Posts tagged as:

women

Please help save the Toronto Women’s Bookstore!

by Veronica on December 20, 2009

The Toronto Women’s Bookstore needs your help! The 36-year-old non-profit, feminist bookstore, which is committed to anti-oppression, risks having to close its doors if it doesn’t raise $40,000 by January. The store has issued a letter to the community asking for donations so that it can remain afloat while the current managers and staff take time to devise strategies to make the store more sustainable.

For those of you who are not familiar with the Toronto Women’s Bookstore, it’s more than just a bookstore. The TWB offers workshops, courses, readings, and other events that foster a sense of community. It is an organization that offers a safe space where women of colour, aboriginals, queer people, transgendered individuals and many others can find books and community resources. Interested in how privilege operates within our society? The TWB has offered a course called “Out of the Ivory Tower and Into the Community: Unpacking and Unlearning Privilege.” Ever wanted to learn some hot burlesque moves? The bookstore has a course in that, too.

And, in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s been a serious decline in women’s bookstores (and independent bookstores) worldwide over the past 15 years. In 1994, 125 women’s bookstores existed across the globe. Wanna know how many there are now? A meagre 21.

So, please, pretty please, if you’ve got a few extra dollars in your wallet, make a donation to the Toronto Women’s Bookstore. You can do it in person at the store, or visit their website and make a donation via PayPal. And, if you need some more convincing, you can find interesting facts, details, history and information here, here, and here.

Tagged as: books, women

More to Love: A lot less to love than you’d think

by Sabine on July 29, 2009 · 3 comments

in Media

I sat down to watch Fox’s new reality series More to Love last night because, as a feminist and cultural critic, I felt like it was my solemn duty to do so. After 60 agonizing minutes, I can tell you that I won’t be doing that again.

Writer and fat activist Kate Harding had some interesting things to say about whether this kind of representation of plus-size women on TV is progress (and then had some even more nuanced things to say about it at her blog). I also read Marianne Kirby’s condemnation of the show here at the Daily Beast. But really, I didn’t think either of them went far enough in their critique.

More to Love is just as repulsive as The Bachelor, and for many of the same reasons. There are a boatload of women gasping about how cute the guy is; there are rivers of tears; there are several proclamations of, “This is a guy I think I could fall in love with,” even after spending approximately 30 seconds with him under the glare of cameras and lights. Both shows share that heady mix of despair (”I just want someone to love me!”) and desperation (the “look at me! Look at me!” antics). And there is similar casting: most women are white (on More to Love, there are no token black women, which struck me as odd, but there were a small handful of women who appeared to possibly be Latina), most are in their 20s (with one or two in their 30s, only to get booted off in short order), and there are a range of heights and hair colour.

So, really, in many respects the shows are exactly the same. Except More to Love, I’m sorry to say, is a freak show.

The mere fact that the premise is “lookit the fatties get with the fatty!” is what brings it to the doorstep of freak show; the execution, though, shoves it firmly into the freak show house of horror. First of all, when each woman is introduced to the audience through interview clips, her stats are also shown. Yes, age, height, weight are all there–though perhaps I should be grateful they stopped just short of BMI or waist-to-hip ratio?). And is not objectifying because…?

Secondly, the usual sobbing and mascara-running interview clips emphasized many of the women’s struggle with their weight, blaming their poor romantic track records on their body size. Now, I totally believe the women who said they had been dumped, etc. because their stupid boyfriends thought they were too fat. But framed in the context of a show like More to Love, all of life’s ills are going to come down to “too fat.” Most of the women on the show were in their 20s, and you know what? Maybe that has something to do with it. A lot of women date jerks and losers when they’re in their 20s, or have a hard time meeting the right guy. But a variable like that could never come into play on More to Love.

Why? Because the show’s narrative must be based on the premise that a fat woman’s body is aberrant in order for a transformation to take place. You know how these shows are: at the end, one woman is chosen to be The One (even though that lasts for all of 3 months, on average). In order to construct just the right romantic narrative, though, she must go from being the ugly duckling to the swan. She must be Changed by His Love, so much so that she Finally Accepts Herself. She must be Reborn by the “I’ve never felt this way before,” and “I never thought anyone could love me for me” and “I can’t believe I found my Prince Charming” lines that she inevitably utters in the final episode.

Okay, I could go on, but I’ll stop myself. The final thing I want to say is that the dude in question, Luke Conley, strikes me as a bit of an ass. It wasn’t his double-entendres that bothered me (what does he like to eat? Anything “thick and juicy”). It was his totally tacky methods for getting the women to hug and kiss him that I thought was revolting. “How do you say ‘kiss’ in Spanish?” he asked one woman. “Beso.” She said. “Can you share one with me?” he asked. “Um…” was her reply. Then an edit. Then cut to them kissing–while he was flanked on the other side with another woman. BAAARF.

Have you watched More to Love? Can you provide a justification for doing so?

Tagged as: television, women

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She’s Shameless

by Veronica on June 24, 2009

in Girls

Remember what it was like being a teenager? If you’re like me, you’re probably shuddering just a little bit. Being a teenage girl is hard–especially for girls who don’t fit into the mainstream. Fortunately, the fabulous people at Shameless magazine have created She’s Shameless: Women Write About Growing Up, Rocking Out and Fighting Back, published by Tightrope Books. Edited by Stacey May Fowles and Megan Griffith-Greene, this anthology, which was launched last night in Toronto at the Gladstone Hotel, features non-fiction writing by women who share their teen experiences (with all the gory details). The writing is intended to appeal to “freethinkers, queer youth, young women of colour, punk rockers, feminists, intellectuals, artists, and activists.” Sounds like good reading to me.

While I haven’t had a chance to sink my teeth into the book yet (just picked up my copy last night), based on the sample performances I heard last night plus the crowd’s enthusiasm, I expect I’m in for some entertaining stuff. So pick up a copy at your local independent bookstore or online. Give one to your daughter, your niece, or the teenage girl who lives next door. I have a feeling she’ll appreciate it.

Tagged as: books, teens, women

Gun-toting lady criminals in pop culture

by Sabine on June 17, 2009

in Pop culture

As regular Confabulous readers know, we’re big fans of posting interesting, weird, funny historical images of women–stuff that highlights the social construction of femininity (or, in one of my favourites, of motherhood). But I got a note recently from John Ptak, the guy behind the fascinating Ptak Science Books blog. We landed on John’s radar because of an image from his site that we used a while back. He knows our readers are smart, savvy women and men, and he’s got a question for you about the image up above, there:

“By virtue of having an antiquarian map store I’ve seen many hundreds of thousands of images–probably millions, I don’t know–and the one in this post has given me considerable pause. It is relatively recent (1920’s) and shows a woman pointing a gun while committing robbery (of cigarettes), and I just can’t think of ever having seen an image of a woman pointing a gun while committing a crime. I’d be *very* curious if any of your readers knew otherwise. I pay attention to the images of women as advertising vehicles, and this one seems pretty striking to me.”

So, readers? Any idea about this slightly obscure but fascinating bit of visual culture? Here’s a larger version of the image we’re talking about:

Tagged as: crime, gun, history, image, photo, women

The current crap state of Canadian politics

by Sabine on May 13, 2009 · 1 comment

in Politics

I know that you needed something to be bummed out about this morning, so I thought I’d deliver these steaming heaps of crap from Canada’s national political stage.

First up: Canada’s auditor general, Sheila Fraser, has released a report indicating just how much lip service the federal government gives women. According to the Edmonton Sun, despite the fact that the feds have a 15-year-old committment to pay attention to how policy affects men and women differently, an array of departments are failing to do so. The Sun sez:

Fraser found few government departments actually conduct gender-based analysis, and those which do perform the work don’t actually use it to design programs. Fraser gave thumbs up to Indian and Northern Affairs as a “leader” and the only department that has fully implemented a sound gender-based analysis framework. Transport Canada and Veterans Affairs Canada, on the other hand, have no framework at all.

Great, ’cause the concerns of women riding in and driving cars, for example, has nothing to do with anything, right (oh, except things like airbags being the wrong height/size…)?

Second: Oh, BC. You’ve let us down. No, not with Gordon Campbell getting re-elected and all, but with your rejection of electoral reform. What do people have to do to ditch the first-past-the-post system and leave it behind as a 20th-century relic?

Third: Nobody has been proven guilty of anything, but wow, this she-said-she-said between Ruby Dhalla and her “alleged” caregivers is getting, as they say, curiouser and curiouser. This may all be some crazy mixup, as Dhalla suggested on Monday, but am I the only one inclined to think that the “alleged” caregivers don’t have much motive here except to tell the truth? If you were a Filipina nanny who had come into the country on the live-in caregiver program and were waiting for an employer to sponsor you, what motive would you possibly have to stir up political shit? Wouldn’t your primary fear be deportation? At the same time, I am getting really pissed at the media coverage that insists on making constant references to Dhalla’s beauty, as though that was at all relevant. Yes, Christie Blatchford, I’m talking about your shiteous piece in the Globe today.

Finally, how about a touch of schadenfreude from across the pond to make you feel a bit better? Doug Saunders’ story about the crisis facing the UK–to vote for the party of flagrant, porny spending or vote for the party of flagrant, moat-spending–had me gasping and laughing (and, um, you know, frowning at the, you know, wastefulness of it all) simultaneously.

Tagged as: Politics, women

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Newsflash: Women in academia may be getting screwed

by Sabine on May 4, 2009

in Society

Huh. More bad news from the academic front. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, a report from the Modern Language Association indicates that

women at doctoral institutions take two and a half years longer than men to reach full professor. The gap shrinks to one and a half years at master’s institutions, and the smallest gap—a year is at baccalaureate colleges. A closer look at private independent colleges by the association revealed that women there take three and a half years longer than their male counterparts to advance to associate professor.

Over all, the average time to promotion for female associate professors is 8.2 years, compared with 6.6 years for men.

And although many studies show that female academics spend more time caring for children than do their male peers, the association’s report found that such family obligations aren’t the tipping point when it comes to advancement. Women are promoted more slowly than men, no matter what their marital or parental status is, according to the report, for which 400 professors were surveyed.

Oh, man. For more details and report synopsis, go get depressed here.

And, hey, if you’re an academic and interested in discussion around career issues, come over to my newly launched blog, Leaving Academia.

Tagged as: academia, discrimination, women, work

Leona Aglukkaq, pioneering woman politician

by Sabine on April 30, 2009

in Politics

What with the whole swine flu is-it-or-isn’t-it-a-pandemic thing, Canadians have been seeing a lot of Minister Leona Aglukkaq on the tee-vee lately. I hate to admit it, but I was surprised to find that our health minister was a woman, and that we actually had an Inuit person in cabinet (really, how did I miss this?)

As it turns out, our health minister is actually the first Inuk to become a federal cabinet minister. Prior to becoming an MP, Alukkaq was an MLA in Nunavut. She served on the Executive Council (I’m assuming this is the territorial equivalent of a provincial cabinet) as finance minister and house leader, and then health minister and minister for the status of women. All that, plus she’s a mom to an 8-month old kidlet.

I’m not the only one to have been impressed with Aglukkaq during the swine flu outbreak. She seems to be completely devoid of the bullshit air that most politicians have floating around them; rather, she seems to be a steady, to-the-point, non-ego-driven kind of person who just wants to get shit done. She’s even phoned opposition health critic Carolyn Bennett to keep her apprised of the swine flu sitch (and maybe she’ll be coordinating efforts with her brand-new American counterpart, Kathleen Sebelius). Now, that’s a little bit of an Obama-style maneuvre that I really respect.

Tagged as: Health, Politics, women

Or how about a totally different way of organizing?

by Sabine on April 29, 2009 · 3 comments

in Advocacy

Last week, I was doing a bit of thinking out loud on how to re-ignite Canadian women’s movements. While I was thinking about this stuff, I interviewed a woman named Krista Scott-Dixon for a different project, Leaving Academia. Krista has a Ph.D. in women’s studies, and I told her my dreams for Confabulous helping to get women organized.

At the time, I was thinking about organizing something we’d call FemCamp–an “unconference” similar to PodCamp (or DemoCamp or Green Business Camp). This was until I heard that the RebELLES are planning on organizing a conference in Winnipeg.

But what Krista suggested was quite intriguing: she suggested holding a gathering (this could be done as a conference, or unconference, or webinar, or teleconference) where womanism or feminism were not the main topics. Rather, women from all different backgrounds (occupations, ethnicities, classes, languages, etc.) could gather together to teach each other stuff, and the feminism would happen in the spaces in between. After all, everyone is good at something, and a lot of people like to learn new things.

I began to envision a crazy clashing of people who would never ordinarily get a chance to cross paths: the Aboriginal elder from the west coast teaching the Asian mom from Edmonton how to make a jingle dress; the new Canadian from Toronto’s inner city teaching the white lesbian from Lake Winnipeg about her local community garden; the black union organizer from Nova Scotia teaching the Latina high school student from Montreal how to write a press release.

During the conversation that I had with Krista, she talked about the need scholars and feminists have to create, and not just critique. Women’s and gender studies has been enormously valuable in disseminating knowledge about women’s history to successive generations of young women. It’s also been really successful at spreading feminist principles, raising women’s ability to critique the media, and so forth.

But women’ studies has not been as successful at creating new forms of feminist culture. And people can only live on critique for so long. Creativity, on the other hand, is its own engine. People can create and create and create endlessly, Krista pointed out, because creation feeds itself. I find this really appealing, and I wonder if a principle of womanist/feminist organizing can come out of it.

Tagged as: Advocacy, creativity, feminism, women

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Bea Arthur: A beloved, ballsy dame

by Sabine on April 28, 2009 · 1 comment

in Heroines

You’ve probably heard by now that Bea Arthur passed away on the weekend. Like so many other people, I was really sad to hear this news. I was actually once graced by breathing air in the vicinity of Bea Arthur. My friend Dan and I heard that she was going to be making an appearance at the 519 community centre in Toronto’s gay village, so we raced down to see her. I can’t remember what exactly the circumstances were–this must have been about five years ago–but I remember Bea Arthur sweeping past me, and I felt like I was in the presence of royalty. Sure, she was aging, but her height and that steely look in her eye were even more formidable in person than television conveys.

I’ve been thinking about what I want to say about her on Confabulous, but other people’s tributes are so much better than what I could say. Muriel Sims, who blogs over at In Other Words, wrote a lovely reflection:

I was a 12-year-old Black preadolescent growing up on the Southside of
Chicago when Bea Arthur first entered my life – 5-feet-9 and deep-throated when I was being socialized to squeaky-speak. I don’t recall making the racial distinction, after all, this was during the era when positive Black television characters, female or male remained rarities. I recall now that Maude Finlay had a maid, Florida Evans, a take-no-shit Black woman with challenges and troubles of her own that were later portrayed in the sitcom Good Times (which left me with an entirely different perception of Blacks, women and men).

Nonetheless, much of whom I am – an independent minded Black woman free to say and do as she pleases unrestricted most of the time by cultural and family dictates – is rooted in what I observed, and did not see on television. Maude – outspoken, politically liberal, three times divorced, an advocate of civil rights, and a woman’s right to choose – was my hero. By the time the show left the air in 1978, I had been married two years and was expecting my second child, but not before submitting to two abortions; mirroring in my own life Maude’s revolutionary decision to have an abortion in her late ’40s.

Seven years later, Bea Arthur re-entered my life as Dorothy Zbornak, the
middle-aged, divorced retiree sharing a home in Florida with her mother and two women of similar age in the television sitcom The Golden Girls. Rue McClanahan’s character Blanche was the epitome of middle-age sexual freedom and femininity, while Betty White’s character Rose Nylund was just plain funny to laugh with. Now 50 years old, I still dream of spending my last days in the intimate company of close platonic “girlfriends” comfortable enough with one another to candidly discuss politics, feminist theories, civil rights, sex and ex-lovers over cheesecake and coffee.

I also really liked Jezebel’s treatment with their “Bea Arthur’s Top 5 Contributions to Pop Culture.” It had some stuff in there that I didn’t know before (like her ambivalent relationship with feminism), and it included that incredible (and incredibly hilarious) song with Rock Hudson about drugs. Never seen it before? Let me indulge you:

Tagged as: RIP, television, women

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Ms. Magazine’s assessment of Obama’s first 100 days

by Sabine on April 27, 2009 · 1 comment

in Politics

As Canadians continue to ask ourselves where our Obama is, I got this press release in my inbox today from Ms. Magazine:

Ms. Magazine’s editors conclude President Obama took “giant strides for
women” in his first 100 days. He not only reversed some of the most
egregious Bush policies, but also took powerful actions to advance and
empower women.

“By any measure, the work President Obama has done for women and girls in the first 100 days is impressive. I have been working for women’s rights in Washington since the Carter days and I have never seen anything like these first 100 days,” said Eleanor Smeal, Publisher of Ms. “In employment, reproductive rights, and global women’s rights, thus far he is keeping his promises.”

“In looking at the list of accomplishments, we’re checking off major goals for women’s rights at a rapid pace,” said Ms. Executive Editor Kathy Spillar. “We’re excited a large portion of Obama’s appointments are women ofcolor, but his appointments are one area in which he could improve. He has appointed some outstanding women, but only 32% of his top appointments, thus far, are women (using the Washington Post Tracking Poll).”

Listed below are key Obama Administration actions for women and children:

JAN 23 Overturned “global gag rule,” which will help re-fund international family-planning groups

JAN 29 Signed Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, restoring women’s ability to
sue for pay discrimination

FEB 4 Expanded government health insurance to cover 11 million children

FEB 17 Saved and created jobs in traditionally women-heavy fields-health care, child care and education-in $787 billion economic stimulus package; also increased Medicaid, food stamps and unemployment benefits

FEB 27 Moved to rescind the Bush administration’s “conscience” clause-which could have let health-care workers deny patients abortion and contraception

MAR 2 With the choice of Kathleen Sebelius as Health and Human Services secretary, appointed a total of seven women to Cabinet-level positions

MAR 6 Instituted a new ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues

MAR 9 Lifted restrictions on stem cell research

MAR 11 Established the White House Council on Women and Girls

Restarted U.S. contributions to the United Nations Population
Fund

Reinstated low-cost birth control availability at college health
centers and at some 400 clinics serving low-income women

MAR 19 Pledged to sign U.N. declaration to decriminalize homosexuality, which Bush refused to sign

MAR 20 Obama appointee Elena Kagan is confirmed as the first woman
Solicitor General

APR 3 Obama calls Afghanistan’s proposed Shia Family Law “abhorrent”

APR 23 To date, Obama’s appointments to posts needing Senate
confirmation were 32% women with a substantial portion women of color

The spring 2009 issue of Ms. also reviews the economic stimulus package and reproductive health initiatives of the new Obama administration as well as the new Obama/Clinton foreign policy approaches.