The current issue of Toronto Life magazine features a cover story on the murder of Aqsa Parvez, the Mississauga teen who was killed last year, allegedly by members of her own family, over a dispute about — well, it’s tough to say what it was about. Toronto Life’s cover calls the murder an “honour killing” because Parvez […] More »

The November/December issue of This Magazine features a cover story about the collision of feminism and pornography, an idea the magazine has explored before. In the July/August 1978 issue, Myrna Kostash wrote a cover story titled “Pornography: A Feminist View,” an essay that strongly criticized the pornography then entering the mainstream as being harmful to […] More »

Gorgeous she was. Stunning. He followed her, followed her the way a down-and-outer, in raw weather, follows a dark-suited businessman smoking a cigarette. Not to pounce on the butt, which will almost certainly be crushed under a thin-soled Italian shoe, but simply for the nostalgic, soothing turbulence of smoke. She stumbled. He made a move, […] More »

Why Josey Vogels is too hot for Halifax More »

You have to wonder what the staff at Canada’s medical schools are smoking. At least one quarter of the schools have accepted money from Big Tobacco to fund their operations, according to a study conducted by the University of Toronto’s Ontario Tobacco Research Unit, published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health in May. Four […] More »

Despite Stephen Harper’s best intentions, the PC Party is far from dead—it’s alive and coveting the right-wing vote. In fact, in this past election, 16 candidates across the country battled Harper’s new Conservatives for Tory support under the PC Party banner. It was just like old times—sort of. Turns out, this PC is not like […] More »

REFRESHER COURSE More »

Like many of the contributors to Girls Who Bite Back, I grew up on a steady diet of Saturday morning cartoons, Smurfs and Strawberry Shortcake. When it came to biting back, the only superheroes and ass-kicking role models I had were Wonder Woman, The Bionic Woman and Charlie’s Angels (the small-screen version). Thankfully, things have […] More »

Hossein Derakhshan on how the internet has changed Iran More »

I can sort of understand why bright young journalists are so eager to work as unpaid interns at progressive publications like This Magazine. After all, I volunteered my services as a copyeditor for a few years (while still working full-time) before joining the magazine as editor. So I appreciate the appeal of being part of […] More »

OTTAWA REPORT More »