Last night I received a call from York University asking me for current alumni information (they are one of my Alma Maters) and to talk about “recent happenings at York University”. I told them that after the way the university has treated their striking workers over the last three months, I have no wish to have any affiliation with York University. Here’s why:

After a long and gruelling strike that saw a near complete lack of cooperation on the part of York administration towards CUPE 3903, the Ontario government has elected to legislate the striking workers back to work. Throughout the last few months the local presses have been filled with misconstruction about the strike, students and workers have been pitted against one another, and York itself has been both unwilling to negotiate a fair deal with the people upon whom its reputation and operation is dependent and unaccountable for its own irresponsibility to accommodate its workers. Shame!

Photo courtesy of Alex Pylyshyn.

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Last year Mississippi’s Charleston High School had their first mixed race prom. Ever.

While in the process of making a documentary about the changes made in Mississippi since the civil rights movement, Canadian film maker Paul Saltzman discovered that the small community of Charleston (population 2,100) still had segregated proms.

This prompted him to make Prom Night in Mississipi, a documentary playing at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, with commentary by Morgan Freeman.

Charleston is in fact, the town Freeman grew up in. He offered to fund a mixed race prom ten years ago. His offer was denied. He made the offer again in 2008, and this time it was accepted.

Toronto-based photographer Catherine Farquharson also had the chance to attend the monumental prom night. Her photos can be seen starting tomorrow at the Lens Factory, at 1040 Queen West.

Farquharson recently spoke about the experience on CBC’s Metro Morning.

In the interview, Farquharson says that it wasn’t the kids, but the parents, who were opposed to the idea of a racially integrated prom. And although there was a mixed prom, there was also still a whites-only prom.

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An Open Letter to Ron Bruinooge, Conservative MP for the Manitoba riding of Winnipeg South

By Tanna Pirie-Wilson and Jessica Yee

We write to you as two young Aboriginal women who are unafraid to speak up, with concern in regards to the anti-choice statements you made in December 2008 about your recent election as the new chair of the Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus.

And we quote (as reported in the Western Standard):

As an Aboriginal MP, Bruinooge says his roots play a role in his pro-life view. “Respect for life is paramount to my Aboriginal culture,” he explains. “Respect for the unborn was passed on to me by my Aboriginal elders and I believe in keeping that tradition alive.”

We realize the “pro-life” vs “pro-choice” debate will be an issue so long as we live in patriarchal societies, however we would be remiss if we did not state that this is the direct affect of generations of colonization and oppression we are still suffering through. Much of the values, practices, and traditions once held strong in our Aboriginal communities are now lost, and this most definitely includes the rightful place of our women to govern their own bodies.

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Female Merit Badges (Yeager)

Embroidery artist Mary Yeager creates beautifully intricate merit badges that illustrate female “rights of passage”. Much like the badges you’d get in Brownies or Scouts that proclaim your ability to camp in the snow, build a campfire, or be a good friend, Yeager’s badges mark the different milestones women experience and pass in their life time. Her work celebrates the positive aspects of women’s rights of passage but also criticize “the myriad physical manipulations women undergo to achieve cultural ideals of beauty” (Yeager’s website).

Recently featured on CRAFT Zine, Yeager’s work will be shown in New York at Forget Me Not (Gallery Hanahou) from February 6th to 27th, 2009.

Every Thursday I profile a new incredible woman, each from a different walk of life. Different professions, causes, backgrounds, ethnicities, orientations, and anything/everything else!

So without further delay, let me introduce the fabulous Cheryl Dobinson…

Cheryl Dobinson is a bisexual writer, activist and zine-maker. Along with publishing the bi women’s zine The Fence since 2002, she also facilitates support groups, leads workshops and teaches community courses on bisexuality. Among her favourite projects is coordinating a youth group called Fluid for bisexual, pansexual, bi-curious, omnisexual and questioning folks aged 29 and under. Cheryl is very involved in her local bisexual community, lives in Toronto’s queer village, and wants to start wearing a t-shirt that says “This is what a bisexual feminist looks like.”

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This blog, Dating a Banker Anonymous, sprung up some months ago as a gathering place for women whose Wall Street boyfriends have been laid off or made to work all the hours to hold onto their jobs. I’d swear it was a hoax, only the New York Times seems convinced that it isn’t.

The NY Times article plays up the aspect of women supporting one another and commiserating about the jerks their men have turned into. The posts on DABA are purportedly the stories of different women, but all are posted to the site by its creators and self-proclaimed “DABA Girls” Megan and Laney. Not all of them are particularly sympathetic (people moan that their boyfriends can no longer buy them $800 pairs of shoes, or take them to their favourite restaurants; a woman involved with a married man complains that she can no longer accompany him on his “business trips” since the man’s wife began checking his bank statements), but these bratty outbursts make pretty entertaining reading (“I ain’t saying I’m a gold digger, but I ain’t messin’ with no broke banker,” finishes one entry.)

What is most interesting is that the site’s description declares it to be a space “free from the scrutiny of feminists”. The line has got this feminist at a loss to explain why these women would expect us to be anything but broadly on side with them.

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A recent hot topic out here on the West Coast is a woman who experienced a successful outcome from the human rights tribunal. Hailey de Lessier was awarded $26,000 in compensation for being let go from her job because she told her employers she was pregnant (CBC story here).

“I just [want] to tell other people that this does happen and you can fight it. It’s a long process but you can fight it and you can win your rights,” said de Lisser

What’s most interesting, for me, are the comments on the CBC story. Commentators’ opinions range from placing importance on either the plaintiff or the business, Lessier’s (in)ability to get Employment Insurance (EI), and a woman’s right to work. My favourites are after the jump.

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ACTION ALERT: PRO CHOICE COUNTER-PROTEST TODAY IN TORONTO!

COME SUPPORT A WOMAN’S RIGHT TO CHOOSE

The Genocide Awareness Project (GAP), an anti-choice organization, is
holding a “silent protest” today. They will be putting up offensive
displays at Harbord & St. George TODAY (Wednesday January 28) comparing abortion to genocide and lynchings.

Pro-choicers on and off UFT campus will be holding a counter protest to
support women’s right to their bodies and CHOICE!

The counter-protest is at Harbord and St. George from 1-2PM.

Want to join us?
Meet us at the Centre for Women and Trans People at 12:15PM (563 Spadina Ave, Room 100, North Borden Building)
OR
Meet us at the Graduate Students Union (16 Bancroft Ave.) at 12:30PM to
collect buttons and posters, and we will go as a pro-choice contingent.

Bring your own posters and noisemakers if you can!

Oh, PETA, PETA, PETA. When will you learn that we’re not happy with your shock treatment of us human animals? So, NBC says your newest ad “depicts a level of sexuality exceeding [their] standards” and pulls it from the Super Bowl advert round up. And your “fans” continue to laud your behaviour (“omg that ad is soooo hot! i love it”), but surely you must know that we’re disappointed and absolutely disgusted.

Continually you make your pro-exploitation of “comely crop[s] of models” synonymous with being a vegetarian or vegan. You affirm the idea that vegetarians make better lovers, but assert that these better lovers only do it with a “bevy of beauties” and that these Lettuce Ladies should be treated with disrespect.

This shouldn’t be the case. Your banned advertisement doesn’t make me want to stick to being a vegetarian any more than it makes me want to have sex with a bunch of asparagus. Your own audience should be rallying against your ads demanding an end to the overt sexual exploitation of women, because if they were showing these images to bunnies I’m sure you’d do the same.

‘Veggie Love’: PETA’s Banned Super Bowl Ad