September 14, 2014
- What a titillating week it must have been for the boys on the hill! Senate committee sat to discuss Bill C36, formally known as The Protecting of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, and informally known as Yet Another Anti-Prostitution Bill. The preexisting Bill, which deemed the buying of sex (and not the selling of sex) illegal was deemed unconstitutional because it put sex trade workers at an undue risk. However, the new bill doesn’t work to unknot the constitution conundrum, it only goes further by criminalizing sex work (but not sex workers). By forcing the sex trade even further underground, the proposed Bill would make it more dangerous for sex trade workers to do their jobs under safe conditions. This is the gist of the criticism the committee heard from expert witnesses this week including prostitute Maxime Durocher, who gave a very different perspective on the sex trade. News was a-buzzin’ over Terri-Jean Bedford, Canada’s dominatrix sweetheart, who got kicked out during her testimony for cracking a whip and threatening to reveal which senators have solicited sex before. Read more about the landmark Bedford vs. Crown case here. We absolutely love this woman (and all sex workers trying to make a living)
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- This piece is so funny (funny/enraging/appalling). Just read Courtney Gilmour’s ARE YOU A THALIDOMIDE BABY?” AND 3 OTHER TERRIBLE QUESTIONS A STRANGER AT A BAR ASKED ME BECAUSE I’M AN AMPUTEE and get ready to have some feelings.
- Credit to our sisters at Shameless Magazine for alerting us to the hashtags that emerged on Twitter this week in response to critics who ask why Janay Palmer would stay with her abuser. The silver lining of the Ray Rice story is that #WhyIStayed and #WhyILeft are prompting women to give public testimonial about domestic violence.
- In a powerful social media campaign, Aboriginal women are asking Stephen Harper “Am I Next?”
- For more context on the Carleton University Frosh scandal, read Mathieu Perron on how the right-wing take-over of student unions is helping to facilitate misogyny on campus.
- Because we can’t get enough of Nina Simone, here’s an interview with her daughter in Ebony on why she’s not involved in the new biopic.
- If your’re looking to compare your techniques or gain some insight into the latest hook-up craze, check out this very satisfying Oral History of Tinder — no pun intended, unfortunately. (This may be the one and only time we link to an article from Playboy, unless they do like a Laverne Cox centre-fold or something.)
- And for an equally fascinating peak into the world of non-feminist news, read this New York Magazine article about Martine Rothblatt, the transgender philosopher-billionaire pharmacy tycoon. Most shockingly, Martine, who is presented as super-human/post-human hero, is totally aware that she is a non-representative of the trans-community. This ain’t no Sheryl Sandberg.
- On that same note, just in case we weren’t done thinking about old Sandberg and the frustrations of “boss feminism” let’s hear what Sarah Jaffe has to say about neoliberal feminists. (Spoiler alert: they aren’t interested in the working class!)
- And to end on a sharp-tonged and quick-witted note, read Laurie Penny’s uplifting argument for why (and what) we are winning on the internet.
