He could be the one, soul mate, husband, loving father to your children. But first, you’ve got to get him to say hello. These are actual words from an actual Crest 3D White Arctic Fresh Toothpaste commercial that started airing last November (and is still on air). Naturally, the commercial suggests the only way to […] More »

Katy Perry was recently named Billboard’s Woman of the Year, but she’d like you to know that she’s not a feminist. Billboard tweeted part of the pop singer’s acceptance speech, which goes: “I am not a feminist, but I do believe in the strength of women.” As you might have guessed, this caused quite an angry […] More »

Ladies, rejoice! We’re now allowed inside Mark’s Work Wearhouse! In a recent rebranding effort, the Canadian Tire-owned retailer Mark’s Work Warehouse has changed its name to just “Mark’s”—oh, and they’ve also written one of the worst ad slogans we’ve seen in a while. Posters showing sophisticated, smiling women with the tagline, “Now Welcoming Women,” have […] More »

I sighed loudly when I read the “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” cover line on the latest issue of The Atlantic (July/August 2012). When done sighing, I wondered what the “all” was now. I hoped the “all” was a nap because I was exhausted before I even opened the issue and read Anne-Marie […] 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 »

Equal parts manifesto, thesis, coming-of-age tale, and love letter, Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme, edited by Ivan E. Coyote and Zena Sharman, breaks the reductive, sanitized gender stereotypes of what it is to be a lesbian—especially ones who don’t look like Ellen DeGeneres, Rachel Maddow, or a cast member of The L Word. The contributors’ […] More »

Surfing the internet for a Grey Cup art project in November 2008, Kristin Nelson landed on a saucy image of Pamela Anderson. It immediately provoked a spark of inspiration that she couldn’t explain but also couldn’t deny. Thus emerged the seed of a body of artwork called My Life With Pamela Anderson that documents, in […] More »

Tamara Dawit co-founded the 411 Initiative for Change, a non-profit public education program, to tackle the problem of community disengagement among young Canadians. Through 411 she produces and tours 90-minute school assemblies on social issues such as human rights, HIV/AIDS, and girls’ empowerment to encourage students to learn about and get active in their communities. […] More »

The first year we ran the contest was 1996 (that’s the issue cover at right). That year, Toronto writer John Burton won first place in This Magazine’s Great Canadian Literary Hunt. Burton’s entry, “Sisters,” was his first-ever published story. It triumphed over some 1,000 other entries. Burton was a virtual nobody in the literary world, […] 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 »