September 20, 2015
by CJ
- Despite the fact that Toronto is in the midst of a shelter and social housing crisis—with 90,000 households on the wait list for social housing, and shelters operating above 90 percent occupancy—the city is moving forward with a downtown east revitalization project and will close down two George Street shelters operating at full capacity. While the city promises to institute a transition plan, concrete promises have not been made and many are rightfully concerned that low-income and street-involved people will be pushed out of their neighbourhood, and also that some of the current residents will not qualify for new housing and shelter options. Come out to defend Toronto’s shelter space tomorrow at noon at City Hall.
- Leap Manifesto released their declaration this week, calling for a national transition off fossil fuels and positioning climate justice as a necessary step towards a a stronger and more just Canadian political and economic system. Despite the fact that the group has clearly outlined how Canada could afford (and benefit from) such a radical change, some media sources are writing the manifesto off as too radical,. Read more about how this platform could be a viable and refreshing way out of head-in-the-sand Canadian politics.
- On Thursday we saw that in Canada, women leaders sometimes have to live tweet their way into election debates.
If you choose sex work as an alternative to these colonial supports, the state will punish you. In Alberta, sexually exploited youth are incarcerated in “secure care” for their own “protection,” while the conditions that led their sexual exploitation remain unresolved. Reinforcing colonial responses in the face of exploitation creates a commodity out of sexually exploited Indigenous youth. There are entire systems built around the intervention, apprehension and detainment of Indigenous youth, resulting in colonial economies based on these systems… The recent changes to prostitution laws in Canada perpetuate this cycle of paternal systemic victimhood.
- In the wake of violent online threats made against women and feminists working in the departments of sociology and women’s studies at U of T, read Lily Cho’s important piece: Vulnerabilities.
- Alberta’s minimum wage goes up $1 next month, the first increment in the NDP’s promise to increase minimum wage to $15 by 2018. This piece does a good job of pointing to the real impacts of raising the minimum wage.
- “Your pain is unexceptional and does not matter until a white man feels it too.” On Michael Derrick Hudson’s use of the Chinese pen name Yi-Fen Chou.
- I recently stopped wearing pencil skirts to work and I couldn’t be happier about this decision. This piece offers some great inspiration for figuring out your (NOT TIGHT) work uniform.
- “Masculinity is one range of options for gender expression among many. For me, masculinity feels like a certain amount of tension between comfort and vulnerability.” Check out this photo essay on what masculinity means to twelve trans guys and non-binary trans masculine people.
- Pulling out vs. condoms? Apparently they prevent pregnancy just the same!
- I didn’t think I could love Connie Britton any more than I already do but then she did this.
- “We are constantly given one-size-fits-all recipes, but those recipes fail, often and hard. Nevertheless, we are given them again. And again and again. They become prisons and punishments; the prison of the imagination traps many in the prison of a life that is correctly aligned with the recipes and yet is entirely miserable.” Rebecca Solnit on the mother of all questions.
- On one Toronto venue’s refusal to host a Viet Cong show and the very important difference between political correctness and anti-racist practice. And finally, the band’s statement about why they are changing their name.
- How to stop devaluing women in 12 easy steps.
