April 20, 2014
- “This is my rebellion. This is my outrage. This is the beginning of our radical thinking and action.” Leanne Simpson’s powerful call to end gendered violence against Indigenous women in Canada is part of a must read series for all Canadians: #ItEndsHere
- On Thursday, Laureen Harper’s introduction to the “Internet Cat Video Festival” was disrupted by Hailey King, who asked:
“Raising awareness about cat welfare is a good look for your husband’s upcoming campaign strategy. Don’t you think supporting government action on missing and murdered indigenous women in this country would be a better look?”
Laureen Harper (wearing black cat ears) dismissed King’s question, saying “We’re raising money for animals tonight. If you’d like to donate to animals, we’d love to take your money”, as King was escorted from the building. Click here to watch the video and find out how to support an inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous woman in Canada.
- “For months after, I was disgusted by anything factory-made, which is most things. I couldn’t believe that everything had to be made in a factory, that everything was imbued with wasted time and the worst kind of livid, raw boredom. It was like being injected with Marx, except that most people don’t need Marx to know that most work is fucking bullshit.” A women’s panel on money and work (appropriate for our upcoming issue!) from the new Adult Magazine.
- An interview with Vivian Gornick, essayist, authour and feminist thinker, delves into her past work and her hopes for the future, giving a sharp and funny portrait of the person along the way:
BLVR: Do you ever think what you would have been like without feminism?
VG: I would have been the worst. The worst bitch in the world. - “These are not changes born in the hearts and minds of the Canadian people, but an agenda designed and implemented from above, articulated in an imported conservative ideology, to abet the interests of private industry.” What happened to Canada? In n+1, a crucial summation of the immense impact of Stephen Harper’s neoliberal agenda, and the few paths of resistance still open to us. If left political parties are not speaking for us, how are Canadians fighting back?
- “I’m not the type of person to hit a woman,” he said. “So it must be you. You are the one who brings this out in me. I would not be like this if I was with a different woman.” From Kelly Sundberg, a truly painful and powerful essay on domestic violence, and the strength that it takes to leave an abusive relationship.
- What do white men run? Basically everything! For a stark visual representation of who is actually in charge, take a look at these boys clubs. Some are more shocking than others (All of Colbert’s writers?)
- Check out this excerpt from Astra Taylor’s new book on how the ideals of an ‘open Internet’ have led to a reproduction and intensification, rather than a disruption, of hegemonic, racist and sexist power structures: “the dominant society, celebrating itself and pretty much silencing everyone else, makes the Internet bear a striking resemblance to Congress in 1850 or a gentlemen’s club (minus any gentleness).”
- From the NFB, an interactive app lets viewers experience first hand the streets of Vancouver circa 1948.
- “it feels very intimate to me to talk about gender politics because it doesn’t feel like “Politics”
because i think the importance of that category is about an experience,
for me at least, of feeling a lot of ugly feelings
powerlessness, complicity, hopelessness
ya know”
A conversation between poets Cecilia Corrigan and Amy De’Ath on the gender politics of the poetry world. - For women in Ontario, Thursday was Equal Pay Day – finally. Does this mean that women and men received equal pay on this day? Of course not! It means that women would have to have worked all of last year, and until April 16th of this year, to earn what men did in 2013. Ontario’s wage gap of 31% is one of the largest in the industrialized world, and shamefully, it’s growing. Look to the Equal Pay Coalition for more resources, and check back here for GUTS’ new issue – being released on Tuesday! – which holds many insights into the effects of this deep inequality.
