in the weeks to come.

Micky

Internet Dating, Attraction & Racist Stereotypes

2010-01-31T14:19:00.004-05:00

I like using the internet—for social networking, research, reading my favourite blogs, and sometimes for more erotic reasons. I’ve also used the internet to get in touch with potential romantic partners. I met my current partner on the dating site OK Cupid (co-founded by Chris Coyne, Sam Yagan, Max Krohn, and Christian Rudder) after the website was listed in Bitch Magazine’s Bitchlist of favourite things. The interface is user-friendly, and assesses compatibility with other people based on your answers to a variety of quizzes. (The site isn’t perfect, though- the only “gender” options when registering are male and female, and you have to define yourself as either straight, gay, or bisexual). Despite these shortcomings, I had a good experience on the site; my partner and I have been together for over two years now.

Recently, OK Cupid released findings of how users’ race affects their experience on the site. OK Cupid found that ·

"Black women write back the most. Whether it’s due to talkativeness, loneliness, or a sense of plain decency, black women are by far the most likely to respond to a first contact attempt. In many cases, their response rate is one and a half times the average, and, overall, black women reply about a quarter more often that other women.
White men get more responses. Whatever it is, white males just get more replies from almost every group. We were careful to preselect our data pool so that physical attractiveness (as measured by our site picture-rating utility) was roughly even across all the race/gender slices. For guys, we did likewise with height.
White women prefer white men to the exclusion of everyone else—and Asian and Hispanic women prefer them even more exclusively. These three types of women only respond well to white men. More significantly, these groups’ reply rates to non-whites is terrible. Asian women write back non-white males at 21.9%, Hispanic women at 22.9%, and white women at 23.0%. It’s here where things get interesting, for white women in particular. . .

Men don’t write black women back. Or rather, they write them back far less often than they should. Black women reply the most, yet get by far the fewest replies. Essentially every race—including other blacks—singles them out for the cold shoulder.

White guys are shitty, but fairly even-handed about it. The average reply rate of non-white males is 48.1%, while white guys’ is only 40.5%. Basically, they write back about 20% less often. It’s ironic that white guys are worst responders, because as we saw above they get the most replies. That has apparently made them very self-absorbed. It’s interesting that white males do manage to reply to Middle Eastern women. Is there some kind of emergent fetish there? As Middle Easterners are becoming America’s next racial bogeyman, maybe there’s some kind of forbidden fruit thing going on. (Perhaps a reader more up-to-date on his or her Post-Colonial Theory can step in here? Just kidding. Don't.)"

Snarky’s Machine (who also writes regularly for the fat acceptance blog Shapely Prose) wrote about OK Cupid and race, citing a forum post which discussed attraction to black women. The forum responses are terrible and further emphasize that the idea of a “post-racial society” is a complete joke.

In a similar vein, Kia performed an “extremely flawed social experiment” on OK Cupid to see just how the online dating experience changes based on race alone. Kia posted the same profile twice; once, she used her own photograph ( she is African-American) and then used a white female friend’s. Her results are fascinating, not only based on the number of responses but on the quality and tone of those responses.

A quick browse through your local Craiglist postings will show you that race structures attraction in a myriad of ways:

"Indian Boys"

"jaime les asiatiques"

"cherche femme asiatique"

"Asian Only"

"MID AGED MAN SEEKS FILIPINO WOMAN"

"21yo black guy, looking for ASIAN girl"

"Italian gal for Italian guy"

"older jewish funny rich jewish man"

"Ivory (blonde/fair/blue eyes) BBW seeks an awesome black man!"

"slim smooth chinese twink wanted"

"I am white and looking for asian"

We don't talk enough about race. I don't think that having particular racial preferences when it comes to sex and dating (/ being in interracial relationships) necessarily equals fetishism, but I do think that our patterns of attraction are constructed within the structures of a racist society in which racist stereotypes abound. Black studs, Japanese geishas, Middle Eastern harem girls, Pocahontas. Sex isn't free of what bell hooks calls "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy"; intimacy can be a site of struggle, and it's important to interrogate and examine all of these unquestioned tropes and scripts.

--Vanessa

Please, no more mansplainations!

2010-01-29T09:46:00.003-05:00

Perhaps you have heard of the phenomenon refered to as "mansplainin'"?

It occurs when a guy tells you something that you already know (and perhaps are even more well-versed in than he) in an extremely patronizing tone, as if to indicate: "Don't worry, sweetie. I'll clear up this complicated concept for you. Don't you worry your pretty lil' head about it."

Now, obviously patronizing explanations are something that pretty much every single human being in the world is guilty of every once in a while. Not all men mansplain, and lots of women are..umm...womansplainers? But mansplainin' is slightly different, because it is a specific type of explaining, and because it is a classic symptom of unexamined male privilege. This privilege enables a guy to feel like he is the authority on this particular topic (even when he's not), and to talk over you, patronize, silence you, and generally be convinced of his own superiority in all intellectual debates by virtue of his very existence.

One case, for your consideration: I am good friends with this one guy, in particular, who is generally awesome, but who is not particularly interested in gender studies. My volunteer work, which I have been doing for about a year and a half now, involves extensive work on the issue of activism and gender rights in Zimbabwe. Therefore, between myself and this male friend, I am the expert on this issue.

That did not prevent my male friend from telling me all about the situation in Zimbabwe, the political repression, and how President Mugabe is a bad dude (but first he had to be reminded of what Mugabe's name was). Over the course of like, 15 minutes. In a really slow voice.

This is the same male friend that once explained to me why shows like America's Next Top Model were bad for women's self-esteem. Thanks for the heads-up, bro. I totally didn't know that.

What about you? I'm sure you've had some annoying/funny/bizarre/perplexing experiences with mansplainin'! Tell me all about it.

Peace,
Steph :)

To reiterate: not all men do this, and lots of women do this too. :)

Toddlers in Tiaras: A Review

2010-01-29T00:00:00.003-05:00

Hey ladies,
I want to apologize for being a MAJOR flake in terms of blogging responsibilities. But this one should be fun. I'm proud to present to you a review of an episode of TLC's brand new season of Toddlers in Tiaras. The program follows three contestants and their mothers as they vie for the Southern Majestic Pageant Tiara. This includes spending quality time holding dance-routine practices, shopping for prop materials, attending private pageant coaching classes, and choosing outfits (in this case in the following categorical themes: western, luau, groove, swimwear, glitz and beauty... swimwear?). Chelsea is eleven. Victoria is eight. Ariana is four.

I have always wrestled with the idea of beauty pageants. I can't find it in me to support little girls being judged this way. Beauty? Talent? Making them stand onstage in front of a crowd of people while one girl's dream comes true and ten others' are crushed? This can't be good for their self-esteem, and with kids that young you never really know what could end up leaving an emotional scar.

But don't get me wrong -- these girls are tough. Ariana, Chelsea and Victoria were all very competitive, in fact. And frankly, by the looks of the footage of them behind the scenes after having lost a category, they didn't seem to get too miffed about it. But the pageant moms were singing a different tune when it came to losses. A sinister, minor tune. After all, pageantry doesn't come cheap these days. The contestants of the Southern Majestic Pageant in North Carolina spent anywhere between $2700 and $30 000 each. The grand prize seemed to be pretty key for the moms. And it was only $750.

The problem with cash prizes is that they provide the opportunity for adults to get blindsided. It's easy to give in to children (there's no doubt they're having fun), but when you look around after dropping a thousand dollars on a dress your kid will outgrow in less than a year, you're going to be looking for reimbursement. And then the element of stress enters into what is already (arguably) a pretty shitty idea of a pastime for young girls.

Clip:
Victoria, age eight, stands in front of the broad bathroom mirror practicing facial expressions. Her grandmother stands in the background, repeatedly instructing Victoria to open her eyes wider. "See how your eyes are squinty? That's what we need to fix." Victoria reaches up and opens her eyelids wider with her fingers.

Chelsea's mom is her daughter's "worst critic... I don't want to hear the good. Tell me the bad." But Chelsea, age eleven, having a blast. She spends two days beautifying (she even shaves her legs!) and says she looks "really pretty when I'm all dressed up."

At one point Ariana's mom voices a concern about the swimwear category. "I have a problem with the swimwear and two-piece suits, because, you know, creepy people... I'm mean, she's only four." Unfortunately, this narration is played over footage of Ariana getting ready for the swimwear segment (wearing a two-piece) and, even more unfortunately, they hired a professional pageant make-up artist who looked like the EPITOME. I scoured the internet for his photo, but, alas, couldn't find one.

Victoria's mom noticed her repeatedly yawning offstage while waiting for her turn to perform, which concerned her immensely "...I don't know why she's yawning... she appears to be a little bit off today, and... that's, you know, that's disappointing to me." Victoria's mom also reports deliberately keeping the financial cost of the pageants from her husband, as well as explaining the concept of "photoshop" to her daughter when Victoria questions her teeth in a headshot; "I don't get that...." Neither do we, Victoria. Neither do we.

Ariana, the youngest girl, walked away with the "Mini Supreme" title, and reportedly a $1.99 tiara, but falls just short of the cash prize. Her mother later stipulates; "you know, they really rip you off that way... It makes you wonder, is it really worth it?" When put that way, it KIND of sounds like the main focus isn't that Ariana enjoys and feels good about herself, but rather suggests that cash prizes are the main incentive.

Anyway, there's no doubt that the girls are having fun. They all did moderately well, each of them taking home at least one tiara. But of all the hobbies a young girl could have, how, as parents, could you really support that kind of activity? In this show, it seemed that money was the biggest driving factor for the parents, and that heavily affected the feedback they gave the girls. The second driving force was probably the competitive spirits of the moms, closely followed by those of the girls. Of course a little healthy competition never hurt anyone, but what kind of standards does this kind of competition set for young girls? And what kind of repercussions does it have later on in their development into young-womanhood?

I have only known two girls with pageant experience. One is very sweet, and one used to be a notorious bully throughout grade school. Obviously not all girls that participate are negatively affected, but would a young girl who has been positively affected by participation in beauty pageants feel the need to victimize other young girls? Isn't that kind of behaviour known to be an indicator of LOW self-esteem? Even if the parents' incentives are uncompromised and their only wish is for their daughter to enjoy herself, does it make this kind of activity appropriate for such young, impressionable girls, especially given the development of self-image around these ages? What do you think?

-Av

How Not to Write about Africa

2010-01-24T13:42:00.003-05:00

Check out this great video which critiques the way Western authors (and journalists, television, newspapers, charities, bloggers, etc., etc.) portray Africa and African peoples.

Although I feel that the message of the video is insightful, it was ironically sponsored by (Red), that Bono-run organization which promotes the idea that Western consumerism can somewhat save Africa (which it portrays as a monolithic entity). Interesting. Any thoughts?

Peace, Steph :)

Cindy McCain is in favour of same sex marriage?

2010-01-22T10:22:00.004-05:00

Today we have an interesting, if somewhat confusing photo from Cindy McCain (Republican Presidential nominee John McCain's wife). About a year too late, she has posed for No H8, an anti Prop-8 campaign. Although the timing could definitely have been better, I guess it's the thought that counts...?

Prop-8, which was passed last year in the state of California, revoked a previous ruling which granted the right for same-sex couples to marry. The downright prejudice of Prop-8 is further compounded by the fact that it allowed the majority to make decision about the civil rights of a minority. Rights are not something that are open for debate or vote or ad campaigns. They just exist. And so Prop-8 sucked because 1) it passed into law 2) it is wildly discriminatory and 3) the whole premise behind a referendum on civil rights is just ridiculous.

As I am sure a lot of you are, I am a bit confused about why Cindy McCain did this (Megan McCain, John McCain's daughter, has posed for the same campaign as well, but during the election campaign. Kudos to her.). The reason why Cindy didn't display her pro-human rights stance during the election campaign is obvious enough, I suppose--she had to display a united McCain family front to the public, and that meant sacrificing her own beliefs (not to mention the rights of thousands of other people) . This whole sacrificing-my-beliefs-to-support-my-husband's-career-thing is a script that we've seen often enough.

But why now? Why let John McCain make an utter ass of himself on the Ellen show as he explains why he doesn't support gay marriage, if you--his wife and daughter--can try and convince him otherwise?

What are your opinions? Let me know what you think!

Steph :)

Worldwide Wednesdays: In memoriam

2010-01-20T19:01:00.007-05:00

Hello, internet!

Yeah, yeah, I know. Who's a lousy blogger? Hannah's a lousy blogger! But this week, for what it's worth, I'm going to do my job.

You can probably guess where I'm going to direct your attention this week. It's on an island in the Caribbean, it's got a profoundly spiritual and resilient population, and it just can't seem to get a break. Haiti is hurting badly right now, and before I proceed to the bulk of this week's blog, I'd like to make what is probably the ten thousandth appeal you've encountered to please help if you can at all. What you're seeing in the news these days is just a shallow representation of the hundreds of thousands of individuals who have lost either their lives or pretty much everything they had. It's something you probably wouldn't even wish on the nastiest person you know, but it just happened to most of a country's population all at once. If you've contributed towards the relief effort already, you're a star. If you haven't but you think you might want to, I urge you to look into it. Money's what they need right now, every cent helps, and there are many ways to give it. Do some quick research to decide who you think will make good use of your donation. If you don't have a credit card to donate online or by phone, you can text the Red Cross to have a donation charged to your phone bill or hunt down one of the cash donation boxes that no doubt have popped up on campus or elsewhere in your community. Trust me, you won't miss that 10 bucks. Canada and Haiti are tight, and we owe it to them to pitch in. Because we can.

I'm done preaching now, but in the theme of recognizing the far-reaching devastation of the earthquake, I want to focus this week's blog on some of the amazing women's rights defenders we lost to this disaster. Today I got a tweet (and before you ask, yes, it pains me to write "tweet") from Amnesty International informing me of the deaths of three Haitian activists. It really and truly sucks that I'm only able to profile them post-humously and following what can only be described as the untimeliest of passings, but at the same time these are people who should not go overlooked. So let's get to know the inspiring, ass-kicking individuals that they were:

Myriam Merlet was on the forefront of Haiti's women's movement, serving as the Chief of Staff of Haiti's Ministry of Women and working tirelessly to promote rights for women in Haiti. Her list of accomplishments is truly impressive. After studying in Canada in the 70s, she chose to return to Haiti and brought her good friend Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues with her. She helped to open the first women's safe-house in Port-au-Prince. She was an author who tackled subjects like the role of women in democratic politics and discrimination within the job market. She worked to combat the use of rape as a political weapon. And she was a trailblazer for women's involvement in the Haitian government which, as in countless nations worldwide, was overwhelmingly male-dominated for most of its history. When Merlet died last Tuesday in the rubble of her home, she was 53.

Click here for touching words from Eve Ensler as she remembers Merlet and what she stood for.

Magalie Marcelin was another activist with Canadian ties. After being exiled under the Duvalier regime in the 1980s, she lived in Montréal for six years before returning to Haiti and founding Kay Fanm, an incredible organization dedicated to improving the lives of women in Haiti by helping rape victims, working to increase the criminal penalties against those who commit rape, and providing shelter from violence and opportunities for education and income generation.

She left behind a daughter and a six-year-old grandson.

Anne Marie Coriolan worked alongside Myriam Merlet in the Ministry of Women and, like Marcelin, saw the importance of making rape a serious crime under Haitian law. She was the mother of two and the founder of a women's rights organization called Solidarite Fanm Ayisyen (Creole for Haitian Women's Solidarity). Her life was dedicated to the advancement of not only women, but all of Haiti.

Coriolan was also 53.

Thank you for taking the time to read about these activists. In reading up on each of them I encountered several quotations from their friends and supporters, and I think it's safe to say that the spirit of what these women stood for will survive this tragedy. There are still many who share a vision of a strong, unified Haiti where women are respected and free to bring about change. With international support, I think this goal can slowly but surely be attained.

Mental Health Mondays- The Power of Words Pt 2

2010-01-18T22:38:00.003-05:00

The Power of Words Part 2: Jeff's Law

Hey Athenites,

My apologies for the late post. I saw a documentary on TV a couple of weeks ago and have only been able to dig up its name a few moments ago.

The show is called This Emotional Life. It is a documentary that traces different emotions accompanying aspects of being human. I saw the first episode, Family, Friends & Lovers. In this program, the filmmakers followed a couple, a group of friends, or a family facing adversity. Whether it was navigating a marriage in rough times, or learning how to support a son who has Autism, the documentary provided fascinating insight into the intricacies of the mind and human relationships. I would highly recommend it.

One story in particular struck a chord with me. It was a story about a boy named Jeff, who committed suicide as a freshman in Florida, after he had been bullied for two years. It was unclear as to why Jeff may have been singled out by his bully- the reflections his friends provided painted Jeff as a fun person, the life of the party, who made High School more bearable.

Both Debbie (Jeff's mother) and his friends said that Jeff never returned his bully's violence.
Jeff's mother brought the case of her son's suicide to the courts and got a law passed called Jeffrey Johnston's Law that gives schools more power to intervene in bullying.

Something that really struck me was Debbie saying that one step of intervention taken was to sit Jeff down with his bully, something she likened to "having a rapist sit down with his victim to justify why she deserved it." I can't even imagine having to do this.

"Kids can be so mean."

It's true. I've been a bully, half-unconsciously, half-knowingly, when I was younger. A strange sense of power came along with that. I've been bullied. Results: a sense of sinking, hopelessness, helplessness.

Jeff's bully spread rumours about him, and hacked into an internet game he had been working on for months to replace its content with hurtful words.

I'm not sure which comes first, but from what I've seen hatred breeds hatred, and I admire Jeff for not attempting to retaliate against his bully. Some people may see this as weakness, but I would argue that Jeff displayed a remarkable amount of strength. Much respect to Jeffrey and Debbie for sharing their story.

Micky

Debbie's Story
http://www.pbs.org/thisemotionallife/people/personal-story/debbie/bio

This Emotional Life Website
http://www.pbs.org/thisemotionallife/

Hotline for Youth
www.kidshelpphone.ca

Reproductive Justice: Building an Anti-Oppressive Reproductive Health Movement

2010-01-17T18:55:00.002-05:00

The issue of reproductive health and control is a core tenet of the feminist movement, thanks in part to birth control activists like Margaret Sanger. Working in the early 20th century, Sanger lobbied for women’s sexual pleasure and empowerment, insisting that regulating fertility would increase in happier and more fulfilling marriages. Sanger established the American Birth Control League; its contemporary incarnation, Planned Parenthood, continues Sanger’s legacy by campaigning on behalf of the pro-choice movement and pushing for comprehensive sexuality education in schools. Despite these admirable achievements, the reproductive rights movement has, in both historical and contemporary times, favoured the agenda of certain women over others’. Sanger’s view of contraception was based on a middle-class model, which many working-class women found unworkable. Today, the reproductive rights movement is primarily focused around the abortion debate, ignoring the ways in which systems of oppression reduce the possibility of reproductive choice for women.

In “Woman and the New Race,” Margaret Sanger attributes the poverty of the American working class to their large families. Sanger advocates the use of contraceptives in order to remedy the burdens a large population places on society as a whole. However, Sanger’s goal was not simply one of population reduction. The popular belief that a woman’s orgasm was necessary for conception led many women to inhibit their own sexual arousal; by popularizing birth control methods, Sanger hoped to encourage sexual pleasure for both men and women within marriage. Yet, despite her good intentions, Sanger’s birth control agenda did not take into account the specific needs of working class women, and was therefore largely ineffective.

Due to her middle-class background, Sanger endorsed the use of the diaphragm over more popular methods of fertility control, such as abstinence, extended nursing, and coitus interruptus. Abstinence was seen as unsatisfactory, because of the belief that a healthy marriage depended upon sexual compatibility. Extended nursing was said to weaken the mother, and coitus interruptus could supposedly lead to nervous disorders. The diaphragm, predominantly used by the middle class, was seen as a superior method of birth control because it could be used by the woman without requiring male co-operation. Despite this feminist rationale, the diaphragm was not a viable option for many working class women, who did not feel comfortable or did not have the means to access the necessary medical care. By dismissing the popular working class methods of birth control, such as abstinence and coitus interruptus, in favour of a middle-class ideal, Sanger’s important reproductive rights activism was not relevant to a large number of women.

Similarly, the contemporary reproductive rights movement often focuses on the political agenda of middle-class white women, positing these needs as the norm for all women. In their publication “Understanding Reproductive Justice,” the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective of Atlanta, Georgia outlines the common issues some women of color face when organizing around reproductive health issues in white-dominated environments. Liberal feminists have typically focused on abortion at the expense of human rights and social justice issues (such as economic justice, immigrant’s rights, disability rights and the environment), thereby limiting the scope of the reproductive health debate, and failing to take into account the multiple community-oriented factors that may affect a woman’s ability to choose. Women do not exist in a vacuum, separate from their communities; if the feminist reproductive rights movement does not address systemic oppression, it will fail to acknowledge the diversity of women’s experiences and the complex links between women, their families and their communities.

The reproductive justice movement, in contrast, is defined by a desire for inclusivity and intersectionality. Reproductive justice, as defined by hip-hop feminist Kimala Price, is “not just about the individualistic right to have an abortion (i.e., the right not to have children) but to include the right to have children and to raise them in healthy and stable families.” The reproductive justice movement does not separate women from their communities, or their social contexts. Instead of assuming that all women should have the right to choose between abortions, adoption or parenting, the reproductive justice movement questions the systemic factors and institutionalized oppression that impact a woman’s ability to make that choice. In a world where many women experience economic hardship and societal marginalization, a reproductive justice movement that enables healthy parenting (by working to improve wages, health care, education and child care, for example) is vitally important.

Margaret Sanger’s work, continued today by Planned Parenthood, has brought the question of birth control and reproductive rights to the forefront of feminist debate. However, the liberal feminist “pro-choice” rhetoric must not be seen as the ultimate authority on the issue of women’s reproductive rights. Choice cannot be separated from context; a woman’s ability to choose is complicated by the social conditions of the community in which she lives. Despite the fact that it does not receive as much media attention as abortion-focused organizing, the reproductive justice movement has the potential to implement more lasting change, because it links individual women’s choices with their communities, and participates in anti-oppression work on a larger scale.

--Vanessa

Awwwww.....

2010-01-16T17:58:00.001-05:00

So, normally we focus on advertising fails, but today, I've got an advertising WIN for you.

Is this not the cutest, most amazingly non-gendered ad for children's toy that you have ever seen? The Lego isn't even pink!

:) Steph

Meme-Shmeme: becoming critically aware of "awareness" campaigns

2010-01-13T15:17:00.002-05:00

Hey readers, this is your long-lost blogger, Michelle. Sorry for my lazy-blogging last semester. It is one of my new year's resolutions to actually blog when I say I will. So, here I go, letting off a little steam about the latest facebook meme.

I started noticing last week that many female friends of mine were posting colors on their facebook status. Upon a quick google search (ah, internet!) I found out that this phenomenon is a viral-campaign to raise awareness about breast cancer. How? Well, the colours refer to the color of bra that one is wearing, and you know, bras hold up our boobies.

Let me set something straight: I am all for people being aware of breast cancer, for funding research on breast cancer, and for supporting women and men who have breast cancer. That's right, men can get breast cancer too. However, I am entirely sick of the sexualization of breast cancer. Whether it's the Save the TaTas campaign, or the Save the Boobies campaign, it seems like the logic behind many breast cancer-awareness goes something like this: Boobies are nice to look at. Breast cancer treatment often necessitates mastectomies. A world without boobies is intolerable to the (heterosexual) male gaze. Therefore, we must end breast cancer.

The problem? There are real women attached to those boobies, women who I care about for reasons beyond their racks. I want to prevent breast cancer because, you know what, breast cancer fucking sucks. The greatest injustice of breast cancer is not the loss of breasts to the male gaze, but the loss of women and men whom are loved and cherished by their family and friends.

Now, the bra-colour-posting meme, to me, is a cocktail of discomfort. First and foremost, I don't see how anyone imagining me in my underwear is going to raise awareness about breast cancer-screening. Imagining a bevy of facebook freinds in "lacy black" bras might raise certain things *ahem*, but it certainly doesn't "raise awareness" in any clear way.

Some people have defended this meme as an "awareness-raising" campaign. I've heard this approach before: such-and-such product or so-and-so celebrity is raising awareness about global warming, Aids, poverty etc. However, having the intent of "raising awareness" (as vaguely defined as that is) does not alleviate one from accountability for the effects of one's methods in raising awareness. There are different ways of "being aware" of any phenomenon, and no way is apolitical or ahistorical. One can "be aware" of global inequalities such as poverty, but that doesn't necessarily mean that one situates poverty within, for example, colonial legacies and the capitalist market system. Instead, for example we could "be aware" (as people often are) of poverty as something cultural, an inherent quality of the exoticized and Othered "African." World Vision infomercials offers us images of black children with bugs in their eyes, black bodies with distended bellies, and then juxtaposes these images with images of a white woman extending her hand to black youth, white men distributing rice. After watching these infomercials, are we really more "aware" of any "situation"? Do we truly understand the complexities of the image being offered to us? No. This infomercial operates to appeal to our already preconceived notions of African society as a homogeneous "culture of poverty" and of white bodies as the benevolent agents of social change. It offers the "western" white viewer the psychological satisfaction of being subject of social change, but not in anyway implicated in the oppression of others. No structure or policies are implicated in such representations of poverty, instead poverty appears to be some abstract, ethereal substance that somehow diminishes once white people shine their benevolent gaze upon it. (Please read in my sarcasm).

We often prematurely assume that "we are aware" of a situation simply by consuming images or numbers about said issue that are offered to us in marketable forms such as a white "end poverty" bracelet, a well-edited infomercial or a "save the tatas" t-shirt. There is nothing inherently wrong with "raising awareness," but we must be aware and accountable for the implications of specific awareness raising initiatives. "Raising awareness" is not enough. We must critically engage with the messages offered by initiatives such as the bra-colour meme. This means asking critical questions like:

What gendered assumptions underlie the success of this bra-colour-meme-campaign? Why is this sexualized tactic often used for "breast cancer" but not prostate cancer? (possible answer: we often define women as objects of male gaze, and value women based on their attainment of aesthetic or beauty standards.)

What are the possible effects of "save the boobs" and similar campaigns? (possible answer: narrowly mapping breast cancer's impact on the breasts itself, rather than the social reality of individuals and families living with breast cancer.)

and finally,

What do you think? Do you have any feelings on the facebook meme, or "raising awareness"? Please share!

Mental Health Mondays: Stroke of Insight

2010-01-10T21:56:00.003-05:00

A couple of my friends have recommended to me that I begin watching/listening to short educational videos from an online site called Ted Talks. From my understanding, Ted Talks are short discourses given by PhD holders and other various intellectuals on their specific area of focus. At least from their titles and reviews (I can only base my following statement on this, because I have actually only seen one video so far) the topics range from more philosophical areas, such as “does school kill creativity” to more scientific areas, such as the “the thrilling potential of the six sense.”

The video that I have seen, is called Jill Taylor’s Powerful Stroke of Insight incorporated both “science” and “philosophy” through first giving the factual overview of the way that the human brain functions through a division of “left” and “right” hemispheres but then continuing to discuss the application that this knowledge can have. Jill argues that we are able to consciously enter into to an overruling of either our left or our right hemisphere, and through doing so we are able to make the world a better place: a place where humanity as a whole is more peaceful, and where people as individuals are more content.

She seems a bit overly mystical at times, but I think that Jill has some very interesting thoughts to consider. The thing that I found most interesting about it was what I identified above (how we are able to consciously choose which side of our brain we will utilize) but really you should watch the video. It is 18 minutes long, so a bit longer than reading through a quick blog post would perhaps take, but it is just 18 minutes. Totally manageable.

Do you agree with Jill Taylor, that we are consciously able to enter into using a specific side of our brains? And do you think that choosing to process things with either our left or right side can actually impact the world as a greater whole? If so, how can we make use of this?

Nadya

http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

Sexual Health Sundays: Racism and Representation

2010-01-10T16:07:00.002-05:00

Have you heard of Saartjie Baartman? Maybe you know her as the “Hottentot Venus,” the name under which she was exhibited in Britain in the 19^th century. Saartjie, a Khoisan woman from what is now South Africa, left for London in 1810 under the belief that she would earn money as a dancer. Instead, Saartjie found herself forced to participate in a London exhibition (“human zoos,” the products of colonialism, were common at the time). The European audience thought that Saartjie’s body was unusual and “overly sexualized”; she was displayed naked, the better to show her buttocks and labia. After her death in 1815 (aged only 26 years old), Saartjie’s genitals, brain, and skeleton were preserved by Georges Cuvier and placed in Paris’s Musee de l’Homme until 1974. Finally, President Nelson Mandela formally requested that France return her remains, and in 2002, she was returned to South Africa.

The following links present fascinating perspectives on Saartjie’s story, as well as on the wider implications at play.

Colonized and Consumed

Who is Sara Baartman? Every black woman should know her name

Letter from President Thabo Mbeki

Diary of an Anxious Black Woman: Saartjie Baartman

Exhibiting "Others" in the West

The Saartjie Baartman Centre for Women and Children

Is Serena Williams the new Sarah Baartman?

Destruction of the Black Transwoman Image

Black Booty Body Politics

--Vanessa

Movie Day Fridays :)

2010-01-08T14:52:00.003-05:00

Today is film corner time! Enjoy some delightful clips from soap operas, NGOs, and PBS documentaries. Please reply in comments with some of your favourite clips or links.

The Body Image Project.

Delightful French electro-pop.

"A Girl's Life," a documentary by Rachel Simmons.

The first ever gay male sex scene on daytime tv.

A scale that is actually a good idea.

Peace,
Steph :)

For your viewing pleasure/horror...

2010-01-07T22:20:00.002-05:00

A frank, detailed description of exactly how consumerism is ruining our planet.

-Av

Mental Health Mondays- The Power of Words Pt 1: "Retard"

2010-01-04T19:54:00.006-05:00

"That's fucking retarded."
"Are you demented?"
"Are you a retard?"
"What's wrong with you? Are you crazy?"
"You know, those two girls, what were their names? The gimpy ones?"
"Let's get retardedly drunk!"
"Where's your psychotic girlfriend?"

The Power of Words Part. 1: "Retard"

Hey Athenites,

Both this blog and my next blog will be about the appropriation of words concerning what I would describe as debilitating mental states. I used this term to signify phenomenon affecting the mind that might compromise an individual's ability to interact with themselves and their world. This means mental illness as well as physical and mental disabilities.

As someone who has friends and family members affected by learning disabilities, and mental illness, any rhetoric surrounding these issues affects me personally. Slang words that are disparaging to people with either mental or physical disabilities have creeped their way into our daily speech, and seem to be doing this without much resistance. Many people are vaguely aware that incorporating words like "gimp" and "retard" into casual conversation has a stigma surrounding it, but as there are no clear lines about this, it's mostly up to the individual to decided whether or not to appropriate* these words, and to what degree it will be done.

*Side Note- The Word "Appropriate": In this case, I am using the word to describe adapting something for one's own, usually without permission. This has been done artistically, culturally, politically, socially, and personally. However, the word "Appropriate" has another meaning: that which is suitable, that which belongs to someone. The word is therefore its own antithesis in a way, and can describe both an ownership and a removal of ownership.

But is this appropriation even a decision anymore? Chart-topping artists The Black Eyed Peas used the word "retarded" in Let's Get Retarded to describe getting drunk. After public backlash, they changed the title of the song to Let's Get It Started. Although the word "retard" is defined as "a slowing down or impeding," and also means being late in French, it has been appropriated in two ways: one as a disparaging way to refer to someone who is mentally disabled, and another to refer to someone who is socially inept. In the latter case the word can be used in a casual context; however, when it is thrown around it becomes even more disparaging to those with a mental disability as well as their families, who have to cope with constant challenges and barriers. As someone who believes that those in position of influence should think critically about what they say, as they have great power, I was disappointed.

This being said, the Black Eyed Peas are not the only ones to use the word "retarded" casually. Who hasn't heard a friend, classmate, family member or co-worker toss one out to express what they see or qualify an emotion? Here I am stuck between being a wet blanket who ruins the fun by challenging the usage of a word, or passively accepting what is being said even though I don't agree with it. This is a very delicate matter; I know that I can't fight every battle (nor do I want to) but I still desire to speak up for what I believe in. The closest I've come to a conclusion on this front is to let the word slide in contexts where I don't know someone very well, or in large groups, but to bring it up with my friends and people I see frequently in private. I'm open to suggestions, though!

Love and respect,

Micky

"Retard" defined by dictionary.com
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/retard

Black Eyed Peas controversy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_Get_Retarded

Sometimes they make it so easy for us...

2010-01-02T19:29:00.002-05:00

I am not trying to imply that we don't have our own fair share of sexism over here in the Land of Hockey and Poutine, but there is one newspaper published across the pond whose website I cannot help but visit at least once a week, in the whole "it's so mind-numbingly terrible I have to look at its trainwreck-ishness." I am referring to the UK's Daily Mail, the newspaper that if it were a real person filling out a dating website's profile page, would list their 'likes' as "Christians, Princess Diana, and pretty white people," whereas the 'dislikes' section would include "Immigrants, Muslims, women, rape victims, gay people, black people, young people, overweight people, liberals"-and, well, it goes on. But you get the idea.
It might be easy to say, "but such a cesspool of ignorance, why don't we just ignore it?" Well, it's hard to do so when the Daily Mail is one of Britain's most widely read papers (and unfortunately, I doubt the majority of their audience is reading it for the same incredulous reasons I am).

You want an example? Visiting their websites only minutes ago, I did not have to look hard to find the following headline:

Lydia La Plante attacks BBC, saying Corporation would rather take a Muslim Boy's script over hers The bulk of the article consists of quotes from people claiming the BBC treats Christian's unfairly, with no indication about the contents or criticisms of scripts in question. The comments are filled with such gems like "Of course, political correctness is racist against white people" (with a 2223 positive rating count) and "The BBC needs to wake up the population of the UK IS STILL WHITE AND ENGLISH SPEAKING!".

In fear of giving the Daily Mail too much traffic (but still in want of emphasizing its epic crappiness), I'll link you to some of a kind of "hall of shame" of their articles that have been expertly dissected on other feminist websites. It's nice to know when I'm not alone in my rage.

Feministing: A Little Victim Blaming with your Coffee (this article that it references was particularly horrible)
Feministing: Study - Female Breadwinners are Household Nags
Feministing: According to Daily Mail, Childless Women are Drunk, Lazy, Bitchy, and Weird
Shakesville : Overtones of Bigotry (Referencing another infamous article that incited so much outrage it made the Daily Mail a trending topic on twitter)
Shakesville: Breaking News, Beth Ditto is Fat
Shakesville: Punctuation Fail. Narrative Fail. Total Fail.
Shakesville: (How to Be): Impossibly Beautiful
Feministe: The Pill Makes You Attracted to Pansies
Tiger Beatdown: Dear Daily Mail
Tiger Beatdown: Sexist Beatdown, Beers of Freedom edition (More on that first article I linked to)
The Sexist: Women Will Never Be Happy at Christmas, Daily Mail Reports

And this beaut of a blog in which the name says it all: http://dmhatingfemisfromhell.blogspot.com/

Best,
Anna

Happy 2010!

2010-01-01T15:18:00.008-05:00

Hey everyone! Welcome to a new (and, I hope, a fabulously feminist) decade.

With hopes that 2010 will be even better, I will provide you, in no particular order, with some good news and some fun pictures from '09:

1) The United Kingdom upheld a woman's right to a safe abortion.

2) Need I say more?

3) The High Court of Delhi, India, repealed Penal Code 377, which rendered consensual homosexual intercourse illegal. Gay men and women in Delhi no longer face the threat of criminal prosecution.

4) In addition, India also struck down the "Immoral Traffic Prevention Bill," which would have criminalized the purchase of services from sex workers. Indian NGO SANGRAM did amazing work to fight against sex worker stigma.

5) Yemen has passed a new law which sets the minimum age of marriage for both girls and boys at 17. This bill was passed after the tragic news of a Yemeni child bride who died in childbirth at age 12.

6) I know this never happened in real life...but I like it anyways...Oh, Obama. Even though the U.S. health care bill has been tragically diluted, I still like you.

Happy 2010, everyone. And if you're looking for more ways to get involved with your community in 2010, check out here, here, here, here, here, and here (to name only a few). So volunteer at your local women's shelters, check out soup kitchens and food banks, write some letters, talk to your friends, and most importantly, be safe, be happy, be healthy, and spread some love and peace.

Steph

TEN RESOLUTIONS THAT WON’T COMPLETELY FAIL LIKE EVERY OTHER YEAR

2009-12-31T14:05:00.001-05:00

SHORT TERM GOALS, NOT LONG TERM
The hype surrounding New Year’s Resolutions is outstanding. There’s a lot of pressure to make a real commitment to bettering your life in one way or another, but these kinds of resolutions can be intimidating or discouraging and rarely inspire perfect follow-through, which only results in self-disappointment. Try setting a goal you can accomplish within a month, and when you’ve succeeded, use that confidence to set a new, more challenging one.

BE OPTIMISTIC
Optimism is KEY. Not to be confused with naiveté or total disregard for reality, optimism is simply making the best of a bad situation. Find the silver lining. It’s important to learn from your mistakes, but there is no point in dwelling on them. Take on a fresh perspective and think positive—be objective if you have to be; sometimes emotionally distancing yourself is the best medicine. Suddenly, intimidating tasks will not seem quite so daunting. Long term worries will loosen their hold on you. You’ll start to see positivity all around you—it’s contagious. You’ll be surprised by what you can get through if you stay strong and keep smiling.

LET GO OF STALE DOWNERS
This includes regrets, sorrows, bitterness, remorse and disappointments. Each time you sense your thoughts tilting downhill, ask yourself this question: can YOU do anything to make it better? If the answer is “no”, then let it go. Don’t waste your life stewing over things that are out of your hands.

KICK A BAD HABIT
Start with one you know you can manage in order to minimize discouragement, like placing a firm limit on the use of the Snooze button in the morning, for instance. Small victories build confidence and prepare you to tackle more deep-seeded habits like procrastination, nervous nail-biting or stress-eating.

TWEAK YOUR ROUTINE
This is the time to MAKE time. Take a good hard, realistic look at your schedule as it is right now and decide whether you could be spending your time more effectively; whether that means focusing more time on academic or professional activities, or alternatively, taking more time for yourself. Be honest with yourself when calculating how much time you spend watching TV, surfing the internet, or likewise squandering time away. It might be a good idea to take up an activity you enjoy AND can feel productive doing, like volunteering for a good cause, learning to cook for yourself, exercising a creative muscle or researching a topic you’ve always been interested in but never had time to learn about.

LOOK IN THE MIRROR
Figuratively, that is. Psychologist E. Troy Higgins introduced the theory of self-discrepancy and the three sections of the “self,” being Actual, Ideal and Ought. Think about how your “Actual”, current self measures up to the kind of person you want to be (“Ideal”) and the kind of person you should try harder to be (“Ought”). Don’t be too hard on yourself, just face your flaws and see what you can try to improve. This is the ongoing process of self-actualizing (check out Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs for more info  http://www.businessballs.com/maslow.htm )

BE THE BEE – TREAT YOURSELF TO A NEW EXPERIENCE
“The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes the middle course: it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own.” – Francis Bacon

Don’t underestimate the effect of experience on you as a person. First-hand experience is invaluable—it is vital for personal development. If you’re not one for trying new things, consider the new understandings that come along with them. Take a chance, test your boundaries and toe the line of the unfamiliar as much as you possibly can—it will only help you to grow as a person. You can never have too much experience unless you are Iron Chef Bobby Flay applying for a job at McDonalds.

SAVE YOUR MONEY
If you don’t have a savings account, OPEN ONE. You don’t need a whackload of money to dump into it at the get-go, and even small deposits build up over time. Get a travel mug and skip buying coffee by making your own. Hold off on making hefty purchases until you’ve found the best deal in town. RESIST IMPULSE BUYING.
Read up on the magic of compound interest if you want to see some real results.

SWITCH UP YOUR STYLE
Modern psychological research speculates that our personalities reach full development between the ages of 21 and 25. Before that stage of your life, you are a dynamic being who is perpetually growing and changing in the process of developing the personality you will have for the rest of your life. If your personality is still evolving, there’s no reason for your appearance to stay stagnant. Don’t pay attention to trends if you’ve never had interest in them, just try on something different, maybe something you wouldn’t normally pick for yourself. You might be surprised to find a certain freedom in breaking away from your typical style and testing your comfort zone.

WRITE AN EMAIL TO THE FUTURE YOU
Alright, this one’s a bit cheesy, but there’s no harm in giving it a go. Follow this link (http://futureme.org/) to write an email to yourself and set a date in the future for it to be sent. It could be in a month, six months, a year, whenever you want. You can remind yourself of something you worry you might lose sight of. You can vent all your emotions and laugh at them long after they’ve faded away. Or you can even write yourself an inspirational note of encouragement. An email like that (even if it IS from yourself) might brighten up a glum day a year from now.

Well, that’s it for 2009. I’m sure I can speak for all us girls at Athena by wishing you a safe New Year’s Eve and the best of luck for 2010!

Av

Worldwide Wednesdays

2009-12-29T19:11:00.001-05:00

Women of 2009

Because we are nearing the end of the year, I thought that this post could be one of reflection on important women of 2009. Since I didn’t think I had the authority to come up with my own list, I decided I would consult the experts...in other words, the Internet.

I simply googled the phrase “women of 2009”. I naively expected to see pages and pages of lists with titles like “women artists of 2009”, “women activists of 2009”, “women scientists of 2009” or ,god forbid, “women politicians of 2009”.

However, this was not the result. The top hit on google was this website: http://ca.askmen.com/specials/top_99_women/. It is a list of the hottest 99 women of 2009 according to voters on askmen.com. Because I know you’re all dying to find out, Eva Mendes was number one. My personal favourite actresses of substance Kate Winslet and Tina Fey were unfortunately ranked 99 and 97 respectively. Among actresses, the list includes models, musicians, athletes and a few questionables who were most likely self described cocktail waitresses/models/actresses/those who slept with Tiger Woods. The closest I got to an actual politician was Carla Bruni, France’s first lady.

These men rated women’s “desirability” and attractiveness solely on their looks. Are we not in a time when beauty goes far deeper than that? What were all those Dove “real beauty” ads for then? Being a journalism student, I hoped to see journalists who made heroic efforts in the world including Laura Ling and Euna Lee who were arrested by North Korean officials because they had been brave enough to report on that area of the world. Were they not influential? What about Aung San Suu Kyi, the elected Prime Minister of Myanmar, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, but has been under house arrest since 1990?

Oh, I’m sorry, it is difficult to look “sexy” and “desirable” while imprisoned by an oppressive regime.

Is this representative of the values in our society? Was 2009 a year like any other where the merit of a woman was based on her cup size? As a woman, looking at a list like this one (the top hit on google in this category), it is disheartening and frustrating. Ad campaigns and health classes try to tell women that their worth goes beyond their physical attributes, but it becomes harder and harder to believe this when we evidence everywhere that this is not the case. Whoever heard of a list of women with the most desirable brains?

But in my Internet search, I decided to forge ahead, be positive, and turn to a publication that is well-respected worldwide, Time magazine. (http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1894028,00.html). In this year’s 100 Most Influential People, there was a wide range of artists, media and business moguls, athletes and politicians. I flipped through the list and found that only about one quarter of them were women. One quarter? I find it hard to believe that Oprah and Angelina Jolie are the only women out there making a difference!

I am someone who tries to be optimistic about the role of women in society and the future for women, but after my little Internet excursion, I am finding this more difficult. Although we can stick by the old phrase “it’s better than it used to be”, we have become complacent. So, although this entry might seem pessimistic, I think we can take this opportunity to look to 2010 with the intention of making a change. Among your new year’s resolutions, why not make a conscious effort to assert yourselves as empowered women making a difference in the world? Make it your goal to kick out all those old, white men from Time magazine. Make 2010 the year of the woman!

Peace and best wishes in the new year,

Yamz

Mental Health Mondays: New Years Resolutions pt. 1

2009-12-27T23:38:00.002-05:00

Let me cut to the chase on this one, because the holidays can be a busy time for everyone.

Okay, so the New Year is well on its way. Which means lots of people are beginning to think about new years resolutions and whatnot. Which can definitely be a great thing to do—I think that setting reasonable goals for oneself can be a much-needed thing sometimes.

However, I think there can also be a dilemma attached to new years resolutions. Not necessarily in the goal-setting stage, but in the reflecting stage. Looking back at the past year, there are a couple of goals that I set for myself last year that I did not meet. I think this is the case with most people, to some degree or another. We experience some degrees of success for sure, but when that success does not feel 100% complete it can be very easy to focus on the negative of what we “failed” to accomplish, rather than the positive that we succeeded in accomplishing.

(To briefly digress before I return back to this post, I want to put in a quick plug for Avonlea’s blog that will be coming on Thursday. She will focus on some top-ten new years resolutions. And, while I’m not entirely certain of her focus, it will definitely be something to check out!!)

So often, we subconsciously allow ourselves to get caught up on things that bring us down rather than build us up.

If there’s something I can challenge you (and myself too!) with in regard to this area is to work at having a change of perspective. I am not saying that we should pretend we are absolutely perfect and completely successful….I do not think that would be very healthy. But I am suggesting that we try to intentionally focus on the good things that we have accomplished in the past year. It could be something huge that comes to mind immediately, or you may have to spend a bit of time thinking over the year’s events in order to come up with a few solid things.

But I am certain that there are great things that we all have done with ourselves and with our lives in this past year. And I think if we take the time to focus on them a bit more, rather than simply brushing them off as expectations and focusing on the negative, we will be able to create a great impression of the past year AND simultaneously help enter the new year with a healthy mindset.

Cheers,
Nadya

Random Update

2009-12-24T01:09:00.004-05:00

Hey Athenites!

A thousand apologies...we've neglected you for far to long. Exam season, and now holidays, and all of my fave Athena-team bloggers are super busy. Hopefully, we will be back to regular postings after the holiday season.

Until then, I leave you with this interesting, helpful and informative video by the Gender Identity Project. (I have heard it refered to as "Transgender 101," and it has been spread across the blogosphere by folks hoping that it will diminish the all-too-typical derailing of threads on trans issues. This is quite the prominent and very serious issue in the feminist community.)

Happy Holidays, everyone! Be safe, happy, and healthy!

Peace,
Stephanie

Mental Health Mondays

2009-12-22T01:29:00.002-05:00

Hey Athenites,

To be honest, I've been very busy and had completely forgotten that it was my turn to post until about five minutes ago. I don't have much in terms of source material, so I'll leave you with some quotes to think about...

"Don't deprive me of my age. I have earned it." _May Sarton

"A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually and spiritually. One must fight for a life of action, not reaction." _Rita Mae Brown

What would you say are some examples of a life of reaction? A life of action? What are the consequences of each? Do you feel that the way someone lives can be slotted into either a reactive life or an active life, or is there a grey area in between? Why would someone want to live a life of action/reaction?

Happy holidays.
Micky

Mental Health Mondays: The Other Side of the Spectrum

2009-12-14T00:02:00.002-05:00

The following is a blog written by Brittany Buffam. (If anyone else would ever like to write something to post, feel free to email your submission to athenasubmissions@gmail.com)
As you read Brittany's thoughts about "the other side of the spectrum" in relation to body image, I hope you're really able to consider how this affects society as a whole, but also the individuals within society.

One of the major issues these last couple of years, in respect to girls, has been body image. That has mostly consisted of encouraging articles, photos, etc. on and of people who have different body types, namely bigger, than the skinny women who used to dominate the pages of magazines (luckily, things in that regard are getting better). Although I definitely think that’s great, and people should continue with it; I also have to wonder if the other side’s suffering a little for it. Now, I’m not one to gripe on little things that are said to me but there is one thing that seems to come up fairly often. A good example is when I was a biology class one time and we were talking about metabolism. My teacher asked two questions of us; “Which of you can eat twelve cheeseburgers and not gain any weight?” and “which of you can’t even look at a cheeseburger without gaining weight?”

Thinking that the first choice was probably the one that best suited me, I raised my hand, but I did so reluctantly. The thing is, I don’t think I’ve even eaten twelve cheeseburgers over the course of my nineteen years of living and the idea kind of grosses me out. I decided not to say anything because I knew the teacher was exaggerating and I didn’t want to make a big deal out of something that was said in passing. I also know that he did not mean it to be insulting, part of the reason I don’t fault him for saying it, but it’s still a good example of the stereotype I’m really starting to not like.

Let me tell you a bit about myself. My family has always been very big on healthy living and all it entails. There was some kind of exercise pretty much every day of the week and hardly ever any fatty or sugary foods in the house. This was how I was raised, so naturally I continue to be an active person who eats very little that can be referred to as unhealthy. That was simply the lifestyle I was raised to crave.

In addition, I have a grandmother who is in her early eighties and still walks and bikes around the town of Almonte, regularly swims laps in the fast lane, and often goes on nature and bird-watching hikes, not to mention walking tours around cities all over the world. I aspire to be like her and although I certainly don’t count my calories or even schedule my exercise, I take my health seriously and also take pride in the fact that I do lead a very healthy lifestyle.

So, when I get pigeonholed as somebody who “can eat twelve cheeseburgers” or somebody who probably doesn’t put any effort into their health, it really irritates me. To finish up; why don’t we just not make assumptions based on somebody’s weight? I realise that’s the base objective of all the media attention on people who have bigger body types, but let’s just not forget the other side of spectrum, okay? ^_^
- Brittany

So, what do you think, Athenites? As this "other side of the spectrum" been entirely downplayed, and how does that come into play in affecting our every day life?
Let us know what you think!
- Nadya

Sexual Health Sundays: In Defense of Procrasturbation

2009-12-13T19:02:00.003-05:00

During exam season, there are a variety of ways to procrastinate:

1. Stress eating. This involves going to the kitchen, opening every cupboard/door, gazing at the contents with visible discontent, and then stuffing something in your mouth that will inevitably end up being unsatisfying (ie. a handful of dry cheerios, stale bread, advent-calendar chocolate that tastes like plastic, a $5 wheel of brie cheese, meat-flavoured chips). The problem with this approach is that food never quite seems to fill that gaping hole inside of your heart.

2. Spending 100 hours on Wikipedia, following link after link until you know too much about the Tokyo Legendarium and/or Middle Earth and then spewing unnecessary facts to your friends until they no longer want to have anything to do with you.

3. Facebook-stalking, looking at the people you wish you could have hooked up with but never did and seeing how they are getting on with their lives (or not). This will either make you feel triumphant or hopeless.

Since none of these options are particularly helpful, I suggest an alternative: procrasturbating.

I, personally, am an avid procrasturbator. It’s a great way to take a small break during a marathon study session or paper-writing bonanza.... plus, it has numerous advantages. Procrasturbation helps reduce stress (thanks, oxytocin), is completely healthy, and may even help get rid of your inevitable coffee/no-sleep headache.

But is procrasturbation feminist?

Of course. By becoming attuned to my own desire and sexual response, I’m laying claim to my body and my fundamental right to pleasure. That sounds pretty feminist to me.

Happy studying!

--Vanessa

Various Odds and Ends: Feel Good Friday

2009-12-11T11:26:00.004-05:00

Hey everyone!

No particular topic today, just an assortment of fun stuff that will hopefully put a smile on your face.

1) Amnesty International's Write-a-thon happened yesterday, and was a great event (as always). I couldn't attend the event at the Canadian National Office, as I was busy writing the Economics exam from hell, but here's a quick update on what went down. (And just so you know, it's not too late to participate! You can always write letters!)

-more than 2,500 Write-for-Rights events across Canada
-to date, more than 3,700 letters written (and more being added to the total every hour)
-to date, about $8,700 dollars have been raised for Amnesty International Canada (and more is being added every day!)

2) A just-released documentary about Indian sex workers campaigning for their rights with the local grassroots organization SANGRAM. These women have effectively mobilized, collectivized, spoken out against sex worker discrimination, and have taken important steps in HIV prevention. Watch the amazing short documentary here.

3) This video was produced by Providence St. Vincent Medical Centre in Portland, Oregon, with the help of over 200 utterly awesome employees. The purpose of the video is to promote breast cancer awareness, and the video has certainly gone viral, with almost 5 million you tube views. And the video is totally successful in putting a smile on my face for a much-needed Friday afternoon DANCE PARTY YEEEEESSSSSSS.

Leave your favourite feel-good links, videos, etc. in the comments, and have a great weekend, everybody!

Peace,
Steph :)

Worldwide Wednesdays: Where yo' rights at?

2009-12-09T16:48:00.005-05:00

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

61 years ago, the UN made this the first article of 30 in their official Declaration of Human Right.

Tomorrow is gonna be a cold one (-9, anybody?). But it's also going to be December 10th, and if that doesn't ring a bell, here's your chance to learn: December 10th is the 61st international Human Rights Day, commemorating the creation of the Declaration of Human Rights. What we have to celebrate any given year depends greatly on how far we've come in the 364 days preceding.

This year, I'd recommend scanning the declaration itself (don't worry, it's not very wordy!) and comparing the rights granted to the rights actually being enjoyed by people in the world. It's likely that you can exercise your rights without too much opposition, but for women in particular, as well as men, trying to achieve that same protection elsewhere in the world is an ongoing struggle.

Let's take a look at a couple of the most important articles in the UN's declaration and how they fit into what's been going on this past year.

Article 3. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Here's one that seems to be taking its sweet time sinking in. Follow human rights activists in the developing world and it'll become clear that as soon as you take up the fight for your rights, said rights (especially the "security" bit) are actively ignored. Take, for instance, Zimbabwean activist Gertrude Hambira. Hambira is a trade unionist who has been fighting to protect and represent farm works in Zimbabwe. In early November, while Hambira was stuck in the airport due to travel delays, her home in Harare was broken into by three masked and armed men, suspected agents of the state. Hambira wasn't home, but her husband, children and elderly mother were. Nobody was hurt, but threats were made, a shot fired at the ceiling, and the encounter ended in a robbery. Under the Declaration of Human Rights, Hambira should be able to express her political opinions without fearing for her safety or the safety of her family. 61 years later, though, the declaration seems to be falling on deaf ears. For more information on Zimbabwe's situation, Gertrude Hambira and who you can write to ask for change, check out Amnesty's website.

Article 25(1). Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

It's a tough one to argue with, but lack of access to adequate healthcare is still a huge, huge deal for billions of people. Poverty plays an enormous role, but beyond that there are cultural and political roadblocks en route to delivering the best available medical treatment to those who need it.

Take India's maternal mortality rates. This year Human Rights Watch, an organization devoted to monitoring the worldwide human rights situation, published an eye-opening 150-page report on the topic of high mortality rates amongst India's pregnant women and new mothers. The report exposed all sorts of uncomfortable truths, including that experts have estimated that 75%--three of every four--of these deaths are preventable. By my quick, CIA-World-Factbook-based calculations, that's at least 80,000 needless deaths a year. Indeed, the biggest problems are not particularly complicated and usually pretty easy to diagnose and treat successfully. Most deaths are caused by blood loss or poorly-treated infection. The third killer is unsafe abortion.

The blame is often laid on mothers who do not seek out medical care during pregnancy. But it's not so simple--the reasons women are avoiding available health care include poor education and awareness of pregnancy risks, and the belief, often substantiated, that the care available to them is sub-par (nobody qualified to perform Cesareans, no blood for transfusion, nobody trained to treat eclampsia) and the healthcare system riddled with flaws. On top of that, many maternal deaths, particularly those pertaining to members of lower social castes, just plain go unreported. Women and their babies are dying in childbirth, of treatable complications, and nobody is recording it. I don't know about you, but that does not fly with me.

Basically, it's a mess, and those magical, life-saving human rights just aren't there. If you want to learn more, I'd highly recommend reading the HRC's report, which makes recommendations to both India's government and the international community. As usual, there are people you can write to make your concerns heard.

On that note, I want to ask that you think globally, today of all days, and take the time to appreciate the rights you are guaranteed and that are effectively being protected for you by our imperfect-but-relatively-functional government. We're lucky.

If you have a chance, hop on over to Amnesty's Write for Rights website and pen a message on behalf of a cause that matters to you. Pressure works when it comes to making governments change, and you can be a part of that.

Take care and, as you're out there cursing the cold and slush, remember everything you've got.

H

Mental Health Mondays- Loving Kindness Meditation

2009-12-07T14:34:00.002-05:00

Hey Athenites,

Many people use meditation to ground themselves or relax. Throughout the day, we often become so busy and stimulated that we forget to breathe properly, which may lead to fatigue and anxiety. While it's easy to notice stress or a lack of proper breathing, sometimes it's not so easy to remedy this, especially if at work or school. However, setting aside a few minutes at night or in the morning to be still and concentrate on your breath can be tremendously calming. In this post, I will focus on a particular meditation that I've been doing recently.

When I was in Grade 11 our French teacher sat us down for one class and tried to walk us through a guided meditation entitled "Loving Kindness." It was concerned with embracing ourselves, embracing the world. Although most of the class couldn't sit a minute without laughing, it had some sort of impression on me and four years later I'm revisiting the concept of Loving Kindness.

It started one night as I lay in bed- being pre-occupied as I sometimes am- with the doings of the day, including some regrets and some insecurities. I had singled out a particular person- let's call this person Triangle- whom I felt negatively about, and somewhat threatened by. As I lay obsessing about my drawbacks and Triangle's strengths, my comfortable strain of self-deprecating thoughts was interrupted. I thought of how much love I felt from my friends and family: even when I hadn't seen them for a few days, I knew it was there, and a thought came to me:

Breathe in- Loving

Breath Out- Kindness

As I breathed in I thought of how lucky I was, and visualized surrounding myself with love. I found that having opened these doors, a sense of positivity that I couldn't really explain came flooding to me. As I breathed out I imagined extending kindness and empathy to the person I had been thinking of negatively a few minutes earlier. At first I found this prospect kind of frightening: "Triangle has so much already, why would they need my positive energy?" (It's easy to fall into patterns of insecurity and envy; I have to constantly remind myself that these phenomena don't get anyone anywhere, and breed misunderstanding and sadness, rather than happiness )

This being said, in this instance I used my energy as a coping strategy. Ideally, these feelings of self-consciousness wouldn't have struck me in the first place, but they did, and I found my Loving/Kindness meditation very helpful. However, it's important to breathe kindness back into yourself, even though this can be very hard to do. As the saying goes, we are often our own worst critics... But I'm hoping that learning how to show more kindness and forgiveness to myself will allow for more happiness and joy in my life.

Try it out! Once you've breathed some Loving/Kindness into yourself, then you could try breathing kindness into your relationships, the good and the bad ones. Try breathing some kindness into your boss, or a teacher you find annoying, someone you love, someone you feel threatened by. You can do this at bedtime, on the bus, on your bike, when you wake up.

How I do the Loving Kindness Meditation:

I do this meditation while lying on my back with my palms either facing upwards by my side or on my belly, so they can stay with my breath. I usually lie with my feet on the ground, knees bent, to protect my lower back. This is very relaxing, but you have to watch that you don't fall asleep! I breathe in deeply, from my belly, and imagine myself expanding to encompass positive energy. When I breathe out, I focus that energy either on my mind, my body, or I send it out to the world.

Good luck! I hope this helps you as it has helped me.

Micky

Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women

2009-12-05T17:45:00.005-05:00

Tomorrow - that is, December 6th, 2009 - marks the 20 year anniversary of the Montreal Polytechnique Massacre. On this day in 1989, a man named Marc Lépine entered an engineering class, made all the men leave the room, declared his hatred of feminism, and used a semi-automatic rifle on all the women in the room. He then when on a shooting spree in the school before committing suicide. In total, he killed 14 women.

In remembrance of those who lost their lives in the most violent school shooting of Canadian history, I've compiled a list of resources with information about helping to end violence against women.

1. CBC has some archived footage of the Ecole Polytechnique events.
2. There will be a candlelight vigil in downtown Toronto tomorrow (and one in Montreal - Thanks, Vanessa).
3. Information about the White Ribbon campaign, with lots of excellent links at the source (including how to donate and get involved).
4. Facts about violence against women from the Canadian Women's Foundation.
5. Assaulted Women's Hotline.
6. This is what I was able to find on the Government of Canada's website.

Please leave your own links in the comments.

Best,
Anna Fitz

Feel Good Friday: Female Authors

2009-12-04T10:22:00.004-05:00

Hey Athenites!

Although I will admit that I haven't been keeping upon my non-academic reading since school started (the much-loved but still mostly unread Rohinton Mistry book on my bedside table is testament to that), I still call myself "a reader."

Books are the best, y'all.

BUT, here's the catch. People of colour and female authors are still often pushed into obscurity, told that their writing is somehow "not universal" (?), are subjected to a hell of a lot of tokenism, or not represented on the"Top Ten" lists, which are hugely influential in kickstarting careers.

The Publisher's Weekly Top Ten of 2009 list, for example, featured absolutely no female authors. (They made some sort of vague pronouncement about this, saying that it "distrubed" them, as if the composition of the Top Ten list was preordained and not a totally subjective set of picks.) While I don't think that authors should be given the Top Ten distinction simply because they are female or a PoC, I do find it odd that the publishing world refuses to cast its net a little further out. Because I am sure that non-white-non-males have written some pretty damn good books too.

The New York Time's Top Ten of 2009, on the other hand, featured a number of female authors, including Kate Walbert's "A Short History of Women," which is all about feminism--just the way I like it. Just as with my badass female musicians post about a month ago, I am 100% sure that, if you enjoy reading, you know at least 2 or 3 excellent female authors. I will kick start the list with some picks of my own, but feel free to add your own in comments:

-Tamora Pierce. I know, I know, she's a fantasy writer whose target audience is the 12-15 range, but C'MON! No mockery. She writes strong, powerful female characters who are compassionate, ambitious, smart, just as capable as any boy, and always save the day!

-J.K. Rowling. Kind of obvious. But you can hardly write a list of female authors without her. I will not, however, be including Stephanie Meyer. Because everyone knows that Harry Potter is better (one of the many reasons why: Hermione is active, intelligent, brave, competent, and not a passive little lump on a log like Bella).

-Petina Gappah. This up and coming Zimbabwean writer has given a powerful and interesting interview in The Guardian about her work and about being labelled: "an African writer."

-Amulya Malladi. Writes fiction about India, America, family, and culture shock. Light reading, but very interesting, funny, and engaging.

-Toni Morrison. I haven't read anything by her, but have heard enough about her, from both family and friends, to convince me that she should be on this (not exhaustive) list.

-Jane Austen. I could not, in good conscience, exclude her from the list. I know that her Regency-era wordiness does not endear her to everyone, but dear god, I love her.

-Stephanie Bolster. Her book of poems, Two Bowls of Milk, is, in my opinion, utterly beautiful. She's also a Canadian who lives and teaches in Montreal.

-Margaret Atwood. I mean, really now. Can't forget Margaret, especially if you're Canadian. (Funny story: Yamina and I once thought that we saw her in the crowd at Ottawa's Tulip Festival and spent ten minutes mustering up the courage to go talk to her, and when we finally did, discovered that the woman we thought was Atwood was actually a tourist from California. I swear, she looked just like her!)

-Maya Angelou. Obvi.

Fill up this list with some great female authors of your own, because I know there are TONS of amazing authors that I've forgotten/don't know about. I would love to add a couple new authors to my holiday wish list this year!

Peace,

Stephanie :)

Mental Health Mondays: Ongoing Influence of Past Comments

2009-11-29T20:46:00.011-05:00

At the end of this post I’ve included a list of quotes taken from Charles’ E. Bressler’s book “Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice.” They are a collection that he placed within the surrounding of feminist criticism. When I was reading through these quotes, most stated by well-known authors, it made me wonder how much the statements that individuals made in the past impact women in today’s present-tense.

Do you think that women, particularly women who are establishing a career or passion in writing (as that is who most of the quotes are directed at) continue to feel the affects of these negative words? Or do you think that “what’s past is past”
How much do the statements of the past, even if made hundreds of years ago, continue to affect the state of our mental health today?
What do you think? Take a look at the quotes I’ve listed…maybe focus on one or two. Do you think you are still influenced by these words, or are they a thing of the past that we simply shrug off?

Take a look at some of these....

"Do not let a woman with a sexy rump deceive you with wheedling and coaxing words; she is after your barn. The man who trusts a woman trusts a deceiver."
- Hesoid, poet 8^th century BCE (...p.s. "sexy rump" and "8th century BCE" , yes you read correctly.)

"Plato thanks the gods for two blessings: that he had not been born a slave and that he had not been born a woman."
- Plato (c. 427-c.347 BCE)

"The male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; and the one rules and the other is ruled. Woman “is matter, waiting to be formed by the active male principle…Man consequently plays a major part in reproduction; the woman is merely the passive incubator of his seed.” (People actually BELIEVED this!!!!! It was thought to be scientific fact! Wtf?!??!!)
- Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

"Frailty, thy name is woman."
- Shakespeare (1564-6116)

"Mary Wollstonecraft is a hyena in petticoats”
- Horace Walpole, author of one of the earliest Gothic novels

"Nature intended women to be our slaves...They are our property…what a mad idea to demand equality for women!"
- Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

"Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and it ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure will she have for it, even any…recreation"
- Robert Southey, poet laureate (1774-1843)

"Women writers are a “damned mob of scribbling women” who only write anything worth reading if the devil is in them."
- Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

"The woman author does not exist. She is a contradiction in terms. The role of the woman in letters is the same as in manufacturing; she is of use when genius is no longer required."
- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865)

"Jane Austen is entirely impossible to read. It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"Feminism is a political mistake. Feminism is a mistake made by women’s intellect, a mistake which her instinct will recognize."
- Valentine de Saint-Point (1875-1953)

"Educating a woman is like pouring honey over a fine Swiss watch. It stops working."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922- )

With love and hopes of forward-motion,

Nadya

Sexual Health Sundays: What Does Feminist Sex Look Like?

2009-11-29T10:59:00.006-05:00

In her introduction for the book Jane Sexes it Up: True Confessions of Feminist Desire, Merri Lisa Johnson writes, “we live inside the contradiction of a political movement that affirms and encourages expressions of female and/or alternative sexualities, and the “real world” of workplaces, families, and communities that continue to judge women harshly for speaking of sex, much less expressing one’s “deviant” acts and complex erotic imagination.” Even within the feminist movement, the topic of sex is pretty contentious. The Feminist Sex Wars of the ‘70s-80s may be ancient history for us younger feminists, but I for one still struggle to reconcile my personal sexual desires with my political beliefs. What does feminist sex look like? How can we avoid reproducing stifling gender roles in our personal relationships? And what do we do when what really gets us off in the dark of our bedrooms would make our outward feminist personas cringe?

From Jane Sexes it Up: True Confessions of Feminist Desire, ed. Merri Lisa Johnson (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002) :

“I wanted feminism to be bad like me. A young feminism, a sexy feminism. I found myself saying things like, “I’m not that kind of feminist,” all sly innuendo and bedroom eyes. Early in my research, however, I discovered that that kind of feminist is mostly a media construct – oversimplification spiced with staged cat fights.” (2)

“Whatever conflicts exist within feminism, the first lesson for each generation must be about the politics of representation (which histories are handed over, which are not, and why); for it is frequently against “representations” of feminism as puritanical or anti-male or just plain crazy—not against feminism itself—that many young women posit our sexy “new” brand of bravado.” (3-4)

“Young women define our politics in part by the second wave feminist legacy of sexual freedom—disrupting norms surrounding the body, unsettling rigid gender roles, and observing few, if any, boundaries on our speech as erotic creatures . . . [y]et sex-positive spokeswomen, often anti-intellectual in tone, fail to give women new ways of thinking about fucking, new ways of understanding what’s happening in our beds and to our bodies.” (5)

“Sometimes the best thing feminism can say to a woman is, “Go easier on yourself, girlie. You don’t have to make sense at every moment. You don’t have to measure up to some abstract structure called the right thing to do.”(8)

“. . . feminists who want to be fucked hard, held down, thrown against walls and pressed into them cannot be explained away by the simple charge of false consciousness (the idea that we eroticize the conditions of our own oppression) . . . [a]s feminists, we’ve learned to critique this gender role, we know there’s something wrong with it, it has been removed to the space of transgression, that which we are not supposed to want.” (43)

From Patrick Califia, Updated Introduction to Macho Sluts (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2009) :

“Self-understanding and self-expression are much harder to accomplish when so many supposedly progressive people are saying hateful things about each other and demanding that everybody take sides.” (22)

“I’m not sure we are well-served by essentialist notions of sexual orientation, anyway. This idea that you go through a one-time process of figuring out who you truly are, then you come out, and then you don’t need to do that anymore, sure hasn’t worked for me. . . I have come to believe that most of us are born with a wider range of sexual potential than we’ll ever exercise in the course of one lifetime. . . if we fall in love with the “wrong” person, read something that unexpectedly excites us, see a piece of porn that has a surprising impact, or listen to the far-out suggestion of a more experienced lover, we may find that we can’t take our core assumptions about ourselves for granted. When these changes take place, as long as they are truthful ones, we aren’t selling out or betraying our ideals. We’re just keeping pace with what life has shown us, how we’ve changed or grown.” (27)

I’ll be blunt: in my mind, there is nothing contradictory about being a feminist and getting turned on by dominance, submission, power, force, or authority, or whatever other type of sexual kink that may be labelled “unacceptable.” I don’t really care whether or not these things are “tools of the patriarchy” because the worst thing feminism can do is take away a person’s power to fully embody and enjoy their own sexual potential. The worst thing feminism can do is instill more guilt. We’re already told that we should be ashamed for our appetites, our desires, how huge they are, how much we want and can encompass. My feminism is liberating, not repressive, and tells me that, as long as there is full and enthusiastic consent and communication involved, there is no "right way" or "wrong way" to experience my sexuality.

What do you think?

--Vanessa

Zimbabwean Women Activists Honoured: Feel Good Fridays

2009-11-27T10:10:00.003-05:00

So, I will be the first to admit that I have a bit of a personal stake in today's topic. I have volunteered for about 5 years with Amnesty International (Canadian Branch) and about a year ago, I also became an Amnesty Coordinator, meaning that I have the great honour of communicating with Amnesty activists all across Canada, letting them know about new actions, helping organize events, etc., etc. My area of focus as a Coordinator is with a group called WOZA, which stands for Women of Zimbbawe Arise. WOZA is a Ndebele word meaning "come forward," and that is exactly what the 75,000 members of WOZA do--since 2003, they have held over 500 peaceful protests demanding better from the Zimbabwean government.

These women (and men) have faced countless hardships. Magodonga Mahlangu and Jenni Williams are two of the leaders of the movement, and they have been jailed over 30 times. They are currently facing charges of "disturbing the peace" and are set to go to trial on December 7th. If convicted, they will face up to 5 years in prison.

On Monday, Magodonga Mahlangu and Jenni Williams were honoured by U.S. President Barack Obama with the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, a very prestigious honour. The women of Zimbabwe, for all their courage and hard work, certainly deserve this award! (Now I only hope that it is backed up with some more tangible support of Zimbabwean civil society!) Check out the presentation of the award and the awesome speech by President Obama.

If you are interested in getting more involved with Amnesty International, check out this website and go to the top right hand corner to find if you have an office in your country.

If you want to know more about the current political situation in Zimbabwe, check out this great site.

If you want to get involved with supporting the activism of WOZA, email me at wozacoordinator@amnesty.ca

WOZA MOYA!
(Come forward, healing spirit)
:) Stephanie

Top Ten Ethical Toys for Christmas

2009-11-26T17:20:00.005-05:00

Alright. You can’t deny it any longer. Christmas is just around the corner. Working at a toy store, I’ve noticed that people seem more and more stressed the closer it gets, rushing in to get their Christmas shopping done in a hurry. It’s getting to a point where flustered customers don’t seem to care what these toys cost—or how they’re made. They just want to get it out of the way. Understandable; nobody likes stressing over the holidays (such a paradox…), but before supporting companies that use synthetic materials and harmful manufacturing methods, check out some of these extra-special toys for your extra-special sibling, niece or nephew, or toy drive. For those of you who have special little ones to buy for this year, here (in no particular order) are my top ten Ethical Toys for Christmas:

Fuzz That Wuzz

Believe it or not, these cuddly stuffed animals are 100% made from recycled PET bottles. These recycled plush toys are one component of Mary Meyer’s “earthmates” line, which also includes two other lines of plush toys; one line completely composed of organic materials, and one line of plush made completely from bamboo. More info.

Pictures to come!

Green Toys

All these play-pretend toys are composed of recycled plastic milk jugs. The recycled plastic is THOROUGHLY cleaned, guaranteeing safe play. Packaging is 100% recyclable and is minimized as much as possible. All Green Toys are made in California, which cuts down a TON on transportation. More info.

Plan Toys

Plan Toys makes all their products from rubber trees, and to prevent deforestation, new trees are planted for each one that is used to make these classic-style toys. They use vegetable based paint (extra safe for babies to chew on) and their manufacturing plants use state of the art solar energy. More info.

Pull Along Zebra

Sprig Toys

Taking a stand against the growing trend of passive “watch-me” electronic toys, Sprig strives to develop toys that keep kids having fun and moving around. This company is a reformed one, at one time being one of the big, environmentally-detrimental companies. But when the designers saw first-hand how their manufacturing plants affected the environment, they changed their tune, resolving to only make toys that met their new criteria: battery-free, eco-friendly, paint-free and kid-powered. More info.

Wild Republic

This conservation and nature-avid company has been given the nod of approval by such authorities as National Geographic, Audubon and Cornell Lab of Ornithology. They focus on humanitarian endeavours, with three major projects currently running in India; Abhayabala, a housing centre for girl-victims of domestic violence; Panmana Asramam, a rescue/rehabilitation centre for abandoned or slaughter-destined animals, and a trust fund to feed the monkeys that inhabit the ancient Temple of Sasthamkotta (!!!) All projects are funded by a portion of the proceeds from Wild Republic’s toys. More info.

Due to time contraints (or being kicked off the library computer by dialogue boxes reminding me I have a time limit), I will post the other five ethical toys within the next few days.

-Av

End Violence against Sex Workers!

2009-11-24T12:34:00.004-05:00

Hey blogosphere,
I will have another blog entry in the next couple days about a recent talk by Patrick Califia, a well-known radical sex activist, but in the meantime, I'm going to shamelessly use this space to ask for your help in a project that I'm working on.

As some of you may know, I’ve started volunteering with Stella, a Montreal community group for sex workers. Stella is an amazing resource for sex workers in Montreal and has been working to make the industry safer since 1995. Most importantly, the organization is run by sex-workers themselves (with the help of some sympathizers), so the services are very much in tune with the needs of women, men, and transgendered sex workers.

Stella’s Mandate is:
• to provide support and information to sex-workers so that they may live in safety and with dignity;
• to sensitize and educate the public about sex work and the realities faced by sex workers;
• to fight discrimination against sex workers;
• to promote the decriminalization of sex work.

This December, Stella will be organizing two demonstrations in support of women who are pressing charges on rape and assault against two men that targeted sex workers specifically. This is an exceptionally difficult situation for the women involved. The Canadian criminal justice system has systematically criminalized and marginalized sex workers, and so to approach the institution for protection requires a great deal of courage. Please help support these women by taking a few minutes to write a message of support (in English or French). If you don’t know what to write, consider:

• Thanking them for their courage in taking action against sexual violence and sending the message that violence is not part of the job description
• Telling them that your thoughts and support are with them
It can be simple, it can be artistic, it can be in French or English (French is likely their first language ) Just be respectful!

Please send any messages to me at michelle.olding@hotmail.com, or (if you are in montreal) write out a handwritten message and pass it along asap. I need them all by December 1st!

Oh yeah, and pass this message on to anyone else who might be interested! Power in numbers!

Thanks everyone! If you have any questions, please comment on the thread (I'll try to get back to you super quickly!)

Mental Health Mondays: 4.48 Psychosis

2009-11-22T20:28:00.013-05:00

Hopefully if you read last week’s Monday blogpost you were able to realize self-reflection (leading to a greater level of self-awareness) is a pretty crucial element of my idea of striving for a healthy mental state. Last week, I focused on journaling and how that can provide a method for some much-needed processing. For journaling, I’ve noticed that I have to be intentional about the time I set aside, or else I rarely enter into that state of self-reflection. I usually journal early in the morning (or sometimes late at night), when I am by myself, because I feel like that is the best time for me to enter into a state of authentic self-reflection and focus upon things related to my state of mental-health.

However, this past Saturday I entered into a rather high level of self-reflection (that in and of itself is not at all uncommon for me due to my frequent journaling) but this time I was in a fairly tiny room surrounded by lots of people, most of whom I’d never even seen before. I spent this past weekend in Halifax, (partially because one of my best friends is attending school there and I would jump at any opportunity I had to go visit her, but also because I needed to intentionally do something to break a negative cycle I had found myself entering) and one thing that I did while there was go to a theatre production put on by students of Kings University.

The show was called 4.48 Psychosis, written by Sarah Kane. Any summary I can come up with will by no means do justice to the beauty and depth put into it by the playwright (and subsequent directors who have worked with the play), but I’ll try to give a basic overview of it:

My initial reaction is it’s a play about mental-health. So, great!, it fits perfectly in with this article-theme...but that would not really distinguish it from any other play, as EVERY play (that is, essentially every element of life) includes elements of mental-health…some are just less obvious than others. 4.48 Psychosis, in its original form, was written more as a narrative story than as a play. That is, there are no characters, and thus no dialogue. The “script” itself is not even divided into distinguishable speaking parts. It looks a lot more like a long poem, or broken narrative, than a play. Directors who have worked with the play, or at least the [incredibly powerful and moving] version that I saw of it the other night, have chosen to divide the text amongst multiple characters while maintaining one role that is the obvious lead.

The lead (played by a female in the version that I saw), in a somewhat convoluted and indirect way, shares her struggle with depression. She views “4:48” [am] as the time “when depression visits” and she struggles to overcome her negative thoughts, particularly the temptation to use suicide as a means to escape both morality and reality. The play then seems to jump forward (that is, backward) to the time she spent receiving psychiatric and medical help. Evoking an incredible amount of emotion, she explains the difficulty of communicating her innermost thoughts to her doctors— “Please. Don't switch off my mind by attempting to straighten me out. Listen and understand, and when you feel contempt don't express it, at least not verbally, at least not to me.” She also expresses the frustration she experienced while trying to discover the proper medication for her. She continues to talk of how she is “loving” one who is “absent”, or in other words, she is loving someone who is not present in her life. At a different point in the play, she makes the connection that she herself is not present in her own life, that her mind and her body have been separated from each other. It could be said, then, that (while she is attempting to love herself) she is unable to love herself due to some unexplainable absence. It was heart-breaking to experience these feelings and emotions with her as I sat in my theatre seat.

While the play as a whole can undoubtedly be described as being filled with an immeasurable amount of emotional brokenness (my heart felt as if it was continually being broken and re-broken), I also saw the play as containing the potentially for immeasurable beauty. Particularly in the closing line “It is myself I have never met, whose face is pasted on the underside of my mind. Please open the curtains.” She is making a motion for change. Here, the character wants to discover herself. Here, she seeks to be able to recognize her own face. Here, she seeks self-identity.

And so I was sitting at this theatre, watching this play, surrounded by people I didn’t even know, and I found myself entering into this state of immense self-reflection. For just one example, I started wondering how my own struggle to work toward and ultimately maintain a healthy mental-state has influenced me in ways I have not entirely realized.

A friend and I tried to process various aspects of the play with each other. She and I agreed that, while there was a lot of material within the play that hit extremely close to home for us, there were also aspects that we had never experienced, and hopefully never will. This reflection helped me realize that we’ve all had our struggles just as much as we’ve all had our successes. We’ve endured hardship—even if we think our own life struggles are small and insignificant; we’ve had some degree of pain in our lives that we can use to relate to the pain of others. Yes, everyone’s pain is different, but everyone’s pain is…well, painful. As I watched 4:48 Psychosis I witnessed the pain of a character in an “extreme” depressive state, and I simultaneously recalled the pain brought about by some of my own states. They are indeed different, but they are both painful, and so they were both one in that.

While sometimes beneficial to working toward mental health, I don’t necessarily think it takes the professional diagnosis of a specific mental illness for an individual to recognize there are ways that s/he can improve the state of his/her mental health. I can’t pretend to know all the answers to improving one’s mental-health. But I CAN say there was one line of the play that stuck out to me as at least a partial solution: “Remember the light and believe the light.”

There’s something powerful about reflecting on the positive moments in our life; there’s something incredible about not only remembering the light of those positive moments, but in believing the light about them. Trust people’s words when they say “I care,” “I love you,” or “I want to help” because I think there is something powerful in remembering the light and believing that light. Do you?

Let me close this blog with an excerpt from the Sarah Kane’s play “4.48 Psychosis.” I want to use these lines as a wish for myself and for you. May we all be in continuous journey toward a healthy mental-state in which we are able to vow:

“to achieve goals and ambitions

to overcome obstacles and attain a high standard

to increase self-regard by the successful exercise of talent

to overcome opposition

to have control and influence over others

to defend myself

to defend my psychological space

to vindicate the ego

to receive attention

to be seen and heard

to excite, amaze, fascinate, shock, intrigue, amuse, entertain, or entice others

to be free from social restrictions to resist coercion and constriction

to be independent and act according

to desire to defy convention to avoid pain

to avoid shame

to obliterate past humiliation by resumed action

to maintain self-respect

to repress fear

to overcome weakness

to belong

to be accepted

to draw close and enjoyably reciprocate with another

to converse in a friendly manner,

to tell stories, exchange sentiments, ideas, secrets

to communicate, to converse

to laugh and make jokes

to win affection of desired Other

to adhere and remain loyal to Other

to enjoy sensuous experiences with cathected Other

to feed, help, protect, comfort, console, support, nurse or heal

to be fed, helped, protected, comforted, consoled, supported, nursed or healed

to form mutually enjoyable, enduring, cooperating and reciprocating relationship with Other, with an equal

to be forgiven, to be loved, to be free.”

Thanks for reading! Please share any and all comments/questions, etc. :)

- Nadya

Sexual Health Sundays: Sasha Langford on Consent

2009-11-22T00:01:00.002-05:00

Sasha Langford is a Communication Major at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, B.C., currently on exchange in Istanbul, Turkey. Sasha loves to talk and write about media, consumer culture, and gender, and hopes to pursue a career in media advocacy work to help challenge the dominant beliefs surrounding these issues. She is also a fan of consented sex, the main thing along with her life experience giving her authority to write on the topic in this piece. For more of Sasha's writing check out her blog at www.cultureshellshock.blogspot.com.

Remember that song from elementary school “My body’s nobody’s body but mine”? As cheesy and funny as it might have sounded back then, the lyrics most certainly are true. It is up to you to decide what you do with your own body, and what others are allowed to do with it. When it comes to sex, consent is a verbal agreement to ensure that these decisions of yours are respected.

Giving your sexual consent means giving your approval towards doing a given sexual (or just generally physically intimate) activity with another person. But consent isn’t just a casual “yes”. It is a willingness, an enthusiasm. You can’t adequately give consent when either or both you and the other person are intoxicated, if you’re under any kind of pressure, or if was just assumed you wanted to have sex and you were never asked in the first place. Consent is a big articulated “Yay!” inspired by your attraction or curiosity and backed up by your sense of trust, safety, and comfort.

What you want to consent to do or not do is incredibly personal and specific. By consenting to do one thing with a person, you have not given them permission to do whatever they like. You can agree to make out but not take off your clothes, to have oral sex but not intercourse, to have intercourse today but not tomorrow, or any combination under the sun that makes you feel good. Up until shockingly recently in Canada, rape within marriage wasn’t criminalized because it was believed that when a person got married she/he was consenting to have any kind of sex at any moment with her/his spouse for the rest of her/his life. Of course this is absurd—no matter how much we may be attracted to someone or love or trust him or her, there are bound to be (many) times that we don’t feel like engaging sexually with them, and we always have the right not to want to. You give consent as you go—it is dependent on the moment, and you are always welcome to change your mind.

One of the most important things to keep in mind with regards to consent is that you do not owe anyone sex (neither does anyone owe you sex). There is no instance where someone else has the right to have sex with you when you don’t want to. Even if a sex worker’s client has just paid her/him for sex, and then she/he doesn’t want to have it, the client still has no right to rape her/him. Even if you picked someone up at a bar and brought them back to your place and are lying in bed naked with them, you do not owe them sex. Even if you’ve been with the same partner for years and you’ve had sex a hundred times, you do not owe them sex the 101^st time. Even if you’re about to give your partner an orgasm but you suddenly don’t feel safe and want to stop, you do not owe them that orgasm. Your comfort and safety are far more important than some orgasm.

While some might say that “wanting to have sex” and “feeling violated” are two complete opposites without any gray zone, I believe that in practice it is not so simple. As crazy as it sounds, sometimes you might not be sure how you feel about a sexual situation in the moment. After all, sex and physical intimacy in general put us in a very vulnerable place where we are likely to feel a whole range of complicated emotions. Maybe you aren’t exactly sure whether you’re enjoying what’s happening or whether it’s making you feel a bit uncomfortable. The best bet is to first take a moment and let your partner know how you’re feeling (See Sexual Health Sundays: Communication). From there, there are lots of options. Maybe you’d feel best if you switched to a different sexual activity with your partner. Maybe you just want to make out or cuddle for a while and see how that feels. Or, maybe you come to the conclusion you’re really not comfortable being in a sexual place right now, and you want to do something else entirely. Any combination of these options is perfect and awesome; remember you’re the only one who can decide what’s best for your body at any given time. Sex is about mutual pleasure, and you shouldn’t have to sacrifice yours out of a worry of “ruining the moment” or “breaking the mood”. What kind of “sexy mood” do you have going anyway if you’re not feeling sexy about what’s happening?

If your partner ever makes you feel bad about stopping a sexual activity, I will say as a rule that this is not a good sexual partner. I repeat, anyone who makes you feel guilty for not wanting to have sex is not someone worth having sex with. If you tell a partner you don’t want to do a particular sexual activity, then they talk you into you it and you end up doing it, this is not consent. In fact, this could even be assault. While I said that consent is a verbal agreement to do something, if you are only saying ‘yes’ because of pressure and not because of your own desire, then you are not being honest with your partner or yourself, and that word is meaningless. “No” is always, always an option.

If consent is a verbal affirmation, does that mean one has to go through the question and answer process every single time one does something sexual with someone? Is someone’s body language a good enough indicator of their desire? Some would say that body language alone is never sufficient, but I believe that this can be dependent on any given sexual relationship. I’ll admit that in my current relationship with my long-term partner, we are comfortable using body language as a gauge of our desire most of the time and don’t always feel the need to have a verbal discussion prior to each sexual activity. That being said, even if you have a trusting relationship and you are doing a sexual activity you have done before many times, you can never fully assume how your partner is feeling. It is always the best idea to throw in a quick “How do you feel about doing ______ with me right now?” before physically going ahead to ensure that everyone involved is happy and comfortable.

Sex can be wonderful, but it is only so if everyone involved wants it to be happening. The bottom line is trust your instincts and communicate. Love yourself for being the amazing person that you are, and know that you deserve to feel safe and respected. Your body is nobody’s body but yours!

Resources:

http://www.scarleteen.com/resource/boyfriend/consent_is_sexy

Tyra Apologizes for Biracial Photoshoot: Feel Good Fridays

2009-11-20T09:50:00.004-05:00

Hey Athenites,

So, remember that extremely angry article that I wrote about 2 weeks ago regarding America's Next Top Model and their biracial/blackface themed photoshoot? And how it was preposterous and offensive that Tyra would present race as something that you could put on for a photoshoot and take strip off like it didn't matter. And also that you cannot essentialize a racial or cultural group down to one dress or headdress or item of editorial clothing.

Well, she has apologized for that offensive photoshoot on her talk show, The Tyra Banks Show.

"I apologize because that was not my intent. It's my number one passion in my life to stretch the definition of beauty. I listen to many heartbreaking stories of women who thought they would be happier if they looked different. I want every girl to appreciate the skin she's in."

Kind of a half-assed apology, but still, half-assed is better than...no-assed? (I have never fully understood that expression.) She pulled the classic: "I'm sorry if this offended YOU, but lots of other people weren't offended (implication: you are too sensitive)."

Although Tyra does not acknowledge the reasons WHY this shoot was offensive or attempt to educate anyone about the complex racial issues involved in blackface, she at least made an overture of apology. More here.

Good try, Tyra. In a similar form of compromise, I will continue to watch your show, but will watch it on youtube to deprive you of any associated advertising revenue.

Love,
Steph

Top Ten Things You (Probably) Didn’t Know About Cosmopolitan Magazine

2009-11-19T18:34:00.004-05:00

Ahh Cosmo. Whether you love it or hate it, we’re all guilty of flipping through its pages. The wonders it can do to spice up waiting in line at the grocery store! Celebrity gossip, tips for your sex life, fashion trends and shopping secrets, as well as real issues, among them rape and abortion. All in one neat packaged and stamped with a half-naked A-list celebrity on the cover. Yes, Cosmo has come to be somewhat of a staple for many young women. But here are some things you might be interested to know next time you’re reading up on the latest make-up tricks or sexy/kinky/dangerous sexual endeavours.

September issue, 1939

1. Cosmo was first established in 1886. At first, Cosmopolitan Magazine was directed towards the “first class family” and there were different departments that published articles aimed at mothers, fathers and children respectively. Paul Schlicht (co-head of Cosmopolitan’s then-publishing company Schlicht & Field) is quoted as describing the women’s articles “on fashions, on household decoration, on cooking, and the care and management of children, etc.,”

2. Schlicht & Field went out of business in 1888. Cosmopolitan acquired a new editor, E.D. Walker, who’d previously worked for Harper’s Magazine, and a new owner, John Brisbin Walker, who revamped the mag and put a literary spin on it, publishing the likes of Edith Wharton, Jack Lundon, Annie Besant, Rudyard Kipling, and H.G. Wells (two of whose novels were first serialized in Cosmopolitan.)

3. Remember Orson Welles’ movie Citizen Kane about the really rich guy who bought everything he wanted and then died completely alone? It was based on a real person, identically ridiculously rich and successful, named William Randolph Hearst. Hearst made his fortune buying up newspapers and magazines all over America (28 or so before his empire collapsed after the stock market crash in 1929, including Los Angeles Examiner, Washington Times, Good Housekeeping, Town and Country, and the list goes on). He bought Cosmopolitan in 1905, bringing with him an impressive group of journalists including David Graham Phillips, Sinclair Lewis and Charles Edward Russell, among others.

4. By the 1930’s, Cosmopolitan had developed into a very literature-focused magazine, and its circulation was up to 1,700,000 with an advertising income of $5,000,000. However, demand for fiction plummeted in the 1950’s, and Cosmopolitan’s success was severely hurt, until the arrival of...
5. Helen Gurley Brown, the woman responsible for the Cosmo we know and love today. On second thought, that’s not really fair to say. Brown was actually an advocate for gender equality, stating that women should be able to have it all (“love, sex and money”) instead of society keeping them in their place as “homemakers”. At the age of 40, she published a book in 1962 called “Sex and the Single Woman”. In 1965, she became editor-in-chief at Cosmopolitan, and changed the demographic to exclusively women, publishing the first versions of the sex-focused articles we see today. Her focus was to address women who “wanted to feel good about rather than ashamed of the life choices they made or contemplated” and eliminate the pressure of finding a husband and raising a family: “If you were female and not married by age 30, you might as well go to the Grand Canyon and throw yourself in.” The first issue Brown officially edited included an article about the birth control pill, a touchy subject at the time. For more info on Brown, click here.
6. Those risqué covers (ever notice that the cover girl of the month is always wearing either a low cut dress or a bikini?) and suggestive headlines are a bit much for some vendors, and are currently covered up (along with Maxim and Playboy, etc.) by some stores, reportedly including Wal-Mart.
7. Some of the sex tips found in Cosmo these days might be pushing the envelope a little too far. When biting enters into the situation, or pubic hair-pulling or vigorous twisting of genitalia, it may be time to step back and say “are you people fucking NUTS?” Click here for a complete criticism from the boys at Cracked.com.
8. Cosmo recently acquired a television network, CosmoTV. Careful study reveals broadcasts of mostly horrible soap operas and teen dramas, excessive showings of Sex and the City, punctuated by commercial breaks consisting of infomercials for beauty and cleaning products, World Vision advertisements and, of course, advertisement of CosmoTV itself (these specifically are particularly excruciating to watch). They also run “Fun Facts” or “Cosmo Quizzes” between programs and commercials.
9. Cosmo is now published in 34 languages in over 100 countries, many with their own national editions. Its circulation in the US has skyrocketed to 2,907,000 and is sold in every state.
10. After much effort to track down an article I saw in an issue a few months ago, I’ve decided its effectively been erased from history; it had title to the effect of “Oops, Did We Say That?” and proceeded to list outrageously sexist “house-keeping” tips, presumably from Cosmo’s “first-class family” days. To paraphrase, the article included such valuable pointers as “have dinner warm and ready when your husband comes home, and make an effort to look nice so he’s reminded of why he married you in the first place, and FOR GOD’S SAKE, HIDE THE CHILDREN!” Making these kinds of errors in the past is semi-forgivable based on the society at the time. Laughing it off in a nonchalant “oopsie daisy” kind of way… not so much.

So next time you pick up an issue, remember the long history that has led to the magazine you hold in your hands. And despite everything, guilty pleasures are more than permissible. Just promise not to make your sexual partner sniff pepper because Cosmo told you that sneezing enhances orgasm.

-Av

Worldwide Wednesdays

2009-11-18T20:01:00.002-05:00

Hey Athenites,

This week we find ourselves in the world of fashion, a world you will find, after you check out the following links, that is even more out of touch than I had previously thought.

I will keep my comments brief because I feel as if the videos explain it best. In the latest issue of French Vogue, white model Lara Stone poses in a series of shots, her entire body painted black. This is known as blackface which, I thought, had ended long ago. Blackface was popular in the United States in the 1800s where white performers painted their faces black and essentially performed like fools, supposedly playing up black stereotypes.

So my question is, why are we rehashing a clearly racist “artform”? Those who defend the photos claim that it was done for artistic merit. Although I am not someone who is particularly gifted in visual arts, I fail to see the artistic merit in this piece. My other question is, why not use a black model for the spread if that was what they were going for? Black models have been proven to be a severely underrepresented group in the industry.

Anyways, check out the next two links that provide commentary and draw your own conclusions.

Yamz

http://jezebel.com/5381755/french-vogue-controversy-goes-to-cable?autoplay=true

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABvb71oYyUo

Dear Gaga, Violence Against Women is NOT SEXY

2009-11-17T15:37:00.003-05:00

So for the past three days, I’ve had Lady Gaga running on loop in my head. I’ve tried to treat the condition with a concoction of Joni Mitchel, Belle & Sebastian, and Regina Spektor (equally addictive, but less annoying) but alas Gaga isn’t going anywhere. To make matters worse, the video for paparazzi is also playing on loop in my head.

Now, normally this would be Vanessa’s blog topic (Sexual health Sundays) but I felt the need to speak out about the sexualized violence in Lady Gaga’s video, "Paparazzi." Now, I won’t pretend to understand what exactly Lady Gaga’s video is about, but here’s my brief synopsis of it:

Lady Gaga is some sort of wealthy figure in some idyllic foreign location (Gagaland?) She is in a luxurious bed with a greasy-haired lover. The next twenty seconds is softcoreporn (a lot of bum groping and groaning). AND THEN Gaga’s greasy-haired male lover insists that they make out on the nearby balcony (he of course being in the dominant standing position, her being propped up like a doll on the rail). Suddenly, a clicking sound! The paparazzi is taking pictures from below! Lady Gaga struggles to get away, but the greasy-haired boyfriend will not let her go. She urges him to “Stop,” and asks him “What are you doing?” She struggles to escape, but the greasy-haired boyfriend forces her in place. Lady Gaga hits him over the head with a conveniently located wine bottle. He pushes her off the edge of the balcony. What follows is a confusing 15 seconds of Gaga falling in a black and white spirally time-travel vortex, (?) whilst making sexual noises and nibbling at her hands. The next shot is of her positioned sexily on the ground,mangled, her breasts nearly popping out of her tiny bodice, pearl necklace in her mouth, as the papparazi swarms around shouting “beautiful, beautiful!”

The rest of the video (which is increasingly perplexing)features images of apparently dead women in various sexualized settings (a sexy bunny in a bathtub, a sexy nurse bleeding from her head, a sexy women in heels hanging from the ceiling of a mansion) All these images flash in between scenes of lady Gaga making out with a bevy of skinny blonde women on a couch.

Oh yeah, and by the end of the music video the prison system is made sexy too! After poisoning her boyfriend, Lady Gaga is arrested in a little black bodice (which I guess is supposed to signify her fall from innocence to deviance. Her struggle with the police is coquettish. As icing on the cake, there's her panty shot in the back of a cop-car, and the high fashion mug shot. Is anyone else nauseated by this?

The reality is that this glamorizing and sexualizing of violence against women is all too common. It’s kind of become an old story in the feminist world. Its everywhere: In our music videos, movies, porn, and advertising. Need I remind anyone of the “gang bang” Dolce & Gabonna campaign , or the Wrangler “we are animals” campaign, or the infamous American’s Next Top Model “murdered women” shoot?

A 2007 documentary by Sut Jhally entitled Dreamworlds 3: Desire, Sex, and Power in Music Video looks at how music videos are a cultural text that creates and reinforces notions of what it sexy, and how we should behave as “men” and “women.” His documentary makes clear that these "sexy" images of violated women contributes to a culture of male entitlement to female bodies, and the legitimization of sexual violence against women.

I'm so sick of this. So let me spell this out: SEXUAL ABUSE IS NOT SEXY. MURDERING WOMEN IS NOT SEXY. NEVER. OK?

But, I want to end things on a positive note. If you need to purge yourself of all this Gaga-ness, please check out my favorite parody of "Paparazzi" so far. This woman is amazing :)

Sexual Health Sundays: No More Sexual Violence

2009-11-15T00:35:00.004-05:00

I’m not an expert on sexual assault and gendered violence. But I’m getting sick of being told that if a person doesn’t fight back, it wasn’t really rape; that women should be weary of dressing a certain way, or staying out late at night, because then she might be “asking for it”; that men and/or trans people can never be sexually assaulted; that sexual assault doesn’t happen in same-sex relationships; that the real rapist is a stranger, not a boyfriend or mother or therapist; that some instances of sexual assault aren’t as valid, or real, or important as others.

Sexual assault doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It is a phenomenon born of our cultures. Sexual assault is influenced by gender identity, and it is also influenced by a multitude of other factors, things like race, like class, like dis/ability, like age. What myths have you heard about sexual assault? How many times have you read in the news about a survivor being discredited because of attacks on their moral character?

We still live in a world where a woman’s reputation is based on her so-called “sexual purity.” This is bullshit and it needs to change.

I want to live in a world where a woman can walk around the street naked at two in the morning and it will still be commonly understood that her body is her own and that no one has the right to hurt her, sexually or otherwise.

Sexual assault is not about sex. Rape is not sex.

Ask yourself this question: have you ever been on the receiving end of any unwanted act of a sexual nature?
Have you ever subjected someone else to such an action?

How do we build a world without sexual assault?

How do we heal?

SACOMSS
Dec 6th Memorial
Fire with Water
RAINN
How You Guys-- That's Right, You GUYS-- Can Prevent Rape
Blinders Off: Getting a Good Look at Abuse and Assault
Yes Means Yes!
Support zine

--Vanessa

The Romantic Comedy Drinking Game

2009-11-14T23:49:00.003-05:00

I was channel surfing during a study break this evening when Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. I ended up watching it through to the end, the whole time making a mental checklist of all the stereotypes this movie seemed to fulfill. I know, I know - pretty much any major Hollywood flick is formulaic and built on cliches, but the RomCom genre sticks out because not only are these the types of flicks that are marketed to my demographic, it's an entire genre built on a rigid gender dichotomy. Here's what I was able to come up; add your own in the comments:

a) The only people who ever fall in love are young, white, attractive, cis-gendered, able-bodied, and heterosexual.
b) Any gay people or people of colour may exist, but only in sassy supporting roles.
c) The female lead has a coveted media job that allows her to wear a phone headset and wear cute designer dresses to fancy galas. (but nothing too ambitious or rigorous! After all, a career is just a stepping stone in the path to true love! Any woman who is too successful is a frigid bitch who needs to be taken down a couple of pegs.)
d) Women are obsessed with getting married but are unable to speak up about it; if only their pesky boyfriends could get the hint!
e) Cockiness is charming, but only if you're a hot male lead.
f) Stalking and sexual harassment? Totally charming and romantic! Unless the person doing the stalking is ugly, in which case it's just comic relief.
g) Oh, and the two attractive leads always get together, despite the build up. Even if Sandra Bullock unethically threatens her employee Ryan Reynolds with his career unless he pretends to marry her. Even if Gerard Butler is a sexist asshole who routinely demeans Katherine Heigle at her job. And while I could rehash movies that have already come out this year, I thought I should set my sights forward and see what lies ahead, in the form of youtube trailers.

Did You Hear About the Morgans?

Well let's see, a) & g) are givens, it does look like Sarah Jessica Parker's character has a glitzy job (hello, shiny dresses!) so that's c) and what's that? Sassy female police officer who happens to be a POC? Hellooo b)!

When in Rome

We have stalking is hilarious, the phone headset, and while Kristin Bell doesn't speak of getting married in the trailer, there is an extensive wedding scene that set's everything up, so I think that's worth at least half a point.

Leap Year

Oh lordy, Amy Adams, this is what you're following Julie & Julia and Doubt up with? Here we have a), d), e) and g) as givens (and it looks like b could easily be fulfilled!) Of course, the tables are turned here - after months of waiting for her boyfriend to propose and getting her hopes up (she practiced her surprised face, guys!) Amy Adams finally decides to take things in her own hands. On Leap Year. You know, the one day every four years where, according to this trailer, women are allowed to be assertive. Hope that adorably cocky stranger she's stuck with under hilariously unfortunate circumstances doesn't mess things up for her!

xx,
Fitz

Oh, happy day!

2009-11-13T14:16:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I know that I've already done my requisite post for the day, and since I am lying in bed sick, I really shouldn't be too blog-crazy...but when I saw this, I couldn't resist.

Two of my favourite people in the entire universe are on the same show together: Dr. Jane Goodall is on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show.

Whoa. Did that not just BLOW YOUR MIND WITH AWESOME?!

Click here to watch.

:) Steph

Feel Good Fridays: a Great Opportunity for Comunity Activism

2009-11-13T10:46:00.000-05:00

Hey Athenites!

If you're reading this blog post, it probably means that you're interested in all things feminist, environmentalist, social justice-y, inclusive, empowering, and community based.

So here is a super easy and fun way to engage in some community-based activism. Aviva is an insurance company, and, aside from all the reasons that I think insurance companies are malicious and vile (such as U.S. health care insurers seeing domestic violence as a "pre-existing condition" ), I still think this the Aviva Community Fund is a pretty cool idea.

Canadian communtiy activists can develop ideas on how to make their communities a better, more positive place, and then submit their ideas to the Community Fund site to be read and evaluated by others (such as yourself). You can then cast votes for the ideas which you think have the most merit. A variety of ideas will be awarded a total of $500,000. Projects range in size from small (under $10,000 ideas) to BIG($250,000). More information on how the competition works is available here.

Round 2 of judging, wherein the number of ideas is whittled down even more, is almost over, so get yourself down to the Aviva Community Fund website and start votin'!

I will now put in a plug for this idea: Snacks in Packs. Snacks in Packs is a concept generated by Alyse Schacter, a friend of a friend and all around awesome human being. She is actually an Athena contributor, and wrote an article for our first issue about living with OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder). The idea of Snack in Packs is to eliminate child hunger in Ottawa, ON. Although the Ottawa Food Bank is awesome (and I know this is true because I volunteered there for a year), it does not provide service on weekends and statutory holidays. And about 16,000 children use the services of the Ottawa Food Bank every month. So, Snacks in Pack would send school kids home every weekend and holiday with a backpack full of nutritious, kid-friendly foods, a list of other community resources, and other items they might need, such as mittens or toothbrushes.

So browse around the Aviva Community Fund website, check out some ideas, and, as Aviva's slogan says: "support what's important to you!"

Have fun! (And, if you have a minute to spare, write a nasty letter to those insurance companies.)

:) Steph

...What Just Happened Here?

2009-11-11T21:41:00.000-05:00

Ladies, I apologize. For one, I failed to post last Thursday (due to technical difficulties that have since been happily resolved). Second, this post will not be a top ten list. Third, I'm about to get all somber and spiritual on you. Sorry.

When this post was first inspired, I was standing on Elgin street in a huge throng of people. I toyed with the idea of working it into a list-form, but it just didn't seem appropriate. And after yesterday's post, I think our Rememberance Day coverage is pretty much complete. But there was one thing that I couldn't help but to write about. Its not the kind of thing I'd usually opt for, but here goes.

If you've never experienced Rememberance Day in Ottawa, I'll give you a quick run-down. A memorial is held at the foot our beautiful Cenotaph, starting just before 11am. Elgin street, a pretty arterial downtown route, is closed off and hundreds of people gather in the streets, right up to the edges of the barricades. It draws an impressive crowd, especially for Ottawa.

There are appearances by the likes of the Prime Minister, the Governor General, and yesterday even Charles and Camilla showed up. There are words of gratitude and praise spoken, prayers led, commemorative music is played by a marching band and sung by a children's choir. There is a parade of soldiers, sailors, pilots, all representing the people that are still today pledging their service to our country, like all those of the past whom we gather there to honour every year.

The air is always thick with reverence. The normally bustling intersection is quiet, despite actually hosting hundreds more people than usual. It's silent. Not in a creepy way - in a peaceful way. Everyone is gathered for the same reason: to remember. Listening to the silence of all those people is like listening to someone remembering. And we were all remembering the same things today. This is pretty much when it happened.

I was standing there, and I started to feel very strange. I'm not one for crowds, but I felt comforted standing there. Seeing all these people coming together for a common reason, one that unites all of us living in Canada today. It was magical. Ok, maybe "magical" is a stretch, but it was something. My first instinct was "Oh my God. It IS God. God is here. I can feel him." Think Pam at the Dundies.

The only thing is, I'm not really sure I believe in God. I was raised Presbyterian; my Dad took my sisters and me to church every second Sunday. But the more I learned about religion, the less I wanted to follow it. For a long time, I've considered myself agnostic. I like to believe that there is something out there looking out for me, but probably for the same reason people follow religion in the first place. It helps us sleep at night.

But, being a woman, its easy to resent religion of almost any kind. Most of them got their hands pretty dirty over the years; religion has played a HUGE role in the oppression of women for a long, long time (witch hunt, anyone?). I'm not here to point fingers in any way, but it's interesting that (as far as the western world is concerned) as religion has become less and less an accepted part of the fundaments of society, women's rights, status and credibility as valuable citizens has skyrocketed. Just in the past century alone. Obviously, one trend is in no way solely due to another, but it makes you wonder. As far as religion goes (aside from some of the most beautiful contributions of music, art and literature the world has ever seen) I generally would leave it sooner than take it. Which is why having these moments is weird for me.

I won't try to describe it. The only thing I can compare it to is a moment of enlightenment combined with utter calm. All those people. The heavy silence. The pain of the inevitable empathy. The shame that we only take one day a year to remember the people that died fighting in our name. These things really get to me, every year. But this year was different, or maybe just more intense. "Emotional" doesn't seem like quite the right word, but I can't think of a better one.

So here's the rub: is it possible to inherently believe in something without consciously acknowledging it? After all, I wasn't thinking "I can feel this mysterious, unknown presence amidst all these people!" I was thinking "That is most definitely God." The same Presbyterian God I grew up with. Despite all the despicable things religion is held directly accountable for, things I've learned slowly but surely over the years (and still am learning), it seems that deep down I am still willing to believe in the same religious God I was raised with.

It makes you wonder how many of your conscious ideals actually reflect what you truly believe.

-Av

Women and the War

2009-11-11T14:13:00.000-05:00

First, I need to apologize for flaking out on my last blog post. Things have been hectic for everyone on the Athena roster, but that's no excuse for not writing at all, so I hope you can forgive me for that temporary lapse in discipline.

So you're probably clued into the fact that today is a very significant day. It marks the end of World War I, 91 years ago, and is observed as a reminder of the millions of war casualties both from that war and from those that followed.

I'm no longer being shuffled into stuffy auditoriums to see high school students stage daddy-goes-to-war scenes, but it's impossible to get through November 11th without being reminded, in some way, of past and present sacrifices. The older I get, the more thoroughly I am able to understand and appreciate just what today means, and I do my best to express my gratitude. I've worn my poppy. I've written my grandfather a note to thank him for his service as a pilot in the Second World War. I've offered humble nods at the uniformed veterans on the bus and in the grocery store. I've watched TV coverage of the ceremony at Parliament. And I've decided that while war sucks, it has repeatedly set the stage for countless displays of heroism, bravery and humility. And that's why today matters so much.

It occurred to me, sitting down to write this week's blog, that though we observe today from a markedly patriotic perspective, the World Wars did not belong to Canada, or to North America, or even to the West. Remembrance Day is about recognizing the role of our citizens in something much bigger and decidedly global. So I think it is suiting to take a look at how women, Canadian and elsewhere, were involved in history's two world wars.

I'd love to look at the ways in which these wars redefined gender roles (for the better and the worse), but it would take hours to even scratch the surface. Instead, I want to draw your attention to a couple of women in particular who lived during the First World War and, fueled by the same motives and values that inspired men to enlist by the thousands, took unconventional action in an effort to make a difference.

Maria "Yashka" Bochkareva
I'll admit I really had to hesitate before choosing to feature a woman who commanded what was called the "Batallion of Death," but when it comes to equality and women's rights, this tough, peasant-turned-fighting-machine really shone. Maria Bochkareva, nicknamed Yashka, was born in Russia in 1889. She married at fifteen, ending up with a husband who abused her. Not one to passively take the blows, Maria fled her marriage and found a new husband, but he too eventually lapsed into alcoholism and violence.

When the war started, Yashka was so hellbent on serving that she left her abusive relationship and small town, headed for the big city, and secured the personal permission of the Russian emperor to join a regular batallion. And by "regular", I'm talking men's batallion, because men were the only people joining batallions in WWI Russia. As you can imagine, many men in the batallion dealt with Yashka's presence by mocking and sexually harassing her. No big deal. She pressed on, kicked ass and proved her skill as a soldier.

Meanwhile, women like Yashka who wanted to fight were pressuring the government into letting them give it a go. In 1917, the government listened, and combat units were formed consisting entirely of women. Yashka was put in charge of the first of those units--the 1st Russian Woman's Batallion of Death. The we-eat-puppies-for-breakfast-esque name was a pretty indication of just how serious these women were. 2000 attempted to enlist in the batallion, but Yashka narrowed the pool down to 300. All were volunteers. All were really, really good at what they did. The batallion fought well and prompted the creation of more like it. Many of its members were noted for acts of heroism. Unfortunately, official support for the units fell apart due to ever-present sexist attitudes, strained resources and a general lack of enthusiasm within the military as a whole. Attempts to use the existence of a woman's batallion as propaganda and a way of "shaming" hesitant male soldiers were ultimately unsuccessful. Finally, the Bolsheviks pulled the plug on the entire campaign. Nonetheless, a small movement of dedicated woman soldiers continued to exist in Russia and they showed up again in the soon-to-follow civil war.

Jane Addams
Now here's a warmer, fuzzier story from the war. When World War I was officially declared, Jane Addams was 43 years old--by no means a young'un. And she knew, with absolute conviction, that she did not like the idea. She was well-educated, having earned a college degree before beginning medical school but then choosing to devote several years to private study instead. She was financially well-to-do, and when her father left her a large inheritance she formed a settlement house with her close friend, Ellen Starr. Settlement houses were a popular sort of socialist concept of the Victorian Era: they were houses inhabited by middle-class volunteers who wanted to share and give to poorer members of the community. They offered food, childcare, cultural events, clubs--think of it as a church-meets-community-centre type of set-up. Jane's settlement house, Hull House, was the first of its kind in America.

You can probably imagine that Jane was quite the pacifist. She frequently shared her liberal, feminist, pro-peace and--at the time--unpopular views at conferences and lectures. The idea of a massive world war was not okay with her, and she did not hesitate to publicly denounce America's decision to partake. Her activity for the cause led to her being offered leadership roles with organizations like the American Women's Peace Party, or WPP. As chair of the WPP, she headed the 1915 International Congress of Women at the Hague--a groundbreaking gathering of over a thousand delegates representing countries on both sides of the war. Later, Jane Addams was offered the position of president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), which still exists today. In 1931, four years before her death, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize--only the second woman to achieve this honour in 30 years. Fifteen years later, her co-worker Emily Balch became the third.

Stella

2009-11-11T13:33:00.001-05:00

Please take the time to check out the website of an awesome organization here in Montreal, called Stella. Stella is an organization for sex workers by sex workers whose agenda is to end stigmatization of sex work, make sex work safer for sex workers, and to decriminalize sex work. They are an amazing resource (and you will probably learn something new)

Real Beauty

2009-11-07T20:52:00.000-05:00

Seeing as last week we never got a Feel Good Friday, I feel it's only right to fix that this week with two feel good days in a row, yes?

Meet Jodi Bieber. Bieber is a Photographer hailing from South Africa - I highly recommend you check out her website. In the mission statement for her most recent project, entitled Real Beauty, Bieber states:

"I felt a strong need to create a body of work that
goes against what the media has depicted as
beautiful. Even within a complexed society
such as South Africa, across all communities,
women hold unneccesary perceptions of self
doubt around themselves and their beauty from
an early age. ‘PERFECT’. The work deals with
reality and no photoshop has been used to
remove blemishes, scars, cellulite and any
other form of ‘imperfection’, but also touches
on fantasy.

The photographic shoot was a collaboration
between myself and each woman, whom I
photographed at their homes. The setting
within their surroundings was my choice but
each women’s pose was pretty much self
directed. I wanted each women to project their
personality or their fantasy into their shoot. The
shoot created a space for each women to
explore their own identity in relation to beauty
and to live for a couple of hours in an
environment of elements of fantasy."

Rather than elevate the status of one body type by putting down another, Bieber's work is truly a celebration of the female form (and the often overlooked women who embody them). She is not trying to create a sense of competition between women, nor is she trying to sell a product or objectify women's bodies. Her real women are free from airbrushing and photoshop and vary from the idealised beauty types in our society (that is to say: young, white, able-bodied, thin and free of any wrinkles or blemishes). There are more photos at the source, but here are some I've picked out:

-Fitz

Feel Good Fridays: my role model remains a role model

2009-11-06T13:35:00.000-05:00

So, I have a couple confessions.

First of all, I love Emma Thompson. She is a brilliant screenwriter, a phenomenal actress, an activist who works to end human trafficking, has starred in numerous Jane Austen adapations (and do I ever love my Jane Austen), and her husband is super hot. So, (confession number two) it pretty much broke my heart when she signed the petition to free Roman Polanski.

Because I am somewhat selfish, I thought: "how could Emma Thompson do this to me?" All the values that I hold dear--such as prosecuting rapists for their crimes--were just rejected by one of my idols.

BUT Emma Thompson has seen the light (I knew it...) and has removed her signature from the petition. And how did this come about, you may ask? Because of the dedicated work of a Shakesville reader named Caitlin. Caitlin met with Emma when she came to speak at Exter University, and presented her with a petition about why she should revoke her signature.

I asked her why she had signed the petition, and she explained about how well
she knows Polanski, how terrible his life has been, and how forgiving the
survivor of the rape all those years ago now is. She said she thought the
intentions of the judge were unclear, as were the intentions of those who
arrested him recently. She told me that a lot of her friends had rung her up
asking her to sign the petition, so there had been a certain amount of pressure.
She said that she had already been thinking a lot about the petition, as others
had expressed their dismay at her signing it.

And she thought about it, listened to the voices of her fans and other activists, and has reconsidered her support of Polanksi. She then released a statement saying: "Know that I will remove my name because of you, and all of the good work that you have been doing. I have read your petition. I have heard you. And I will listen."

One small step for woman, one giant leap for humankind!

Perhaps Emma's action will provoke other Hollywood celebrities to reconsider their stance on Polanksi.

Thanks, Caitlin! Thanks, Emma Thompson! (I knew I was right to love you...)

:) Steph

Big Fat Revolution(s)

2009-11-03T13:05:00.000-05:00

This week, I read Nomy Lamm’s “It’s a Big Fat Revolution,” which got me thinking a lot about body politics. Nomy Lamm describes herself as a “Fatkikecripplecuntqueer,” which is her way of re-appropriating a whole bunch of negative words slewed against her, and then using this identity as a launch point for her activism. Although her piece focuses on fat activism—reclaiming “fat” as positive, healthy, and normal—her piece opens up a lot of questions about normalcy and health itself . What is the ideal body type, who has the power to define this ideal body type, and who does this ideal type benefit? The following blog examines these issues of privilege and bodies.

It is a script that I have enacted many times with my friends, and with myself. I rehearse my script ritually in front of the mirror each night as my discriminating eyes interrogate each curve, and pouch, as my policing hands prod and poke at soft spots, calculating variances from last week. The script contains a conflict, a climax, a resolution. The conflict rests between two competing selves: the ideal me that exists in some unattainable place, unclear and out of focus, but undeniably a better me, and the material me that peers back from the mirror. The climax is the height of my anxiety, the realization that these two selves do not match, that I might be “that kind of girl” that has “let herself go”, that has become, unspeakably, Fat. Fat with a capital F. Fat as a state of being. The resolution to this script is the inevitable reconciliation that while I am not my mythical ideal self, I am not Fat. The interrogating eyes and policing hands do not make an arrest, but nor do they let me “off the hook.” I give my body a warning that I am under careful surveillance.

The script is harmful and problematic. As Nomy Lamm points out in It’s a Big Fat Revolution, the dominant mentality concerning negative female body image articulates the problem as “Women look in the mirror and think, “I’m fat,” but really they’re not. Really they’re thin.” Lamm writes that the harm in this mentality is two-fold: first, for its theoretical blindness to women who are, by societal standards, Fat, and second, for its implicit positioning of fat as inherently bad. To eliminate this debilitating self-loathing, the prevailing script on fat must be rewritten. Fat can no longer play the villain role. The Fat Revolution involves a recasting of fat as a “totally normal and natural thing that cannot and should not be gotten rid of,” and this fat revolution will occur through the everyday resistance of individual agents.

Alternative scripts and strategies that posit fat as beautiful and healthy are necessary in combating a specific form of negative body image; however, our scripts need to go further. Fat-hate is only one part of a larger script that polices what count as “healthy” and “normal” bodies. As Emi Koyama suggests in “A New Fat-Positive Feminism,” feminists needs to go beyond positioning fat as normal and healthy and challenge the very concepts of health and normalcy themselves: “we need to . . . question who is arbitrating these categories and who benefits.”

I return to the mirror with these thoughts in mind. I consider the privileges of my body as white, able, and gender-normative. Never before, in my mirror-gazing rituals, have my interrogative eyes considered the implications of my able-bodied legs, which allow me to access my university classes and allow me to climb the typical Montreal-style stairs that lead to my apartment. Nor my white-skin that allows me to shop at retail stores without being followed. Nor my long hair, feminine clothing, and made-up face that allow me easy entrance into most social groups. I have embraced these aspects of me, whether unconsciously or consciously, as healthy and normal aspects of my body. However, by holding these traits (white, able-bodied and feminine) as healthy and normal, I effectively exclude others from the privileged category of “normal.” I implicitly position those that are differently abled, non-white, and gender nonconformist as less normal, less healthy, less human.

Creating fat-positive scripts is integral in promoting positive body image. However, even a fat positive world will exclude others from positive body image and full personhood if the power dynamic behind concepts of “normalcy” and “health” remains unexamined. Feminists, myself included, must critically consider the ways in which the mythical ideal selves we fantasize are the product of an oppressive structure that marginalizes and stigmatizes any other body forms. Creating a body-positive world necessitates more than the positioning of fat as normal and healthy; more fundamentally, it requires a revolution in the definition of normal and healthy themselves.

Mental Health Mondays: Make Moments For Yourself

2009-11-01T20:44:00.002-05:00

Hey everybody :)
My name is Nadya and I’m happy to introduce myself to everyone as the new co-blogger for Mental Health Mondays. I will be blogging alongside Micky so we’ll be alternating back and forth week to week with who is posting. Between the two of us, hopefully we’ll be able to cover a wide-variety of mental health related topics, and some stories and tips on how to better develop a positive state of mental health. If you ever want either of us to focus on something specific, feel free to just post a comment with a suggestion. :)

I’m originally from Ottawa but I now live in St. Stephen, New Brunswick where I attend St. Stephen University. I’m studying the Humanities in general, but plan to major in Literature. My friends who know me best (well, actually, even just those who have been around me for any extended amount of time) know that I have not always been the best person at dealing with stress. I love being involved in a lot of different things and sometimes get too caught up in what I’m doing and find myself unable to make the time to take a step back, or even to take a breath.

That being said, I really don’t think [or at least I really hope!] that I am the only one who struggles with getting too caught up in what they’re doing that they “forget to breathe.” So I’m going to try to find and share a bunch of different ways on how we can make the time to take care of our mental-health; how we can find ways to ensure we are staying healthy and remembering time to breathe. Hopefully, the thoughts shared in my posts can be combined with the comments/feedback from each of our viewers in order to create friendly reminders and useful ways to take care of ourselves.

While I will get into more details with each of my posts to come, I wanted to start out by giving a basic tip that has recently proven to be….well, pretty much crucial to maintaining my sanity: Journal writing.

Now, I don’t necessarily mean doing a “Dear Diary” entry at the end of every single day (although, who knows, that may work wonders for you!) But I do think that keeping a journal of sorts—it could be filled with scribbles, jot notes, poetry, drawings, songs…anything you want!—is such a great way to not only help process through the day-to-day emotions that we experience, but it also helps us experience some degree of “healing” from the particularly painful moments. I know when I’ve had a bad day and I write about it in my journal, it almost seems as if, through writing it on paper, I’ve forced the negativity out of my system. But I don’t just use my journal as a form of ranting…I also use it to write some poetry, some general reflections of the day, and I always try to pin-point ~3 things from that specific day that I did that made me happy. It could be something huge like saving the world (ahem......I was an Incredible for halloween, and believe it or not, superheros are still on my mind) or it could be something really small like offering to get a cup of tea for my housemate.

So, while I will get to covering more specific topics in the weeks to come, I want to hear from you to see what you think about the benefits of keeping a journal (maybe someone has a cool story to share?), and even just any comments about making time for yourself in general—I would love to hear them! Here’s a website that I think gives a few fairly good reasons on the value of journal writing: http://www.appleseeds.org/100_Journaling.htm

Why don’t you check it out and let me know whether there are ones that you agree/disagree with? Some of them are really great in my opinion, but others ...not so much...... so let me know what you think!

Now, if you'll excuse me...I have some journalling to do before I head to bed! :)

Love,

Nadya

Sexual Health Sundays: So You're a Lesbian...

2009-11-01T00:14:00.000-04:00

Disclaimer:

Although this post is about the myths surrounding lesbianism, I don’t identify as a lesbian. I identify as a queer, cissexual (non-transsexual) woman. I decided to use the term “lesbian” here because that is how I am perceived (as a female-bodied woman in a relationship with another female-bodied woman), and because the word carries a lot of stigma. As always, I can only speak from my own experience, and I most definitely do not presume to think that my opinions reflect those of the “GLBTIQ community” as a whole (if it’s even possible to make such a generalization).

Ever since I “came out” to my friends and family, I’ve encountered some pretty interesting questions/assumptions about lesbianism. I’ve decided to address a few of them here. If you have your own experiences to share, or any questions to add, please leave a comment!

“How do lesbians have sex?”

This question is a little problematic, because:

A) It isn’t really any of your business, and
B) It’s impossible to answer; the definition of “sex” varies from person to person (and that goes for heterosexuals/bisexuals/whatever-sexuals, too, not just lesbians). The real question is, why do you care so much about what women do in bed? Are you titillated? Scared? Questioning your own sexual orientation? Turn the tables; a little introspection can go a long way.

But for the sake of this post, here’s my stab at an answer:

A sad truth is that heterosexual sex often gets defined by what my friend Michelle likes to call PIV (“Penis In Vagina”) intercourse. Because most* lesbians don’t have penises (*I make this exception because there are many trans women who identify as lesbians and choose, for various reasons, not to have “bottom surgery”), the general public seems to think lesbians don’t/can’t have sex. This assumption centers sexuality on the penis, completely discounting the reality of female sexual desire (and ignoring the fact that most women can’t achieve orgasm through vaginal penetration alone). Contrary to popular belief, lesbian sex is varied and incredibly sexually fulfilling. Women have sex with other women in many of the same ways as heterosexuals—through manual sex, oral sex, toys, penetration, etc x 1 000 000—variations are infinite. The main difference I’ve found (from my own experience) is that sex with a woman doesn’t center around one specific act the way PIV sex does; it’s about what each person prefers/wants in that particular moment. Lesbian sex can be slow, raunchy, kinky, passionate and/or tender. Maybe you should try it!

“If you’re a lesbian, does that mean you have a crush on me?”

Probably not, since conceit isn’t a trait I find particularly attractive in a partner.

Just because someone is attracted to others of your sex, doesn’t mean that they will be attracted to you! Just as heterosexuals are not attracted to everyone of the opposite gender they see, and bisexuals are not attracted to every single person they come across, homosexuals won’t want to have sex with you just because you happen to possess the genitalia of their choice.

Lesbians are either “hot” or “manly.”

Ah, the Hot Lesbian. Look, I am guilty of it, too—I’ve seen more than my fair share of L Word episodes (that is not “the way that we live,” Ilene Chaiken), and I have lusted after Bette. But the idea that lesbians can either be “hot” (read: conventionally attractive, according to a certain impossible commercial ideal of beauty) or “manly” (ie. not exhibiting enough “feminine” traits to be socially acceptable) is dumb. Do I really need to say this? That “hot” lesbian probably doesn’t want to sleep with you and/or your bicurious girlfriend. Lesbians who don’t conform to your “feminine ideal” have as much of a right to exist on this planet than you do, and you should take your prejudices and your gender policing elsewhere.

Folks, heterosexual and bisexual and lesbian and asexual and pansexual and queer women come in every size, shape, and colour, just like the rest of the world. Lesbians aren’t here to fulfill your sexual fantasy or be on the receiving end of your gender insecurity.

It’s tempting to create these polarized categories of one thing vs. another, but it’s all a spectrum. Sure, there are some lesbians out there who look like Bette (and if they do, they should send me an email), and some who feel more comfortable with a more “masculine” gender presentation. But there are also a lot of folks in between, who, (like me), might play femme one day, dressing up and wearing makeup, and then go for a more androgynous look the next. Bottom line? Just as there’s no one way for a feminist to look, there’s no one way for a lesbian to look.

“Wow, you’re so lucky to be a lesbian! You already know how to please your girlfriend, because you’ve got the same parts, and you don’t have to worry about safer sex.”

A lot of people assume that, just because I am female-bodied and so is my lover, I will automatically know her body inside out, recognize her arousal response and cues, and know exactly how to respond without having to communicate a single word. (The notable exception to this is my mother, who once asked me, “don’t you find it difficult to locate the clitoris on another woman?”). The common-sense truth is that everyone’s body is different, and everyone enjoys different things. I might like heavy clitoral stimulation, or manual penetration, and my partner might only require light touch or no clitoral stimulation at all. There’s really no “one size fits all” approach to having sex, even when it’s with someone of the same sex.

As for the safer sex issue, lesbians are not immune to sexually transmitted infections! Lady-loving ladies should still be using latex barriers (latex gloves for manual sex and dental dams for oral), and getting regular STI tests. I won’t lie, though; not having to worry about birth control is pretty sweet.

Before you make assumptions about the queers in your life, question your own motives first. Are you speaking out of ignorance and fear, or out of a desire to learn something new? Everyone’s experience is different, so you can talk to a thousand lesbians and get a thousand different answers about what their sexual identity means to them. But not only lesbians have sexual orientations—so do heterosexuals, bisexuals, asexuals, etc. Start conversations with your friends, regardless of how they identify. That way, you can start destabilizing some of your assumptions about those groups, too—and about yourself.

-Vanessa