At the end of December, social media addressed singer Ani DiFranco’s choice of venue for a feminist song writing retreat: a former slave plantation. DiFranco writes on her website, after cancelling the June event to be held in Louisianna at Nottoway Plantation, “I did not imagine or understand that the setting of a plantation would […] More »
So evidently, Christmas is coming. Lots of shopping, lots of kids getting excited and lots of opportunities for us adults to hammer home stereotypical gender roles to the tiny, influential minds in our lives. This can especially happen when a gift-giver doesn’t really know the kid that well and relies on traditional go-tos. One year […] More »
Some Microsoft folk decided that ladies need to be told when they are emotionally fit to eat—and the only thing they would listen to would be their bra, a smart bra to be exact. This “ambitious endeavour,” still in the prototype stage, of a product will detect what a woman is feeling, and then decide […] 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 »
“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 »
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 »
A new advocacy group for a not-so-new cause (This has been discussed in federal government for at least ten years) has formed to push for gender neutral language in the current version of O Canada. Together, Margaret Atwood Kim Campbell, Vivienne Roy, Sally Goddard and Nancy Ruth have launched Restore Our Anthem. The group got […] More »