• Web Features

    Modelling Workers’ Rights: Modelling Workers’ Rights

    June 11th, 2012     by Greig de Peuter     Comments

    Working as a model has always seemed to promise a lifestyle of fame, fortune, and luxury. Remember supermodel Linda Evangelista’s famous quip, “We don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day”? This is not what most of us think of when we think about work. The Model Alliance aims to disrupt these superficial assumptions and expose the decidedly less glamorous aspects of modelling, which are deeply tied to issues of workers’ rights. The Model … READ MORE

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    Media Savvy: Don’t Insult Me!: A Glossary of terms

    May 29th, 2012     by Sandra Jeppesen     Comments

    Note: This is a glossary of terms used in the Media Savvy column “Don’t Insult Me!”, published in our Spring 2012 issue. You can read the full column in the print version of our Spring 2012 issue—purchase an individual copy or subscribe to receive future issues in the mail! For people who might find these terms to be confusing, here is a quick summary: Sex is about a person’s physical body (genitalia, hormones, etc.), e.g. male, female, … READ MORE

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    Kickstarting your career: The art of negotiation

    May 24th, 2012     by Vanessa Ciccone     Comments

    The first murmurings of the women’s movement may seem like eons ago, and many think that it quelled the issue of gender inequality in the workforce. In actual fact, there remains a deplorable amount of inequality in North America’s workforce. Statistics Canada’s Publication Women in Canada: A Gender-based Statistical Report indicates that a woman still earns approximately 71 cents for every dollar a man earns. READ MORE

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    Body Politics: In Praise of the Vulnerable Femme: Loving your breasts

    May 16th, 2012     by Kim Katrin Crosby     Comments

    Note: This is the full version of the Body Politics piece we published in the Spring 2012 issue. “My political obligations? I am a Black woman … in world that defines human as white and male for starters. Everything I do including survival is political.” —Audre Lorde A few months ago I wrote a poem called ‘In Praise Of The Vulnerable Femme’. I composed it as an ode to Femme Of Centre folks and particularly Of Colour … READ MORE

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    Pump Up the Jams

    April 10th, 2012     by Derek Hogue     Comments

    Walking onto the track, the first thing you notice is the women are taller and faster on skates. Much faster. They bump and pass each other, and in the last jam the crowd is screaming, cheering, and pumping their fists. Margaret Smackwood blocks an opponent; her teammate Viktory Lapp overtakes the pack. It looks like they’ve done the impossible, that they’ve got this in the bag with only a breathless 25 seconds left in the … READ MORE

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    The Labour of Labour

    March 30th, 2012     by Sarah Feldbloom     Comments

    Updated In February of this year, 2012, the Teaching Assistants’ union for the University of Toronto, CUPE 3902, found itself on the brink of a strike. A few female PHD students who work as TAs, and organizers at CUPE 3902, were interested in sharing their experiences working in labour, for the purpose of contextualizing the operating structure of unions like theirs. A central element that emerged in our conversation was the role of gender and equity dynamics, … READ MORE

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    Sharing Skills at School

    March 23rd, 2012     by Laura Shaw     Comments

    Somewhere along the way, I missed out on some pretty useful life lessons, from sewing buttons, to fixing bike chains, to DIY hair care and styling, to properly stretching after sitting in front of the computer all day. When I thought about all the things I wanted to learn, I realized I already knew my potential teachers: my friends. Everyone is an expert in something, or wants to be, and since most of us can’t afford … READ MORE

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    Unpaid Labour

    March 9th, 2012     by Sarah Feldbloom     Comments

    Several articles released by North American newspapers and internet publications over the past year have voiced a backlash to the standardization of unpaid internships as replacements for entry level jobs. Pieces in The Globe and Mail, Macleans, and most recently Reuters tell the stories of young workers who are speaking out against this fad. In the current issue of Shameless, which centers around the theme of “labour,” Carley Centen of anti-unpaid-internship site internsheep.wordpress.com looks at how this … READ MORE

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    The Labour of Love: The Labour of Love

    February 14th, 2012     by Sarah Feldbloom     Comments

    What is love? Is romance its most vital form? ‘The labour of love’ is a documentary about how four women in their twenties, from a variety of cultural and economic backgrounds and sexual orientations, living in St. John’s, Newfoundland, define what love is, and the struggles that come along with it. ‘The Labour of Love’ was originally broadcast on radio show WOW! or Women on Women: A Show About What Women are Doing, Saying, and … READ MORE

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    Shameless Book Club: Shameless Book Club: ‘Feminism For Real’!

    February 8th, 2012     by Sarah Feldbloom     Comments

    Our first episode of the Shameless Book Club podcast features anthology ‘Feminism for Real.’ This text asks big questions about the relationship between feminist theory and practice, and discusses the frustrations of trying to relate to ideas about feminism that don’t fit no matter how much we sometimes squeeze and unbutton to make them. In this podcast you’ll hear Shameless contributors and staff rolling around questions the book has posed, and talking about where they look to … READ MORE

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    Editor’s letter: Labour of Love

    January 28th, 2012     by Sheila Sampath     Comments

    On November 2, 2011, Oakland went on strike. In a formidable display of solidarity and support, workers across the city united in opposition to oppressive government policies, industry exploitation and state violence. At home in Toronto, I watched while an estimated three thousand protesters successfully forced an operational halt to the Oakland Port. I was moved when I saw local businesses shut down in solidarity and I cried when I saw hundreds of school-aged children carrying … READ MORE

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    Sex Work: A Feminist Legal Perspective

    January 20th, 2012     by Derek Hogue     Comments

    Selling sex is controversial. And exchanging sexual services for money is a difficult issue to discuss amongst feminists: some say sex work is always violent and a form of exploitation; others consider it a viable job choice. Right now, this debate is once again front and centre in Canadian courts. As a feminist lawyer, I take direction from my clients and I respect their experiences and their knowledge. This past year I’ve been part of a … READ MORE

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    The New Face of Farming

    January 20th, 2012     by Emily Van Halem     Comments

    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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    The Arab Spring

    November 18th, 2011     by Sima Sahar Zerehi     Comments

    “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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    The Barter Babes Project

    September 21st, 2011     by Michelle Kay     Comments

    Scrilla, bones, dough, moola, scratch, clams, buckaroos: call it what you will, but money is money. From all the economy talk in the news to applying for school loans to standing in line at the grocery store, we spend a lot of time with money on our minds and our minds on money. It makes the world go round, yet finance is not an easy to navigate subject, with cryptic acronyms and confusing questions. What … READ MORE

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    Feminist Art Gallery

    August 17th, 2011     by Kate-Christine Miller     Comments

    “Our interest in feminism binds us together and our supporters join us in the belief that art can be a powerful tool for social change.” - Feminist Art Gallery The first rumblings I heard about the Feminist Art Gallery (FAG) were from filmmaker Elle Flanders as we sat passing time in an empty room at Hart House on the University of Toronto campus waiting for an audience at a feminist film and video night. A smirk … READ MORE

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    D.I.Y. Planter

    June 28th, 2011     by Shoshana Erlich     Comments

    Many of us are concerned about food security and where our food is coming from. Much of the world’s food is imported and exported, and big factory farms consistently use only a few different varieties of seeds, which leads to far less biodiversity overall. This means that we are risking losing important heritage varieties of fruits and veggies. Some of the best ways to combat these huge issues is to ease our reliance on the imported … READ MORE

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    Every Girl is a Riot Grrrl

    May 15th, 2011     by Carly Lewis     Comments

    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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    Listen Up!

    April 5th, 2011     by Derek Hogue     Comments

    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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    ?Batman, Pass Me My Man Repellent Spray?

    March 30th, 2011     by Isabel Slone     Comments

    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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