March 15, 2015
- “Do you like how my hijab matches my mug of your male tears?” #DresscodePM has provoked some hilarious and brilliant responses to Harper’s recent statement about the niqab being rooted in an anti-woman culture. As many pointed out, anti-woman culture is also one of Harper’s areas of expertise, considering his administration has been defunding and attacking women’s rights and equality for years now. And, as Monia Mazigh reminds us, the remark makes it all too clear that, once again, the bodies of Muslim women are being used to justify wars.
- Shelters, not spectales. Communities, not circuses. On Monday, demonstrators carried torches in protest of Toronto’s spending on the Pan Am games, specifically the decision to string very expensive Christmas lights across the Bloor viaduct. On Tuesday, OCAP proposed that the city reallocate some of the 3.8 million that will be used to decorate the bridge, and instead use that money to expand shelter and drop-in services and develop more affordable housing. The city refused, even though the moving demonstration, which cost only $400 to do, made clear that more affordable options are very much possible.
- Yesterday there were over 70 powerful and well-attended events to stop secret police Bill C-51. Here’s a summary of the Bill C-51 committee’s testimony hearing on Thursday, where the government only posed one question to the witnesses and made it clear that amendments to the bill will likely not be entertained.
- Erin Wunker wrote two informative and important pieces this week on seeing contract academic faculty in our universities and finding solidarity to institute meaningful change.
- We would love to do a Canadian edition of this, featuring some of the rad women farmers we know who are getting ready for yet another season: four women farmers committed to growing food sustainably and humanely.
- Economic disparities hurt LGBT women, and here are the numbers (finally) to prove it.
- “I wonder if the data collected by platforms will at some point become more transparent, and at what cost or contextual shift. Will my daughter be able to sift through my dark data profiles and learn about the egregious number of times I looked at someone else’s profile? Will there be a new round of data mausoleums, offering to sell us peeks at the past? Is data like defaulted debt, ready to be bought and sold at a fraction of the price and subject to a secondary market?” Amelia Abreu asks who will own our pasts in TNI’s new Futures issue.
- When is it right to use the term “ladies”? They’ve reached a consensus over at Weird Sister.
- Holly Grigg-Spall critiques Bayer’s new marketing campaign advocating for Canadian women to break up with the Pill and embrace the IUD.
- Ann Friedman talks to her best friend about living a “life that has never been digitally chronicled, liked, or commented on” in “Anti-Social Media.”
- “It’s the year 2050 and it’s illegal for men to buy protein powder or use the free weights at the gym. They can use the stair-stepper and if they’re very good, the little two-pound dumbbells that are coated in pink plastic, but they can only use them for calf raises. It’s 2050 and feminists have sexualized men’s calves. It’s 2050 and it’s illegal for a man to play a guitar in a public place or to know what time it is. Men have to guess.” All bow down to the feminists of 2050.
- Check out female:pressure’s new blog, a project inspired by Bjork’s recent comments about the lack of photographic documentation of women at work in the studio. The blog curates images and videos of women making music and their use of technology, it’s awesome. And if you haven’t watched Bjork’s new video for Lionsong yet, do so now.
- This last one is for our resident doctor, Nadine: infographics showing how often Dr. Who passes the Bechdel test.