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The Sisters United - Will Never Be Defeated!

Friday Fem-toon

Photo credit: Pixdaus

April 2 was International Day for Mine Awareness

Women in Angola have come up with a unique way of celebrating the UN International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action while at the same time promoting female and disabled pride and empowerment. Far from your typical North American beauty pageant, Miss Landmine Angola is challenging not only mainstream conceptions of beauty but is also calling on countries to redouble their efforts to eliminate antipersonnel landmines. Canada has an important role to play in this respect, one that up until now has fallen short of our previous commitment to the elimination of landmines.

Thursday Fem-links

Photo Credit: Fanning The Flames of Menopause

• Menopause - Long a taboo subject that was acknowledged only with humour 20 years ago, open debate about the life stage now rages
• The Canadian Labour Congress issued a statement on April Fools Day praising the federal government for cutting taxes on women to compensate for the estimated wage gap between women and men.
• Neighbours, Friends and Families campaign launched in Caledon Ontario to tackle domestic violence
• Canada's national group Egale is spending a lot of its energy these days working to help Jamaican gays and lesbians (asking for censorship)
• About a dozen members of a University of Calgary pro-life group defied administration Tuesday by erecting a controversial and graphic anti-abortion display in the heart of the campus.
• The first principle of ecology -- that everything is connected -- helps us understand why there are links between apparently disconnected things, like the status of women and environmental sustainability.
• Despite reports of its demise, the gap in wage equality between New York men and women is still very much alive, reports the director of The Howard Samuels Center.

Veil Talk: Examining the Many Facets.

Femilicious attended a talk that was held at the University of Windsor with Dr. Shahnaz Khan entitled: Veil Talk: Examining the Many Facets.

Dr. Khan is the author of Aversion and Desire; Negotiating Muslim Female Identity in the Diaspora where she presents the voices of Muslim women on how they construct and sustain their Islamic identity. Khan interviewed fourteen Muslim women about their sense of power, authenticity and place. Her critical analysis challenges the Western perception of Islam as monolithic and static.

Dr. Khan is also a professor in Global Studies and Women’s Studies at Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.

Her website on Zina Laws can be found at http://zinalaws.tripod.com/ZinaLaws/

National Organization For Men?

Cartoon Credit: Toothpaste for Dinner

A Must See - The Shape of Water - now available on DVD!

In an intimate encounter with five very different women in Brazil, India, Jerusalem, and Senegal (narrated by Susan Sarandon with introductory narration co-written by Edwidge Danticat) THE SHAPE OF WATER offers a close look at the far reaching and vibrant alternatives crafted by women in response to environmental degradation, archaic traditions, lack of economic independence and war.

The documentary weaves together the daily life stories of Khady, Bilkusben, Oraiza, Dona Antonia, and Gila who, through candor and humor, infuse their communities with a passion for change.

The women:

• spearhead rainforest preservation (women working as rubber-tappers in the Brazilian rainforest);
• sustain a vast co-operative of rural women (India: SEWA: the largest trades union in the world with 700,000 members);
• promote an end to female genital cutting (FGC) (Senegal: communities abandoning FGC);
• strengthen opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestine (Women in Black in Jerusalem);
• maintain a farm, Navdanya (in the foothills of the Himalayas) to further economic independence and biodiversity by preserving women’s role as seed keepers.

By revealing the women’s revolutionary actions THE SHAPE OF WATER offers a unique view of the complex realities faced by these unsung visionaries creating a more just world.

Weekend Fem-links

Photo Credit: Banksy Bombs

• Gender studies missing from high school despite alarming rates of sexual harassment and sexual assault of girls in Ontario
• Investment banker’s study says making it easier for women to enter paid workforce would solve many difficult social problems
• Over the past 10 years, the proportion of mothers who work part-time in Canada has dropped and the number who work full-time has increased.
• Colloquium featuring Martha Friendly and Linda White discussing early childhood education and care in Canada is available online for viewing.
• Australian social policy expert Deborah Brennan tours Canada. It's interesting to note that in Australia, the stay-at-home dad is, if not a myth, at least a rarity, as workforce statistics show women continue to shoulder the burden of child care in the home.
• The Female Eye Film Festival now running to March 30th in Toronto.
• Women’s advocacy organizations are once again gearing up for Edmonton’s annual Take Back the Night march
• In New Brunswick some 18% of all child support payments due through family court were not collected in 2006-2007. That represents about $9.5 million dollars...
• The N.B. Silent Witness Project, the first in Canada, launched in 2002, commemorates women killed in acts of domestic homicide since 1990, promoting awareness of family violence
• Women Need Apply - The Canadian federal government appoints hundreds to boards and commissions and they want more women to apply.
• Alternet writes about making connections between feminism and prison abolishionism
• Studies indicating that women are more prone to depression than men: it’s NOT the fault of feminism
• On pregnancy discrimination in the U.S. "Pregnancy-bias surged 14% last year, up 40% from a decade ago and the biggest annual increase in 13 years," reports the Wall Street Journal.
• A new study finds that women who describe themselves as feminists are more forgiving than other women when assessing the attractiveness of women who are either very underweight or very heavy," reports The New York Times. (You'll find the study in the journal Body Image; here are some previous studies on feminism and body image.)
• Recent headlines proclaim that "workplace bullying worse than sexual harassment." based on Canadian research

2008 Report Card on Status of Women in New Brunswick

When it comes to the numbers on violence against women, there's plenty to be alarmed about.

Almost four in 10 adult offenders convicted of sexual assault in New Brunswick were given conditional sentences in 2005-2006. The rate for Canada was less than two in 10.

Conditional sentences were not as popular for other violent crimes -- it was given to one in 10 adult offenders in our province, one in 20 nationally.

It is one of the more startling statistics in the 2008 Report Card on the Status of Women in New Brunswick published this month by the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women.

Art: Women, power and humour

Tanya Mars, a senior lecturer and program supervisor in visual and performing arts in the Department of Humanities at U of T Scarborough, is among the six winners of this year’s prestigious Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts given for artistic achievement. The awards were announced by the Canada Council for the Arts March 25.

Cited as one of Canada’s most innovative multidisciplinary artists, Mars has been active in the Canadian alternative art scene since the early 1970s. Her dramatic, humorous and satirical works -- ranging from performance through to sculpture and video -- have influenced an entire generation of artists in a career spanning some 30 years. She is a mentor to many emerging artists as an artist, teacher, curator and editor.

“My main interest is to make narratives that put women at the centre as opposed to the periphery. I’m trying to create images, strong images and positive images, of women,” she said in describing her work. “I feel very strongly about being recognized as a feminist, I’m not ashamed of being a feminist and I’m not buying into the backlash of anti-feminism. I think I’ll beat the feminist drum until the day I die. While some of my work my work may not be directly didactic or directly about feminism, I think it is always about making strong images about women.” But she added, “I like to have a healthy dash of humour. So I like to poke fun at my own political dogma and I think it’s important to laugh at yourself. If there were three words that would summarize my interests they would be women, power and humour.”

Her works include Tyranny of Bliss and In Pursuit of Happiness, which has toured Canada and Hot, a performance piece that reflects on middle age. She also edited art magazine Parallelogramme from 1976 to 1989 and is co-editor of Caught in the Act: An Anthology of Performance Art by Canadian Women.

Dreaming of Spring......

Photo Credit: It's Knuttz

Tibet