Posts by Guest Blogger
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In the Blog
Chick/Lit: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary
by Carolyn Dineen I mentioned in my previous installment of Chick/Lit, I am not a great reader of chick lit. Instead, I read Jane Austen. As such, I find it suitable that one of the genre’s most famous novels, Helen Fielding’s 1996 Bridget Jones’s Diary, would draw its inspiration from Pride and Prejudice. In my mind, Austen is very much the ancestor of modern-day chick lit, and certainly an influence on the work of many women … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Media Action Media sparks a Canadian conversation on media representation of women
By Layla Cameron The media, in all of its forms, defines and constrains who women are, what they can be, and what they look like. As most women live outside of these constructions, these media images and representations are incredibly damaging on both an individual and societal level. That’s where the REPRESENT. project steps in. REPRESENT. is the latest initiative from Media Action Media, an organization that seeks to promote gender equity for women-identified individuals through media criticism and … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Repost: National day of remembrance and action of violence against women in Canada
This was originally posted one year ago at the Shameless blog. The writer has kindly agreed to have it posted again. Today is for you, you lucky people who have not experienced violence. Today is the day for you, who do not know what it is like to be harmed for being a woman, to remember the victims of l’Ecole polytechnique, 14 beautiful young women who were gunned down for being women, accused of being feminists. As … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Rookie Yearbook One and Book launch review
by Manisha Aggarwal-Schifellite and Michelle Kay In late October this year, teen blogger and editor of Rookie magazine , Tavi Gevinson arrived in Toronto to celebrate the release of Rookie’s first print volume, Rookie Yearbook One. Gevinson was in town for two events: one a more traditional book reading and signing at Indigo Yorkdale, the second a book signing and masquerade ball at Magic Pony , an art gallery and store on Queen Street West. The lineup … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Guest post: LGBTQ youth homelessness: A growing problem in Toronto
By I. Alex Abramovich Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) youth are overrepresented in the homeless youth population. Approximately 12 years ago, it was estimated that 25-40% of homeless youth identified as LGBTQ, but we do not have enough research in Canada to know how much that estimate has changed. In Canada, we have extensive research on youth homelessness; however, little is known about the phenomenon of LGBTQ youth homelessness. What we do know, … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Guest Post: Why “men’s rights” groups are wrong
By Jesse McLaren Originally published at Socialist Worker “Men’s rights” groups are a growing phenomenon, with “men’s centres” and “men’s issues awareness” clubs appearing on campuses. Manipulating men’s anxieties faced with neoliberalism and austerity, “men’s issues” groups ignore the poverty, racism, ableism, homophobia and transphobia that men and women face, and instead scapegoat the women’s movement and progressive movements in general. Men’s Issues Awareness at UofT claims it wants to “build a movement centered on Men’s Issues which … READ MORE
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In the Blog
An Open Letter to the AGO About Frida Kahlo’s Unibrow
by Sarah Mortimer Dear AGO, The week of October 20, while walking past the Drake Hotel, one of your employees handed me a card that said I should wear this unibrow in order to get 50% off the price of admission to your exhibit “Frida and Diego: Passion, Politics and Painting.” I am glad that Frida Kahlo’s work is here in Toronto and that you are eager to have people come see it, but I can’t help … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Misogyny in Geek Culture
Seventh grade was the year I realized that I definitely Wasn’t Cool. Until that point, my relative coolness had been up for debate - sure, I was a brainiac know-it-all who spent most of her spare time with her nose stuck in a book, but I’d always done well socially and had a fairly sizeable group of friends. Something happened, though, during that summer before seventh grade. Some kind of paradigm shift went down among the … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Guest Post: Language can be so Crazy-Making!
by Jenna MacKay with special thanks to Kate-Christine Miller Crazy. Bonkers. Bananas. Disturbed. Maniac. Psycho. Psychopath. Mental. Nutter. Throughout history, people labelled with mental health issues have been stigmatized. This continues today and is inseparable from the language we use. Take for example the shooting of men with mental health issues by the Toronto police. The actions of the police are informed by labelling certain men’s behaviour as “crazy.” This label is accompanied by … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Guest Post: Chick/Lit: Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and E.L. James’s Fifty Shades of Grey
I am not a reader of “chick lit.” I am, however, a reader of women writers who grapple with the same issues as today’s chick lit - relationships, motherhood, sexuality. Among my favourites are Toni Morrison, the Brontes, Margaret Atwood, Zadie Smith - Jane Austen is my chick lit. But is this really fair? Is there really such a big difference between lit for chicks and literature for women? Recently, I read Fifty Shades of Grey … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Guest Post: The Myth of the Woman-Child
Originally posted at The Belle Jar. My good friend Audra Williams challenged me to blog about this piece on Tavi Gevinson. Then she posted this ridiculous article from Jezebel on Facebook, and I thought I would address both of them at once. I am killing two birds with one stone! Two ugly, judgmental, anti-feminist birds! Both articles are concerned with the girlification of today’s women. Katrina Onstad, author of the Tavi Gevinson piece, bemoans the rise of … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Guest Post: Stand up for Pussy Riot, stand up for yourself
By Kasia Mychajlowycz Last Friday, more than 100 people got together in Toronto to protest the guilty verdict and two-year sentence handed down to Russian punk rock performance artists Pussy Riot. There was punk music, chalk drawings, drumming, chanting, costumes–everything that makes a good, peaceful protest. And, of course, the media. In a way, I am “the media.” I’ve recently finished my master’s degree in journalism, and I’m wrapping up an internship at a great magazine. But … READ MORE
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In the Blog
2-qtpocmontreal: a look ahead
I have heard it so many times in the past few months: we love Montreal. We love the community, the endless cultures of resistance, and the freedom and joy the city gives us. But over and over again, I hear, it feels so hard to stay here. For all it gives them, Montreal also exposes its 2-qtpoc folks (two-spirited, queer, and trans people of colour) to surprisingly overt, harsh, and exhausting racism. People talk about 2-qtpoc … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Guest post: The psychological is political: Mental health as a feminist issue
Currently, mental health is a hot topic in Ontario. Countless media stories along with governmental and professional groups have highlighted the importance of reducing stigma, identifying folks who need support and connecting folks in need of support to clinical services. There are aspects of this that are awesome. Many of us do suffer from some form of mental distress at one point or another and/or love someone who has/does. It is important that we … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Guest Post: Stephanie Guthrie on challenging online misogyny
Trigger warning for discussions of violence. As I saved my first copy of this blog, one of the folder options the menu offered was “Death Threats,” a folder of screenshots I made on Monday. Weird, right? Talk about things I never expected to be a normal feature in my daily grind. That was before I chose to respond fiercely and loudly to the sexist bullying of a brave young woman on the internet. I’m sad to … READ MORE
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In the Blog
The Greatest Band You’ve Never Heard Of: Fifth Column
Before Bikini Kill, before MEN, hell - before the Indigo Girls - there was Fifth Column. Fifth Column was a queer-as-hell punk band comprised of young art students from Toronto in the early 1980s, now immortalized in the recent documentary film, She Said Boom: The Story of Fifth Column directed by Kevin Hegge. Fifth Column was an all-girl band, which was just about the most political thing that could happen to the misogynist music industry of … READ MORE
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In the Blog
CROSS-POST: Youth violence in Toronto and our hierarchy of victimhood
This piece originally appeared in the Toronto Star on Wednesday, June 6, 2012. It is cross-posted here with the permission of its author, Simon Black. You can find Simon on Twitter @_simonblack or at his website. Last year in the city of Chicago, nearly 700 young people were hit by gunfire; 66 of them died. The vast majority of victims were African-American and Latino youth living in the city’s racialized low-income neighbourhoods. A recent analysis found … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Why are there so many Girls on TV this year?
Women of a certain age (18-30ish) seem to fall into a nebulous category best described by pop sensation Britney Spears - not a girl, not yet a woman. As cheesy as that comparison is, it becomes especially relevant when attempting to classify the young women seen on television. I realized this year that I had watched three different TV shows explicitly about the trials and tribulations of “girls” - New Girl (FOX), 2 Broke Girls … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Statement of solidarity with the Quebec student strike
This statement of solidarity with the Quebec student strike was written by the folks at the Public studio, a Toronto-based activist design studio specializing in changing the world. Principal and creative director, Sheila Sampath, is also the editorial and art director at Shameless. Members of the Shameless team wishing to show our solidarity with this statement will be signing on in the comments below. We encourage readers wishing to show solidarity to sign on in comments, as … READ MORE
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In the Blog
Masturbate-a-thon!
I would wager money that almost every single person on this planet has masturbated (and those who deny it are probably lying). It’s an easy, low-stress, healthy activity that you can do on your own, almost anywhere (if you’re the adventurous type) and however you like. You can use fingers, toys, a shower head, or even a stout zucchini (I even had a friend who preferred an electric toothbrush) to get the job done, and … READ MORE
