- The Harper government is removing the name of pioneering Canadian feminist Therese Casgrain from a longstanding volunteer award, after removing her image, and that of the Famous Five, from the 50$ bill. Particularly telling is the fact that the government has chosen to rename the award in the name of the Prime Minister, even after a “$51,000 focus-group study commissioned by the federal government in late 2010 found strong resistance to naming a volunteer award after the prime minister [because] … few participants felt ‘prime minister’ conveyed any sense of prestige”. This is not our Canada.
- “What are the implications for feminism that our points of entry are often sore points?” Sara Ahmed on the hurt that can bring us to feminism, and the value of listening to that pain.
- “Don’t think that if we’re all good girls, if we’re properly meek, if we don’t provoke our men, we’ll be safe. Good girls get hurt all the time.” As an example of the hurt that strengthens our feminism, read this beautiful, painful essay from Roxane Gay’s blog, then read everything else she’s written.
- An important public service announcement for anyone who hasn’t heard: the New Yorker’s online archives are open for the summer! There is an overwhelming wealth of material to read here, and a good place to start would be with these 20 pieces written by women, which range from Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem to a Joan Didion profile of Martha Stewart.
- “We know what happens when abortion is illegal,” Parker says. “Women suffer and they die. But when abortion is safe and legal, patient mortality goes virtually to zero.” The story of one of the only abortion doctors in Mississippi, and his work as a calling.
- bh: My mother and other older generations felt that in exchange for the pussy, you should get marriage, you should get something. I’m not that kind of girl, though. I think real sexual liberation means that you’re in charge of your pussy; you don’t have to exchange it for anything.LK: And sometimes it’s not just exchanging; sometimes it’s just having a sexual orgasm ’cause you love it and you need it.”
In the lead up to our sex issue, an incredible interview between bell hooks and Lil’ Kim – published 20 years ago, and dealing with the same issues that we’re mired in today: how can a woman talk publicly and honestly about sex without being called a ho? - “Imagine a world in which your choices about where and how to work were not determined in the context of white-hot rage or crippling fear over the inability to simply feed yourself. To forget how things should be is to treat the economy as more real than we are.” Do you hate your job, feel exploited, feel angry? You’re not alone. An n+1 advice column gets into why we feel so alienated, and what we can do about it.
- “Oh, I tell you the marriage ceremony is a terrible thing!” Laurie Penny in the New Inquiry on the meeting between Nellie Bly and Emma Goldman.
- Some incredible writers and thinkers are participating in a book club this summer, discussing Susan Faludi’s 1991 Backlash: The Undeclared War on American Women. The first few discussions are already up – read them and then join in!
- Much to think about in the New Yorker piece on the dispute between a group of radical feminists and the transgender community and its allies. How do we resist complacency, and stay open to change even when it challenges deeply held beliefs? An Out Loud discussion delves in with more analysis.
- Finally, from Muskrat Magazine, 15 contemporary Indigenous warriors whose work is a service and inspiration to all Canadians.
