In just under 2 weeks I’m going to be having a baby. I’ve resisted blogging about it here because while having children, child rearing, parenting, birthing, and all the facets tied up with it (consumption, children-in-the-world, industrial capitalism, gender dynamics, etc) are Feminist issues, I’m still on the fence as to where I stand regarding my feminist experience and the whole “having a baby”-thing: I just haven’t felt I have anything really coherent or “new” to add to the literature.

But, my opinions and responses to my experience slowly trickle in and form, often in response to people’s reactions/comments or responses to parenthood/motherhood/birthing in the media and government policy.

There’s a big “to-do” going on out here in BC about ultrasounds and the recent addition of policy that will require a $50 fee from expectant parents to find out the sex of their fetus. Basically, in BC it was hit or miss if you could find out from an ultra-sound technician what your fetus’s sex is. We wanted to find out the sex of our fetus primarily to have an answer when we were/are consistently inundated with the question, “what are you having?” (sarcastic answer, “a baby?”). And then feeling pressured to say which way you’d prefer (“I don’t really care as long as their not a facist”). And then having to endure people’s gendered biases like, “Girls are so much harder than boys”. But, at both of our ultrasounds the technician (same technician both times) wouldn’t tell us (“we’re not allowed to tell”) and made us avert our eyes of the screen. Neither of these things disappointed me or frustrated me, as the medical system + pregnancy is all new to me, so hey, whatever, it’s got 4 limbs, a beating heart, and kidneys! Success!
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What’s in your make-up kit? And how many of those beauty products do you use in a day? Give or take a few products, my usual morning regime involves body lotion, tinted moisturizer, mascara, hair mold, and sometimes bronzer or eyeliner if I’m feeling so inclined. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of other women, particularly young women, also reach my daily average.

What concerns me is that most beauty products contain parabens, a type of preservative used to extend the shelf life of cosmetics and prevent them from developing mold. But, what concerns me more are recent studies suggesting parabens may pose human health risks.

Originally posted on TheThunderbird.ca. Read the rest here.

Picture from flickr user kuuipo1207

The living’s green and pretty in Vancouver, again named “the most liveable city in the world.” Just about every cosmetic product comes in a greenwashed or health-friendly option: there’s paraben-free lotion, deodorant without aluminum, and nail polish sans formaldehyde! I’ve spent a year trying to pick safe, personal care products that work, and I’m still confused about which ones I should avoid.

Sarah Dickson, the body care buyer at Capers Whole Foods Market in Kitsilano, puts it to me simply, “I’d like to be able to eat all my make-up if I had to.” Our bodies absorb most of what we put on our skin, and we can’t always break down that material she explains. If it’s not safe to eat, don’t put it on you is the idea.

The problem is many people don’t understand the meaning of the often hard to pronounce substances found on long ingredients lists, let alone their potentially harmful effects.

Originally posted on TheThunderbird.ca. Read the rest here.

Shameless Wire, our new training program for young journalists, is in
full swing. Over the next few months, we’ll be publishing a number of
guest posts by Wire participants. This first series responds to
Toronto city councillor and mayoral candidate Giorgio Mammoliti’s
platform, which calls for a city-wide teen curfew.

by Diana Faria

City Councillor Georgio Mammoliti thinks that we need a curfew for Toronto’s teenagers. Mammoliti is wrong. He is also making way too many assumptions about teens, implying that we are all irresponsible, that we all need this.

We probably shouldn’t be taking Mammoliti seriously anyway – after all, his platform includes a casino and a red-light district in downtown Toronto, and giving bylaw officers guns. Strangest of all, Mammoliti argues that a curfew would reduce the murder rate. That is ludicrous. To quote Statistics Canada, “in 2008, 55 youth aged 12 to 17 were accused of committing homicide.”

Does he realize that with Canada’s population at 30 million and growing, having only 55 youths accused of committing murder is extremely small? We can clearly state here that youth homicides are both rare and unusual. Statistics Canada also points out that “80% of solved homicides were committed by someone known to the victim.” The main problem does not lie in strangers on the street, attacking other strangers at random.

If the problem is that teenagers are murderers, as Mammoliti seems to believe, than why not focus on the biggest problem, which is gang violence, instead of trying to label every teenager by making a curfew? In 2008, gang violence was on the rise. Why didn’t Mammoliti look at those statistics before trying to force a curfew on every teenager, peaceful and violent alike? Of course there are teens out there who are lost and confused, some even involved with gangs. But most teens do not need this curfew, and Mammoliti should leave them alone.

Shameless Wire, our new training program for young journalists, is in
full swing. Over the next few months, we’ll be publishing a number of
guest posts by Wire participants. This first series responds to
Toronto city councillor and mayoral candidate Giorgio Mammoliti’s
platform, which calls for a city-wide teen curfew.

by Rachel Lee-Thomas

Given the chance, some teenagers are practically nocturnal. We stay up late. Some of us stay out to odd hours of the night. Some drink alcohol, abuse drugs, do whatever they want on the darkened streets. Georgio Mammoliti, a city councillor and mayoral candidate, wants to put a stop to this - he thinks that we need a curfew for teenagers. He believes that it would help to decrease the crime rate.

On some levels, I do agree with Mammoliti. Having a set curfew for teens under a certain age would really help to keep them safe. The curfew would keep youth off of the sometimes dangerous streets, and into a hopefully safer environment. One of the things some teenagers do when they are out alone at night is experiment with drugs and alcohol. If teens are wandering outside, under the influence, it can be pretty dangerous. While teenagers are out in the streets having fun, their grades are suffering. If students were to be inside after a certain point, they would have more time to focus on school work.

If teens were inside at night, they might be a lot safer. While it’s true that teens can still drink and do drugs indoors, it’s a much safer environment than being alone outside. But it’s going to take a lot to get teens to listen. A curfew is a good idea in theory, but in the real world, it would be almost impossible to implement.

Unfortunately, these rules and restrictions would make most teenagers angry. Teenagers don’t want to be babied. We want to feel as adult and independent as we can. If teens are told that they must stay inside after a certain time, they might feel a need to rebel. The demand for fake IDs would increase. Teens might be more willing to pay for a fake ID, figuring they need it to stay out late. But owning ID would then give them the power to do all sorts of other things, from buying alcohol to going to clubs.

Overall, I feel that a curfew is a smart idea. It would keep teenagers safe, and in line. Their grades could improve, and there might be less crime. But realistically, it would never work in today’s world. Once the boundaries are set, most teenagers will find it almost thrilling to bend around the rules, and stay out anyway. It would take a lot to ever get this law off the ground.

Being a word/books person, I do a lot of thinking about the power of language. The more progressive blogs and new sources I read, and the more I talk and think about feminist and progressive issues on a daily basis, the more I notice the words people drop into casual conversation that make me pause.

Language is more powerful than we realize. At its best, it can facilitate communication, bridge huge distances and build communities. But as we’ve heard, with great power comes great responsibility, and I believe that as feminists, it’s important for us to be conscious of the words we choose when communicating and to avoid problematic and alienating language as much as possible – not only to avoid offending or alienating others, but to hold ourselves to the highest standards and set a positive example.

Problematic or triggering language is all around us: everything from “that’s so gay” to “what a pussy” to “that exam totally raped me.” Examples like these are obvious, but some that are more often overlooked include “that’s so lame” and “you’re insane” (ableist, physically and mentally, respectively). Personally, expressions that are dismissive of mental/emotional differing abilities (“insane,” “crazy,” “stupid”) are ones I’m currently working on eliminating from my vocabulary.

I’m not necessarily advocating becoming the language police, and I know that different social situations have different standards of communication. It’s just something to think about.

I’ve only given a few examples in this post. What are some of your personal language peeves, and are you working on being more conscious of your words? Do you call out others who use problematic language?

Photo from post on I Am Friends With Sluts (iamfriendswithsluts.tumblr.com)

iamfriendswithsluts.tumblr.com thinks you are! This new-ish Tumblr roll is a compilation site of photos of girls that are posted on social networking sites like Facebook or Myspace. Readers submit photos they find on their friends or strangers sites to I Am Friends With Sluts and they are posted with ridiculously disappointing commentary:

“It only takes two wine coolers to make me a lesbian”

“I’m training to fight my eating disorder next month on Pay-Per-View.”

“Bound together by tramp stamps, father issues and low self esteem.”

Aside from the obvious problems of ye ol’ patriarchy rearing its ugly head on the internets, the site reads like bad bad news, even despite the “satirical blog” disclaimer which ensures any response to the site creators won’t be taken seriously because they’re “just joking”.

A more serious issue, and one that drives me crazy, is that the patriarch has made it crystal clear that they’re winning, and despite my constant proclamation of “we’re sexy by choice!!”, these pictures and their content confirm that these are oppressed choices. Slowly people are starting to talk about the personal sexualization of self on the ‘net but these discussions are often left to sites like Suicide Girls and other more porno’d sites and shows. These pictures read more like Girls Gone Wild, and the blocking out of eyes and randomizing of the photographs removes the reality of these girls’ lives and personalities (unlike Girls Gone Wild). But because these photos are pilfered from social networking sites, they are REAL girls and these are their REAL experiences; and they’re no longer theirs because they’re out there on the internet for anyone to see. And this is site is a perfect example of what someone might do to the party fun time content.

So, is the answer then that women stop putting pictures like this up on social networking sites? I’m not sure. Is it easier then dismantling the patriarch? Discuss!

Criticism of a recent article by Katie Roiphe on new motherhood is making the rounds in feminist blog-land. Basic premise is that Roiphe looks at her first six weeks of motherhood with a post-feminist lens that conflates motherhood with addiction: new mothers are addicted to both their babies and motherhood. So much so that they’re (she’s) reduced to tears about being separated from her new child.

While nurses, mothers, ECE providers, and academics could go on-and-on about attachment theory and practice, what strikes me most about Roiphe’s article is how flippant she is about feminism and the possible realities for other new moms. Also, she pitches herself against feminists, rather than discuss complexities within feminism and her privilege and access to the feminism she enjoys.

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I am in the thick of submitting the second draft of my thesis. Over the past few weeks I’ve updated essays I wrote over a year ago, saying “yes” to every edit my thesis-supervisor has suggested, and incorporating newer material because my research just kind of stopped at 2007. One of the articles I’ve come across in my search for newish material, “What is Third Wave Feminism? A New Directions Essay,” by R. Claire Snyder, sums up the major arguments/actions of the third wave.

She also stakes a claim:

“third-wavers do not feel the need to spend a lot of time constructing ambitious theoretical analyses or justifying on what grounds they are acting; they just do it.”

And I wanted to pose a question to the greater Shameless community (if you identify as third-wave or not):

When you act politically or feministy do you know the theoretical argument behind what you’re doing? Or do you just do it?

For me, it’s a mix of both. I like engaging with feminism and being an activist/feminist in my community without thinking about the theories and reasons behind it. Feminism is inside me, this is who I am, what action I take is a direct reflection of this gut-feminism. But, I also love to wrestle with theories about why I participate the way I do and contribute the way I do (hence this crazy thesis about the third wave). I’m always surprised by is how easy it is to put the third wave (and younger feminists) into that non-theory category: as if we’re unable to talk our way out of the box we’re in.