Blog Series

Ten Years of Talking Back: Wesley Fok

November 11th, 2014     by Wesley Fok     Comments

Illustration: Erin McPhee

In honour of our ten-year anniversary, we spoke with ten different people in the Shameless community, past and present. Today, long-time webmaster Wesley Fok talks about Shameless and why it’s important.

Want to take part in our community and support our work? Check out our list of ten ways to support Shameless: http://shamelessmag.com/blog/entry/10-things-you-can-do-to-support-shameless.

Don’t forget: buy your ticket to our birthday party and inaugural Shamie Awards! Buy by November 13 to be eligible to win a Kobo Touch eReader.

Hi, I’m Wesley Fok, and I was the webmaster for Shameless magazine between 2006 and 2014.

Shameless has been important to me because it’s introduced me to people and perspectives that I probably wouldn’t have been exposed to before. So, it’s really challenged me to think about what it means to be a feminist, which is something that I’ve always called myself, but is not necessarily something that I’d given a lot of thought to in terms of what that means in practice. So to have those people challenge me on some of my ideas and to get me to really think hard about feminism in general has been really important to me.

I think Shameless is worth supporting, because, as a magazine aimed at teenagers, it serves a dual purpose. For teenagers who are already politically active, and are already involved in those kinds of discussions, who think feminism is really important, I think it shows them that there is a like-minded community of individuals who believe the same things they do and fight for the same things they fight for. But there’s also a whole lot of teenagers who perhaps aren’t politically motivated in the same way, haven’t been able to get involved in those issues, possibly even teenagers who don’t necessarily consider them feminist. And I think what Shameless does for those people is: it gives them a view into what that community is like, what the important issues to us are, and how they can take part, and perhaps become part of that community. I think that’s a really valuable outreach that we do, I think it’s really valuable education, and that’s why I think it’s something worth supporting.

  • Transcribed by Vidhya Elango

Tags: #shameless10, all about shameless

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