GOP convention features bullet-pocked Obama outhouse In case you’ve been living under a rock this year, a presidential election in the U.S. is fast approaching. That means all decorum is lost and the shit hits the fan—or, in the case of some political “art,” the bathroom. A Republican Party convention in Montana this weekend featured […] More »

Over 30 years ago, the pro-choice movement in Canada was at its peak. In 1970 the Vancouver Women’s Caucus travelled across the country as part of the Abortion Caravan. Stopping in various cities and towns on their way to Parliament Hill in Ottawa, the women spent their evenings hearing the stories of other women so […] More »

Hello, This Kiddos. Today I woke up and read that ex-gay therapy is still being presented as the way to “help” kids who are dealing with homophobic harassment and thoughts of suicide. Oh man, guys, I’m so vexed about this I can’t even find something witty to write. Ex-gay therapy is promoted as solution to […] More »

Happy Monday, everyone! Ready for your dose of fresh queer feminism yet? No? Drink some coffee. How about now? Yeah? Super. Luka Magnotta dated a trans woman, get over it. By now you’ve probably heard of Luka Magnotta—the Montreal porn actor who allegedly killed, sexually assaulted and ate a 33-year-old man. I’d like to spend […] More »

Good-day, tired and slightly ragey cubicle dwellers (and those of you still eating Pillsbury Cookies at home in your PJs.) It’s Monday. I was hoping to write this a few hours ago, but I wasn’t expecting this weekend to be so slut-tastic. Slutwalk Toronto took the streets yet again Friday evening for a 2012 encore […] More »

During Toronto’s Hot Docs closing weekend, I watched a fascinating film called The Mechanical Bride. The U.S. film, directed by Allison de Fren, is a 76-minute journey into the world of men and their life-sized dolls: how they’re made, how they’re fixed, how men relate to them, how they have sex with them, and how […] More »

There’s no denying that, in many parts of the world, women’s rights are in a bad state. There are hundreds of organizations and thousands of activists working to change that fact. But the persecution of women throughout certain parts of the world has, in the last decade, been co-opted as a pretext for military occupation, […] More »

Weighing in with 57,184 votes, the most popular definition of the word “slut” on Urban Dictionary is “a woman with the morals of a man.” If we strip away the male punchline, hasn’t “slut” always meant that? A woman who pursues her own pleasure in spite of a pervasive double standard? The SlutWalks are challenging that […] More »

Tomorrow, let’s take a moment to reflect on the 42nd anniversary of the passing of Bill C-150, the omnibus bill that decriminalized abortion, contraception and homosexuality. The rights that Canadians have because of this historic bill are crucial to remember as those same rights come under attack elsewhere: on Wednesday, Indiana became the first state […] More »

Since today marks the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, we wanted to highlight some recent stuff that’s appeared in This and elsewhere on the subject of gender justice and equality. Emma Woolley at Shameless has provided a comprehensive overview of why International Women’s Day still matters. The upshot is that while the last century […] More »

Tara-Michelle Ziniuk, Toronto author, performer, and activist, and sometime This Magazine contributor, yesterday emailed to announce that she’s editing an anthology of writing about the Toronto Women’s Bookstore, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year (depending on when you start counting). The TWB has had a difficult few years from a financial perspective, but the […] More »