Posts by Anna Leventhal
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In the Blog
Girls Action Wants Your Face!
From our comrades at Girls Action Foundation: GENERAL CASTING CALL for National Ad Campaign Girls Action Foundation is looking for REAL girls and young women between 9 and 25 years old, of all ethnicities, backgrounds, body types and personal styles to shoot a series of artistic promotional videos this fall. Come as you are! We want to see your genuine self. Time: Friday, August 20th from 10am to 3pm Place: 24 Mount-Royal O., suite 601 (between Clark & … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Radio Camp is Back!
Looking for an opportunity this summer to learn some new skills, meet some great people, and be part of the grassroots media movement? CKUT, Montreal’s best community radio station (full disclosure: I’ve been a volunteer for a decade) is having its second annual Youth Radio Camp, a week-long primer in how to be a radio superstar. You’ll get to make a radio documentary, write and perform a radio play, learn how to DJ, make sound … READ MORE
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In the Blog
IWD In Your Ears
As members of CKUT’s feminist radio collective, my Venus co-hosts and I were asked to program a special set today on the show New Shit for International Women’s Day, on women musicians we love and who’ve inspired us. We ended up having a great time just playing records and chatting about women we admire, so I thought I’d post a link so you can hear the songs and stories we’ve been throwing down. Click here … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Write a Play NOW!
Writers and aspiring playwrights take note: NOW!, the by-youth for-youth sustainability organization, is hosting a national playwriting competition for youth. From the NOW! newsletter: Are you an innovator passionate about the environment? Do you want a challenge? Do you love writing? Enter the Act NOW! National Playwriting Competition! Who? Dreamers and change-makers (Ages 14-26, divided into junior and senior categories) What? The Act NOW! Playwriting Competition! Write a short play on sustainability. When? … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Happy Birthday, Patti Smith!
Happy New Years, everyone! I’ll never forget seeing the punk legend play at the annual New Year’s 24-hour poetry/performance marathon at a church on the Lower East Side, after taking her acoustic guitar out of the black garbage bag she was carrying it in. … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Holiday Treat
Nothing says partytime to me like The Raincoats. Enjoy, everyone! … READ MORE
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In the Blog
20 Years Later
Today is December 6th, the anniversary of the murder of 14 young women at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique, by a man acting out of hatred of women and feminism. A lot has been said and written in the past week about the event; I have to admit at the moment I don’t feel up to a clear-headed and incisive journalistic analysis of violence against women, the importance of feminism, or the need to remember this … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Ad Fail? Ad Fail.
Wow. I’m a big fan of Terry O’Reilly’s radio show The Age of Persuasion and I watch more Mad Men than I like to admit, but every time I think I’m a savvy mediaphile who’s completely immune to shock tactics in the world of advertising, those zany ad execs prove me wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. Hit the Bitch is a Danish anti-violence-against-women campaign that works much like a video game where you’re supposed to, … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Angela Davis On Media, Race and Power
One more thing to get excited about for the upcoming weekend: Angela Davis, activist, writer and professor, is speaking at McGill University this Thursday about the case of Oscar Grant, a young black man who was shot and killed by transit police in California on New Year’s Day 2009. Aaaaand… Davis is going to be interviewed on my radio show earlier that day! Tune into Venus on CKUT 90.3 FM (you can listen online as … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Pop Goes The City
My hometown is all abuzz with excitement for the upcoming Pop Montreal music festival, and I’m happy to say that with a lineup of some of the most impressive female performers around, it gets the Venus seal of approval. Full schedule is available on the website, but I’m giving some of my top recommendations here - check the website for times and locations. One cool thing is that if you can’t afford the … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Gender Panic at the Track
Just read a great article over at Bully Bloggers about Caster Semenya, the South African runner who recently underwent gender testing after she won a gold medal in Berlin. Incidentally, she also recently underwent a makeover, presumably with the purpose of quelling the panic that ensued around having a gender-ambiguous athletic hero. It’s disturbing on many levels, and the article’s author, Tavia Nyong’o, does a great job of tying in historical ideas of … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Blonde Redheads Have More Fun
I’ve always really liked Blonde Redhead, but after I saw them live a few years ago I stopped trusting them. They’re just way too attractive to be authentic. It’s like I can picture the boardroom meeting that came up with that scenario: “Okay, we need a really hot female singer, and a hot guy backing her up on guitar… no, make that two hot guys… no, wait, let’s make them TWINS! Jackpot!” Anyway, my … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Greenwich Good Time
Today’s post is on Ellie Greenwich, the songwriter who was behind some of the biggest girl group hits of the 1960s, including Be My Baby (The Ronettes) and Leader of the Pack (The Shangri-Las). Greenwich passed away yesterday at the age of 68, but she’s left behind a huge legacy of rock solid tunes that have shaped the way pop music is made. She was also a female pioneer, one of the few women to … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Global Feminism
The New York Times has published a really interesting article called The Women’s Crusade, as part of a special issue called Saving the World’s Women: How changing the lives of women and girls in the developing world can change everything. It’s a thorough and informative take on the oppressions faced by women worldwide, especially, as the title suggests, in developing countries, and how these problems might be remedied by foreign aid and investment. … READ MORE
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In the Blog
PETA Serves Up a Little Shame with your Tofu
At this point criticsising PETA’s tactics might might seem like beating a dead horse (is that considered animal abuse?); we’ve already seen evidence of their gross, misogynist tendencies in the name of getting people to go veg and be nice to bunnies. But come on. Really? Just for that, PETA, I’m going to go out and harass a gerbil. Then I’ma eat a steak. Rare. Take that, dirtbags. … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Callout to Toronto Youth: Be an Anti-Homophobia Warrior!
From the good folks at T.E.A.C.H.: LOOKING FOR A GREAT VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY? Be an Anti-Homophobia Warrior! Meet new people, learn new skills and fight homophobia. VOLUNTEER WITH T.E.A.C.H. AT PLANNED PARENTHOOD TORONTO! T.E.A.C.H. is recruiting youth volunteers ages 16-23 from diverse backgrounds who are lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer and straight to fight against discrimination and hate. Teens Educating and Confronting Homophobia (T.E.A.C.H.) is a dynamic group of youth who facilitate anti-homophobia workshops in schools, community centres, shelters and … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Are We Not MEN?
Q: When does a feminist blog concern itself with men? A: When we’re talking about New York City’s MEN, a band made of JD Samson (of Le Tigre and moustache fame), Ginger Brooks Takahashi (who’s also appeared in The Ballet and the wonderful Black Mountain Music Project, with Mirah), Michael O’Neill and other special guests. MEN make sounds in the proud queerio dance music tradition of Lesbians on Ecstasy, The Ssion, and Tracy … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Girls Rock, Better Believe
Why should Portland have all the fun? This August Montreal is hosting its first ever Rock Camp For Girls, a five-day camp where girls learn to play an instrument, form a band, and finish up by playing a show for their hysterical, screaming, panty-tossing fans. From the organizers: Rock Camp is a space where girls discover and express their talents, and become leaders in creating their own kind of cultural production through music. Female musicians … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Freedom to Choose
Reading the story posted below, I was struck by a couple of things. One is that although we hear a lot of reasons as to why women should have the freedom to choose what to do with our bodies, we don’t hear a lot of stories of actual women making that choice. At least not lately; I remember the good old days of Degrassi Junior High (1987), when Erica got pregnant and her … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Girls In Action
The Girls Action Foundation (formerly POWER Camp National/Filles d’action) has a whole whack of activities coming up, and the time to register is now! From a national retreat, where you can meet and learn from activist ladies from all over the country, to workshops on building leadership and creating programming for young women, this is a great chance to hone your feminist activist skills and get connected with like-minded individuals. To learn more and register for the … READ MORE