Words of wisdom from fat activist Jill Andrew Jill Andrew wants to start a fat revolution. When she was a kid, says Andrew, she used to play around with euphemisms to make herself feel better about her body—PHAT (pretty hot and tempting) was a popular one. “As I grew up,” says Andrew, “I realized, ‘No […] More »
According to bodyshaming.org body shaming is defined as, “inappropriate negative statements and attitutes toward another person’s weight or size.” Take, for instance, this sadly classic scenario: a lady passes a group of others who erupt in whispers about what’s wrong with her clothes—muffin top, the clothes were made for thinner girls, the shirt shows how bony […] More »
When the mammoth pharmaceutical company Bayer announced in 2009 that it would be making NorLevo, a morning-after pill, available over the counter to women in Toronto, it failed to mention one small detail: it doesn’t work for every woman. The drug, which is identical to Plan B One-step, (the more popular emergency contraception pill), may […] More »
White artists appropriating black culture isn’t new (Elvis, anyone?)—but pop culture social commentary as of late is taking a hard look at the practice. Recently, singer Lily Allen has been criticized for using black female dancers as props in her video for “Hard Out Here.” “Much of the video features Lily Allen dancing in a […] More »
Imagine having your waist measured with measuring tape and being a size “passionate.” Or stepping on a scale to see, not a number, but the word “perfect.” Body positive activists already have—and Special K has mysteriously come up with these same ideas to put in their ad campaigns. On August 21, a commercial for the […] More »
“I tried to remember any case in the course of my reading where two women are represented as friends.” -Virginia Woolf There’s a hoary old cliché about male nerds that they’re perennially afraid of women, clamming up whenever one begins to talk, scoffing through their retainer at the thought of one intellectually matching them on […] More »
Yesterday Toronto’s mayor admitted on his radio show that he has made “mistakes.” By now, the whole world (literally) knows that Ford is embroiled in a substance abuse scandal; beyond the vague-sounding “mistakes” there is, of course, the video in which it appears Rob Ford is smoking from a crack pipe. But what about the […] More »
We’re already hard at work planning our next edition, a spectacularly-themed “Body & Sex” issue. Basically, if you’re tired of reading (or rolling your eyes at) sex/body stories like: “What he thinks during sex,” “21 naughty sex tips,” “50 ways to seduce a man,” and “12 new body shapes” (all actual cover lines from a […] More »
The founder behind a looked-to group in the men’s rights activist (MRA) community used to identify as a feminist. “We really did need a revolution,” says Paul Elam, in a Skype interview. “But it had to involve both sexes.” Elam believes the feminist wave of the ’60s created women as oppressors over men: “Meet the […] More »
Here, Lily Myers finds the words to describe what it’s like growing up as a female, compared to growing up as a male. Keep everything in—don’t grow out. Keep quiet—don’t speak up. Remember to be passive, “I asked five questions in genetics class today, and all of them started with the word sorry.” Check it […] More »
“The protesters should fall in love with hard and patient work – they are the beginning, not the end. Their basic message is: the taboo is broken; we do not live in the best possible world; we are allowed, obliged even, to think about alternatives.” -Slavoj Zizek As we all move slowly into the second […] More »