Here’s the poster for our upcoming launch party. Spread the word!

The comment in the post below deserves more attention, thanks to soapboxspinster for letting us know what’s going on.

Last week, The Gazette, a student newspaper at The University of Western Ontario, published a violent, misogynist article in its “spoof” issue that, thanks to online activism and attention, is shedding light on the paper’s problematic practices.

The article, titled “Labia Majora Carnage,” is about a “Take Back The Nightie” march, trying (pretty pathetically) to poke fun at Take Back the Night marches and The Vagina Monologues, both popular forms of campus feminist activism. One particularly offensive passage goes something like this:

“Upon seeing the chaos, London Police Chief Murray Faulkner stopped greasing his nightstick and intervened. He grabbed the loudspeaker from Ostrich’s wild vagina and took it into a dark alley to teach it a lesson. To Ostrich’s dismay, the vagina followed, giggling as it said, “I love it when a man in uniform takes control.”

As soapboxspinster points out, there are more non-violent, more intelligent ways to make fun of feminists (Steven Colbert’s “Cooking With Feminists,” anyone?).

Here’s a rabble.ca piece that gives the context and some contacts for responding to the Gazette. Soapboxspinster’s blog post and the article are here, and provides some important background information.

There’s an interesting piece in The Guardian about sexist harassment online, especially as experienced by female bloggers. (It’s also by the editor of Feministing, which we link to regularly.)

I was reminded of the hate mail that I get for a site I built, about ad trucks. I put it up when I was probably seventeen, and unfortunately haven’t updated it much since. But instead of disappearing into internet obscurity, the site has steadily climbed Google rankings. One side of this is that I’ve gotten some interesting feedback, from people around the world who are writing and campaigning against mobile advertising. But the cool email has been overwhelmed by strangely intense hate mail.

I didn’t think ad trucks had many supporters. But somehow every couple months, someone finds the time to tell me that I run the stupidest website they’ve ever found; that I need to get a job; that I’m ruining the economy; that I’m a hippie; that I must be a Democrat. The sheer rage behind most of the messages scares me a little.

After reading this article, I’m wondering where the insults would go if it was obvious from the site that I was a woman.

Our Spring 2007 issue, which will be out in a couple of weeks, features a fantastic story by Liz Springate on the power storytelling holds to resist violence against women.

Without giving too much away, the piece tells inspiring tales of small acts women can do to contribute to a culture of resisting violence, the most important of which is sharing stories. I watched one of these moments last night on the news, and was reminded of how insightful Liz’s story is: if you look for it, resistance is everywhere, and recognizing these moments can make us stronger.

The CBC showed an interview with Gurjeet Kaur Ghuman, who was shot by her husband twice, in the head, and lived to talk about it (she is now blind). She spoke passionately about the problem of domestic violence in the Indo-Canadian community in B.C. that has seen several women killed by estranged husbands recently. The community has held town hall meetings to try address the problem, at which women stood up in front of their families and friends and explicitly talked about the violence they experienced. I am sure it was not easy for women to do but, like Liz, I think the more stories we hear, the more empowered we can become to resist a culture of violence.

Look out for Lizs story in our new issue.

Book Launch for The Same Woman by Thea Lim

The Same Woman explores womens relationships and how they can be affected by our culture, for better or for worse. Ruby returns to the scene of a recent heartbreak, only to find the woman her lover left her for around every corner, and a predictable soap opera of gleeful rumours and turf wars ensues.

But as Ruby gets deeper into battle, she is faced with the unbearable revelation that she and this woman might be more alike than she can believe.

Toronto Launch!
13 April
7 p.m. The Same Woman @ Toronto Women’s Bookstore (73 Harbord St., Toronto)
**After Party, 9 p.m. @ The Grapefruit Moon (968 Bathurst St., Toronto)

Montreal Launch!
14 April
6 p.m. The Same Woman @ Co-op Bookstore (2150 Rue Bishop, Mtl.)

Halifax Launch!
17 April
6 p.m. The Same Woman @ Venus Envy (1598 Barrington St., Halifax)

P.S. You can also order the book online from my very nice publisher.

P.S. Seriously, my publisher is very nice. If you want to publish a book, I recommend you check them out: www.invisiblepublishing.com. Just tell them I sent you…

I think this is really neet: a Halifax artist is taking audience participation to a new level with the Community Chalkboard Project. He installs chalkboards supplied with chalk and rags in outdoor locations that would normally be commandeered by private interests - i.e. places where there are normally ads. And then people write all over them.

The thing that I like best about this project is how generally none of the scribblings are of the “For a good time call…” nature. Mostly people seem to use the chalkboard to write down messages that bring something positive to the environment, just like the chalkboard does.

This is why I have so much faith in the masses. You can always count on them (or us) to make good use of art.