There has been a lot of exciting talk lately about raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour (and also a lot of frustrating talk about how raising wages to above-poverty level rates will be bad for business). The campaign is gaining momentum in Ontario, kicking off tonight at the Parkdale library (1303 Queen W., 7 p.m.).

Ontario MPP Cheri DiNovo and MP Peggy Nash will join front-line workers whose jobs are underpaid and undervalued to speak about the urgency of raising minimum wage to $10 an hour.

Courtesy of the Labour Council, here are some reasons why the minimum wage needs a raise:

- The majority of low-wage jobs are in big business (fast food chains, retails giants and the ultra-exploitative and growing temp agency biz
- Ontario MPPs just gave themselves a massive raise — the increase is more than a full year’s income of a minimum wage worker!
- An CEO can earn as much by an afternoon on the job as a full-time minimum wage worker will in an entire year ($16,640)!

This is enraging! It’s also a critical issue for us, as youth, women, immigrants and people of colour are disproportionately represented in low-wage, precarious forms of employment. Raising the minimum wage is one step in lifting workers out of poverty (another big one is enforcing employment standards, but that’s another story).

Check out the Ontario Needs a Raise Campaign to find out what you can do.

The first part of the trial of Robert Pickton, a B.C. pig farmer charged with six counts of first-degree murder, begins today. According to the Toronto Star, Pickton is charged with the murder of 26 women, all sex-trade workers who disappeared from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (investigators have found DNA from seven other women on his farm so far, which would significantly increase his murder charge). As Rosie DiManno writes, “If found guilty on all charges, divided over two trials, Pickton would go down in the annals of crime as the worst serial murderer in Canadian history, and among the most prolific killers in North America.”

I wouldn’t usually link to a DiManno piece, as I often find her columns reactionary and infuriating, but in this piece she explores some of the important issues that have come out of the lead-up to the trial. The most unbelievable thing, in my mind, is the fact that these women were disappearing for years and, despite the urging of family members, fellow sex-trade workers and even a concerned police officer, no serious investigation was launched to locate the missing women (almost 70 in total, the majority of them Aboriginal women).

As one woman tells DiManno, “If those were university students, you can bet they would have paid more attention.” The article does a decent job of exposing the class, gender and race elements at play in this tragic story, emphasizing the lived experience of violence these women face every day.

Also interesting is the way in which local agencies that support to sex workers have been preparing for the trial, out of concern that media will descend upon the nieghbourhood in search of a juicy quote or footage, exploiting the stories and lives of the women who live and work there. For the past year they’ve held sessions on media awareness with women, and have created a booklet on their rights, including demanding questions in advance and protecting their anonymity by not having their faces shown.

It will be interesting to monitor mainstream media accounts of the trial (and I wonder how different coverage will be in Canada and the U.S.?). This blog provides commentary, details and links to sites concerned with the missing and murdered women.

So, Hillary Clinton (finally) officially announced that she’s taking the preliminary steps to make a bid for the US Presidency in 2008. This lady doesn’t mince words: “I’m in. And I’m in to win.”

However you feel about Clinton and her politics, it’s going to be fascinating to watch the way she will be portrayed by the media during the lead up to the big race. Although the international climate for female heads of states is warming up (see Chile’s Michelle Bachelet and Liberia’s Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, for examples), women in power, especially politics, tend to get a very chilly reception from the press, pundits and even fellow politicians. The recent Belinda Stronach episode shed some fascinating light on the struggles women still face when trying to break into politics.

Things to watch for: the way in which Clinton’s personal life gets dredged up (although this is arguably a common tactic for all politicians, when women are involved things like sex and relationships tend to dominate, whereas with men it’s their military record that’s a test of their manliness and loyalty to their country); accounts of her appearance when it’s totally unnecessary: tracking haircuts, suit colour, shopping expeditions, etc., and, of course, the irritating question that will not stop until the race is over (unless, gasp! she wins): is America ready for a female president?

Here’s a strange follow-up to my blog about the Arab/Palestinian keffiyeh’s transition to high fashion: up until recently the American hipster clothing store Urban Outfitters had keffiyehs for sale - only they called them “anti-war scarves,” bizarrely enough. But if you go to the Urban Outfitters webpage and do a search for “anti-war scarf” today, (click here to see for yourself) you’ll find this instead:

“Anti-War Woven Scarf
Due to the sensitive nature of this item, we will no longer offer it for sale.
We apologize if we offended anyone, this was by no means our intention.”

You can get the full story from the Jerusalem Post here.

In the past Urban Outfitters has sold T-shirts that say “Everyone Loves a Jewish Girl” adorned with dollar signs and shopping bags, perpetuating the racial stereotype of the Jewish American Princess, as well as T-shirts that say “Shalom! Jerusalem” printed over a graphic of the Israeli flag, glamourously adding to the debate over whether Jerusalem belongs to Israel or Palestine.

Well, at least they make an effort to offend everyone equally.

I almost, almost didn’t post this event because I wanted to keep it to myself…but I knew the guilt would keep me up at night. For anyone in Toronto this Friday, the amazing Inga Muscio (previously mentioned by Stacey May here) is facilitating a creative writing workshop!

The Ryerson Students’ Union and Women’s Centre Present:

RECLAIMING POWER!
Performing Resistance

Featuring Inga Muscio

Sharp-witted, no-holds-barred, feminist author of the best-selling
“Cunt: A Declaration of Independence” and “Autobiography of a
Blue Eyed Devil”. Inga will perform a reading and co-facilitate a
creative writing workshop.

Friday January 19
Thomas Lounge, 6pm-9pm
Oakham House, 63 Gould Street @ Church Street

Performances, writing workshop, gifts at the door and free food.

This is an event for women and their allies.

For more information email womenscentre@rsuonline.ca or equity@rsuonline.ca

Thanks to Feministing for this post:

Its that time of year again! On January 22nd - the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade NARAL Pro-Choice America is asking pro-choice bloggers to raise the profile of reproductive rights issues in the blogosphere and the media, and to let everyone know that a woman’s right to choose is nonnegotiable.

So blog for choice on January 22nd, and this year’s topic is a simple one: tell us, and your readers, why you’re pro-choice.

You can sign up for Blog for Choice Day here and download a Blog for Choice Day sidebar graphic (to let your readers know that you’re participating) here.

When you sign up to Blog for Choice, NARAL will send you a reminder, and link to your post on BushvChoice. (You can also tag your posts with “Blog for Choice” to show you’re joining in.)

And of course, if you’re not a blog or a website, please encourage (translation: bug) your favorite sites to take part in Blog for Choice Day!

(And while we’re checking Feministing for great updates on the world of women’s rights south of the border, check ot this heinous story about one self-described major anti-feminist’s successful protest against “ladies night.”

“Ladies Night is now illegal, said Horner, a 59-year-old corporate speaker, who says hes been on an anti-feminist crusade since his wife left him with two young children several years ago and he regularly encountered discrimination against men…)

A recent area of interest of mine in the realm of reading has been memoir-style accounts that deal with Trans issues. Shameless has touched on this before, and a few books this season have been fleshing out the field for me. One book that has been paticularily striking is Cris Beam’s Transparent, a very personal and poignant account of her experiences teaching and “interviewing” trans youth is Los Angeles. Although the book does a great job of creating a portrait of the youth trans spectrum, her particular focus is MTF (male to female transexuals.) It is evident that Beams values the friendships she developed with the women she’s studied, and the book is all at once beautiful, moving, thoughtful and witty, written in a style that successfully humanizes often misunderstood issues of sexuality. The book is informative while it is narrative, so not only does it act as a moving portrait of the struggle of Beam’s subjects, it also informs the reader as to what social, political, health and familial issues face transgendered and transexual teens.

Helen Boyd‘s next book, She’s Not The Man I Married, will be released in March 2007, so now is a good time to pick up My Husband Betty, “the first book to explore the relationships of crossdressing men and their female partners.” Much like Beam. Boyd’s writing does an excellent job of making the political personal, sharing the emotional details of her daily reality with a trans partner, while utilizing the backdrop of a larger political and social context. Boyd’s become a bit of a celebrity in the MTF trans community, her blog a staple in the informed trans (or feminist, for that matter) diet, and her community message boards becoming a supportive and valuable space to discuss and share.

And finally, from the FTM bookshelf, there’s The Testosterone Files: My Hormonal and Social Transformation from Female to Male, another memoir style depiction of a man who “grew up to be a lesbian-feminist who, after seeing the boxing film Raging Bull at age 23, began to understand that she was really a man.” Seal Press has a fantastic habit of putting out books that challenge gender-normative thought (okay, sorry about the plug) and are worth a look if you want to brush up on some quality cultural theory. Happy reading!

If you live in Montreal, Toronto, or any other fashionable city in the Western world, chances are you’ve seen young, terminally hip, and non-Arab people slouching around wearing these:

(thanks to The Village Voice for the picture)

Apparently this is a trend that has been raging in European cities for so long that it’s now passe, but it seems to have only caught on in Toronto over the past few months.

These elusive scarves are not, unfortunately, just a whacky new invention, like jeans that are so tight they burst your appendix. They’re called keffiyehs, or shemagh scarves, and while they originate in the Arab world, in recent years they have come to represent identification with the Palestinian side of the long and bloody conflict between Palestine and Israel over territory. The different colours (i.e. red, black) show affiliation with different political parties (i.e. Fatah, the PLO). For example, here is Yasser Arafat of the PLO wearing one:

Well, that’s all well and good, but how did keffiyehs go from meaning “Intifada!” (i.e. “I’m for Palestine!”) to “I’m extremely fashionable and I’m probably going to a really cool party on Saturday night?”

(more inside…)

I’ve been mulling over how to write this post for days, and I just can’t find a way to express my feelings with any eloquence. I’m just that irritated. OK, not irritated. Pissed off.

I have been meaning for months and months to think of a way to write a piece about women in comedy. It has always really bothered me that people laugh more easily at the things that men say than the things that women say. And men have a much easier time making women laugh than vice versa.

This angers me so much, in such a deep place, and I find it so hard to explain why.

Laughing at something somebody says seems to me to imply a kind of equality - like you and the comedian are in on something together. The fact that men don’t laugh easily at the things women say seriously upsets me - and I actually find it disturbing when apparently modern and enlightened men don’t laugh at a woman’s jokes.

Have you ever noticed that female comedians tend to take one of three personas? The Ditz (e.g. Rita Rudner), The Crone (Phyllis Diller), or The Slut (Sandra Bernhard) - each has some character flaw that allows us to look down on them (stupidity, ugliness, or promiscuity). Even somebody as seemingly ball-busting as Sarah Silverman has a bit of a ditzy veneer. Its clearly ironic, we know she’s actually very clever (that’s why we’re laughing, right?), but its like we’re supposed to find it easier to laugh at the things she says if she pretends to be a bit spacey. As if its funnier if it seems like she doesn’t get her own jokes.

Now, don’t get me wrong - all these women make me laugh my ass off, and usually so much more because of the part they play. And there are obviously other personas for women to have. (Although I might argue that each is tinged with one of these personas: Ellen Degeneres? Bit ditzy. Rosie O’Donnell? Bit crony.)

But why is it so much harder for a woman to just do it straight? Why is the loudmouth, “I tell it like it is, this is me whether you like it or not” role - a la Chris Rock or Dennis Leary - so much harder for a woman?

Well, before I could think of a really clever way to voice my thoughts, a thoroughly disgusting piece found its way into Vanity Fair.

(more inside…)