Posts by Derek Hogue
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Web Features
The New Face of Farming
Looking for a job? Check your local classifieds and you’ll find that many types of ads abound. But have you ever seen a “Farmers Wanted” ad? I haven’t. Nevertheless, the agricultural sector in Canada is in desperate need of help. In the next ten years 75% of existing farmers are going to reach retirement age with few prospects of replacement. Pause to ponder the gravity of this situation. Who will grow our food? Will we … READ MORE
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Web Features
The Arab Spring
“Where were you when Mubarak resigned? #Jan25 #Egypt” This was a tweet I sent out the day after the despotic and now disgraced Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was finally forced to resign due to massive public protests, which focused on legal, political and economic issues. Mubarak, who managed to stay in power for almost 30 years, resigned after weeks of determined protests and pressure. He faced allegations of corruption and abuse of power as well as … READ MORE
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Web Features
Every Girl is a Riot Grrrl
Before there was Toronto-based bossa-funk-disco vixen Maylee Todd, before Emily Haines became the fearless leader of Metric and before “girl bands” became an embarrassing buzz phrase, there was Riot Grrrl, a feminist movement ignited by women in punk rock bands during the early ’90s across the west coast of America. While Maylee, Emily and musicians like them don’t necessarily play punk music, they do embody the spirit of Riot Grrrl – they have no patience … READ MORE
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Web Features
Listen Up!
Welcome to Listen Up!, a Shameless audio section featuring podcasts on a wide variety of topics. Our first series is Tweeting Feminists, a podcast about feminism and social media by Shameless Arts Editor and Ryerson grad student, Ronak Ghorbani. In this third episode, Ronak chats with feminist blogger and mom, Gina Crosley-Corcoran about her blog, The Feminist Breeder and motherhood. Tweeting Feminists Episode Three - Featuring The Feminist Breeder by ronak_gee … READ MORE
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Web Features
?Batman, Pass Me My Man Repellent Spray?
I don’t remember exactly the first time I saw the Man Repeller. It was most likely during one of my whirlwind click-fests where I open about 30 “new tabs” on fashion-related things that seem entertaining, pretty or at least worth a mere five seconds of my time. But I do remember being struck with a sense of uneasiness, like something was off. The concept is pretty typical for a fashion blog. Cute, young, skinny white girl … READ MORE
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Web Features
Helping out in Tanzania
In July 2010, then-16-year old Ariane Poulin travelled to Arusha, Tanzania with her family to help build a high school for Maasai girls. As well as carrying buckets of water, digging and moving materials around the site, Ariane took many photographs, on and off the construction site. Her family, other volunteers, friends made along the way, and the landscape of Maasailand were her subjects. Ariane plans to return to Arusha in 2012 to help expand the school. … READ MORE
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Web Features
Tweeting Feminists: Listen Up!
Welcome to Listen Up!, a Shameless audio section featuring podcasts on a wide variety of topics. Our first series is Tweeting Feminists, a podcast about feminism and social media by Shameless Arts Editor and Ryerson grad student, Ronak Ghorbani. In this second episode, Ronak chats with women’s studies professor and Feminist Fatale Melanie Klein about her blog and how the web is changing feminism. Tweeting Feminists Episode Two by ronak_gee … READ MORE
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Web Features
Tweeting Feminists: Listen Up!
Welcome to Listen Up!, a Shameless audio section featuring podcasts on a wide variety of topics. Our first series is Tweeting Feminists, a podcast about feminism and social media by Shameless Arts Editor and Ryerson grad student, Ronak Ghorbani. In this first episode, Ronak chats with journalist, cultural critic and co-author of Girl Drive, Nona Willis Aronowitz, about the feminist blogosphere and social media. Tweeting Feminists Episode One by ronak_gee … READ MORE
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Web Features
News Bites: News Bites: News Round-Up
Here is a round-up of some news items of interest for this week. Have a tip for a future news round-up? Email blogtips@shamelessmag.com At Daily Kos: Iowa Woman Jailed for Thinking About an Abortion collects stories of three women facing serious lack of reproductive freedom in the United States. The folks at GOOD have posted a story about the heroic young woman who sacrificed herself to save thousands of lives during the Japanese tsunami. The Tyee has a two-part … READ MORE
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Web Features
From Farm to Plate
If you shamelessly frequent this blog, then you might notice that my name is a new addition to the roster of Shameless contributors. I am indeed new to the team and I am really excited to be writing about all aspects of food both here on the blog, as well as for Shameless in print. While my Shameless blog debut occurred earlier with a post on my recent food-themed bike tour, I thought I’d make my second post more of … READ MORE
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Web Features
How-to D.I.Y. T-Shirt Dress: From shirt to dress, the humble tee does it all
You’re in Value Village, going through the men’s t-shirt section, hoping to come across the perfect shirt for a “middle-aged dad” theme party, and like a beacon from heaven above, you see it: the perfect Misfits shirt. The problem is, the Crimson Ghost logo is staring at you from an XXL t-shirt with a moth-bitten collar. Not wanting to let a gem such as this go to waste, you grab it, pay the $4.99 for … READ MORE
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Web Features
Advice: Telling your parents you’re trans
Dear Shameless: I want to tell my parents that I’m transgender, but I’m scared of how they’ll react. What should I do? Gender is complicated. There are entire schools dedicated to its study, where people spend their intellectual lives trying to figure gender out. Cultural construction? Fact of nature? Psycho-social phenomenon? Fortunately, the average transgender person doesn’t have to have an answer to this question — it’s enough to know that, although you were born with … READ MORE
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Web Features
DIY: Pant Strap: Cycling pant strap
Spring is upon us and what better way to welcome a new season of bike riding in the sunshine than making your own essential cycling accessory, the pant strap? Straps are a must-have for anyone who cycles in pants; they prevent your pant leg from getting caught in the bike gears, which can have disastrous consequences. (It’s especially dangerous if you are riding a fixed-gear bicycle!) A more stylish alternative to the old pant-tucked-in-sock, these … READ MORE
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Web Features
Editor’s Letter
It’s been a hectic time since our Spring issue. The team has been hard at work on our first Shameless book and planning some exciting surprises for the future (our wish list includes a podcast, more events and a short story contest). The Canadian F-Word awards named www.shamelessmag.com the best feminist blog in Canada (thanks to our great blogging team). And, of course, we’ve been pulling together this issue. So, without further ado, here are … READ MORE
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Web Features
And In This Corner: Writing through trauma: Writing through trauma
Most of my life I’ve felt ashamed: ashamed of growing up poor, ashamed of being abused and neglected as a child and ashamed of being black in a world that idealizes whiteness. Writing wasn’t a conscious decision in the beginning. Writing was just the thing that was most accessible to a poor, black immigrant child. I wrote cryptic poems for most of my teen years, poems that documented my loneliness, depression and suicidal feelings. I started … READ MORE
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Web Features
Geek Chic: Mothers of Invention: Five great women inventors
They dream up, design and redefine how we live in the world. From the wheel to the iPod to the squeezable ketchup bottle, the inventor — full of wild ideas and steadfast vision — has an uncanny ability to make the rest of us blurt out, “Why the hell didn’t I think of that?” While many women inventors have been forgotten (patents, granting an inventor sole rights to their work, were doled out only to men … READ MORE
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Web Features
Editor’s letter
When Shameless magazine goes into its frenzied production period, something amazing happens. Friends, co-workers and volunteers all gather for the tedious process of poring over proofs, trying to find errors, double checking website addresses, hunting down spelling mistakes and brainstorming headlines. In exchange, I feed people. Tables are filled with containers of hummus and bowls filled with candy. We move the toaster from my kitchen into the living room so we can toast bagels. We have … READ MORE
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Web Features
Media savvy: The onslaught of ambivalence
A funny thing happens when I ask my feminist friends what they think of Dove’s “Campaign For Real Beauty.” People from whom I expect bold, confident opinions respond with qualifications, disclaimers and paragraph-long explanations that meander back and forth between underwhelmed appreciation and reluctant skepticism. This is strange. After all, isn’t this the ad campaign that sticks it to the beauty industry’s shallow depiction of women? It seems we should be excited about Dove’s ads, which … READ MORE
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Web Features
Editor’s letter
It’s been five months since our new team first gathered at the new Shameless HQ (which is the living room of your devoted, if messy, new editor). The table was covered with bagels, hummus, notebooks, laptops, fruit salad, pens, books and well-read back issues. And while there were a few moments of doubt that we’d get through all this work, we were all very excited to be a part of this magazine. It’s been a crazy … READ MORE
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Web Features
Newsflash
Gay gangs of New York? What do you get if you’re a young, black lesbian standing up to male street harassment in New York’s famous gay West Village? If it were up to Shameless: a loud shout-out and a fat shiny medal. But for the New Jersey Four, a group of young women who decided to defend themselves when a man verbally harassed them and spat on them, the answer is a combined sentence of 27 … READ MORE
