OUR SUNDAY LINKS

May 31, 2015
from the bb desk

This week I saw an action movie with no rape in it and when it finished I felt like Christmas and the first night of Channukah were on the same day. My favourite part was when the patriarchy’s face got ripped off. For more analysis of Mad Max: Fury Road, please see Sarah Marshall’s piece at BITCH Media; NOSPOCKDASGAY’s Tumblr post on punching with nubbins and how Furiosa’s body is never a plot point; Laurie Penny on how the movie is a feminist guidebook for surviving dystopia; Nashwa Khan on the glaring whiteness of post-apocalyptic films, and also the movie itself! I will go again and again and again with all of you and hold your hand if you want company. Also behold Hardy’s lovely mug as he faces a TRAGIC question about whether he feared being “outgunned by estrogen” during the film. (Tom Hardy is my longest-running celebrity crush; dear Mr. Hardy if you are reading, “I love you always forever” (Donna Lewis, 1996)).

A BBC video thanks to the Mary Sue: Things You Shouldn’t Ask Trans People, Even If You Want To.

Props to all of you who signed this petition to stop Action Bronson from performing at Yonge and Dundas Square: “[i]t is an insult to the people of Toronto for NXNE, Now Magazine, Vans Footwear, and the City of Toronto to be featuring an artist on public property whose lyrics… glorif[y] gang raping and murdering women.” NXNE has cancelled the public performance and is trying to move it instead to a ticketed venue. Small victories!

In light of Kate McKenna’s reporting on the all-but-impossibility of accessing safe abortions on PEI, take a moment to revisit Maria Campbell’s call to arms on the GUTS blog, ABORTION ACCESS ON PEI.

Nicole Nicea, a sixteen-year-old Vancouver high school student, developed a low-cost HIV testing device and won a huge scholarship for her work. Bravo a thousand times over, Nicole!

I am very grateful to have been introduced to this site: DID I STUTTER, a blog run by three disability scholars/students/activists who “seek to create a space for community, art, and discussion where stutters and other speech dysfluencies can be rethought in affirming ways.” This post on the problems with person-first language (“people with disabilities” versus “disabled people”) taught me so much.

Thanks to Jenn Jefferys for articulating PRECISELY my feelings of tentative glee at how media coverage of Rachel Notley’s NDP government in Alberta has been astonishingly not-sexist.

Whether you’re doing chores or lying very still all day today (or anything in between, truly) take an hour and four minutes and one second to listen to this episode of This American Life, where adults think through how to talk to kids about sex, race, and death. Be forewarned, I did cry for pretty much the entire duration of the last segment. And, speaking of talking to kids about race, read through WomenInColour’s personal meditation on how “the talk” is different for parents of colour:

When I think of privilege, I think of how I cannot tell my son that he has civil rights and liberties that no authority can take away, because the truth is that those civil liberties were not intended to be for all.

Judith Butler in The TERFSs, a website dedicated to monitoring and exposing the harmful behaviour of trans exclusionary radical feminists: “Gender Trouble was written about 24 years ago, and at that time I did not think well enough about trans issues.” Read the rest of her interview here. It is so heartening to witness authority figures actively taking accountability for their harmful thinking. Thank you JB <3

Congratulations to Rebecca Roher on her interview with the Huffington Post about MOM BODY!

Read the entirety of #MyReconciliationIncludes on Twitter.

This week saw activist and educator Julie Lalonde receive aggressive and threatening treatment after she disclosed the fact that she was harassed at a series of educational sessions at the Royal Military College. In the United States, a new report concluded that “military personnel who report sexual assault are 12 times as likely to experience some form of retaliation as to see their attacker convicted of a sex offense.” The RMC has apologized, but it almost seems like rape culture thrives in militaries, hmm?

Women’s Xchange is “advancing a gender-sensitive approach to improve health and quality of life for women,” and they assert that “by engaging communities [they] will hear from their directly about what they need to best serve their populations.” The two waves of projects they’ve funded so far (here and here) are impressive and I would love to know more about them, so if you or anyone you know has been involved please do holla at me (by comments section notes, tweets, e-mails, semaphore (Edmonton only), or owls).

Another post for which I am so, so grateful: Stacy Bias’s comic “12 Good Fatty Archetypes” about the different ways in which fat bodies are socially acceptable and unacceptable and the very pervasive fact that “where we create one inclusion, we often create or reinforce other exclusions.”

For the THANKS, HARPER binder: The Quebec Native Women’s Association and Honouring the Circle have been informed that their federal funding will be cut (TW on article image).

This week marked the one-year anniversary of the fundamentally misogynistic Isla Vista murders, which prompted #YesAllWomen. The hashtag’s creator, Kaye M., wrote a recollection for the Toast, and I appreciate it.

TWELVE SLEEPS UNTIL THE NEW SEASON OF ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK but while you wait I highly suggest Call the Midwife and Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries.

I hope everyone had just the best time at our launch party last night! I missed every single one of you. xoxo

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