In the Blog
Mid-Week Round Up: January 7
Illustration: Erin McPhee
Dalhousie University has indefinitely suspended 13 dentistry students from clinical activities after they made violent, misogynist comments about their female classmates on a Facebook page. The students may also be restricted from attending classes.
Four female students have written an open letter to the president of Dalhousie protesting the school’s response, saying that they feel pressured into accepting the university’s decisions and staying quiet about their concerns.
It’s a new year, and reading more books might be on your resolution list. But how about reading more diverse books? The We Need Diverse Books campaign encourages you to read as many diverse books as you can this year — meaning books “where people of color can be first-page HEROES…Books in which LGBTQIA characters can represent social CHANGE…And books where people with disabilities can be just…people.” Tweet your commitment with the hashtag #WNDBResolution, and check out their huge list of resources to help you find your next diverse read.
Ghost in the Shell, a Japanese manga set in a dystopian future, is being made into a splashy Hollywood action film, and Scarlett Johansson has been cast as lead character Motoko Kusanagi. Bitch outlines why casting a white actress in this role is so problematic.
Casting a white actor to play a character who is non-white in the source material is hardly new; check out this list of 25 minority characters who went white on film. (And more recently, think Christian Bale as Moses in Exodus.)
The city of Raigarh, India, has elected the country’s first transgender mayor. An independent candidate, Madhu Kinnar won on a grassroots campaign and pledges to combat poverty in her city.
