June 22, 2014
- First, a slew of links about sex work: From the amazing sex-worker run site Tits and Sass, some words on the Erasure of Maya Angelou’s Sex Work History and a cautionary tale about Snap Chat.
- Also: June 14 was declared a national day of action against the Federal government’s recently proposed anti-sex worker legislation (learn more about the bill n’ bullshit, read Ainsley Doty’s GUTS article from our most recent issue). In Toronto, sex workers and their allies took to the streets with red umbrellas, demanding more sex worker consultation for legislation in their industry.
- And: Maggie’s Toronto Sex Worker Action Project is leading the fight for sex-worker’s rights and they need your help. Donate now!
- Feral Feminisms released their sexy smutty Second Issue un/pleasure: reflections upon perversity, bdsm, and desire, guest-edited by Toby Wiggins.
- Some stranger than fiction internet shit: some Men’s Rights groups have been posing as women of colour on Twitter to troll and embarrass online feminists.
- In the Globe this week, some of Canada’s leading lawyers respond to Peter McKay’s cockamamie about female judicial appointees. After appointing 9 men and 1 women to the bench, McKay claimed that the 9:1 ratio is justified because “women simply are not applying to be judges, because they fear being separated from their children by a hostile “boys club” that will force them to travel to far-flung locations.”
- Also in mainstream news editorials: The Toronto Star calls for a National child-care program.
- For all the Marxist-leaning Feminists in the house: Heather Brown summarizes Marx’s take on Gender and the Family.
- AND: Alan Sears on Queering anti-capitalist organizing.
- Some dispatches from a related struggle: Xenophobic fear-mongering has induced the Harper government’s clamp down on Temporary Foreign Workers Program, which will severely limit the rights and opportunities for migrant workers in Canada. While putting the blame for labour shortages on migrant workers, as opposed to the big corporations who employ them, amendments to the program will effect restaurant workers (a largely feminized workforce) most severely. Protests took place in Toronto this week and elsewhere in Canada.
- Also in immigrant justice news: pressure has been mounting to end indefinite immigrant detention in Canada. Migrant strikes, protests, and a new report document the arbitrary and punitive nature of Canada’s immigrant detention system.
- Finally, the Jacobin’s Jennifer Pan on the pink collar labour of the publicist. For similar take from our most recent issue, check out Cynthia Spring on Office Wives.
