If it’s true that punk is an explosive reaction against an oppressive regime, then it’s no surprise that the punkest thing I’ve seen in ages is coming out of Afghanistan.

The Burka Band is a group of three women who, with the help of some German music producers, created this video, and a three-song EP, and a bit of an international reputation - one which, sadly, they can’t really enjoy, as they have to remain anonymous in their home town of Kabul. According to sources, only about ten people in all of Afghanistan know who these women actually are.

The video was released in 2003, and there was initially some doubt as to its authenticity - were these hipsters in bedsheets? Russian pop-stars riding the cutting edge? But it seems to be confirmed as the real deal: an Afghani girl group singing about how they feel about wearing burkas and being women in a highly segregated society. And why not? If the West has anything useful to offer the rest of the world, it’s that social critique often goes well with power chords and four-four beats. I don’t assume that the Burka Band speaks for all Afghani women, just like I don’t assume Yoko Ono speaks for all Japanese women, or Madonna for all American gals. But this is one of those strange and kind of amazing examples of how musical forms can bounce around the globe, mix together, influence and mutate, and just maybe make the world a little bigger. I can only hope.

The main songwriter, Nargiz, says of the project: It was a lot of fun, but also very scary. Afghanistan is still a very dangerous place for modern women, and when we shot the video we had to do it very discretely because no one could know that we were playing music. Of course it was a joke to sing in the burkas, but it was also necessary to wear them. If people in Afghanistan knew who the members of the Burka Band were, we could be attacked or killed because there are still a lot of religious fanatics here.

The single was released on the German label Ata Tak, and you can read more about it (and buy it) here. More Burka Band articles here and here.

This weekend some members of the Shameless team will be attending the Women, Action & Media Conference in Cambridge, MA. We’ll make every effort to blog from the event and let you know all of the fabulous things female media makers are doing across North America.

If you’re planning on making it to Cambridge this weekend, please do say hi! We’ll be the starry-eyed Canadians…

For more on the WAM Conference, click here.

The fabulous Julie Wilson, of Toronto’s Seen Reading Blog fame, has featured Shameless Magazine, Issue 11 as her latest entry!

For more on Julie WIlson and the Seen Reading Blog, click here.

Toronto City Councillor Rob Ford, who has been in the news as of late, was arrested at his home yesterday and charged with assault and uttering death threats. The complainant’s name has not been officially released, but a police source said it is Ford’s wife, Renata, and that she has been injured in an apparent domestic incident.

This is the same Rob Ford who recently refused to apologize for some racist comments he made at City Hall.

The reason I decided to post this story was because of some comments I’ve been reading on the local blogs regarding Ford’s innocence. Here’s a sampling of comments :(more inside…)

The Miss G______ Project for Equity in Education is looking to put together an activist anthology (an “actology” if you will) of art and writing by high school aged youth that take on and challenge the media. The working title for the project is “‘The Media is Not Fooling Me’: an Actology.”

Interested? Here are the details:

We want you to put your fabulous critical lenses on and take a long hard look at the media and mass-produced images of “how people should be” in society. At the same time, we want you to share your own positive affirmations, images, and ideas that are alternatives to those currently being produced by the mainstream.

Be creative, be critical, be satiric, be political!

(more inside…)

Been writing for a while and serious about your poetry? Close to finishing a book length manuscript? Then check this out:

Queering Film: A celebration of award-winning films for, with and by
Black Lesbians

FRIDAY MARCH 28
Medical Sciences Building Auditorium, University of Toronto
1 King’s College Circle

Tickets are $12 at the door, and $10.00 in advance at Toronto Women’s
Bookstore, Good For Her, A Different Booklist, and This Ain’t the Rosedale Library. The festival is wheelchair accessible.

MPENZI: Black Women’s International Film and Video Festival will
showcase 5 award-winning national and internationally renowned films by 5 Black Lesbians as part of their 4th annual festival.

This year’s line-up includes:
· the Toronto Premiere of Rape For Who I Am, directed by Ugandan-born
British filmmaker Lovinsa Kavuma
· Pariah, written and directed by 2007 Sundance Screenwriting Fellow and
2008 Rockefeller Grant Nominee Dee Rees
· the Toronto Premiere of Legacy by British director Campbell Blackman
· the Toronto Premiere of local director Hana Abdul’s Before Nine; and
· named one of Toronto’s Top 10 Best Filmmakers by Cameron Bailey in NOW
Magazine, director/producer/writer Michèle Clarke’s Black Men and Me

This years programming will include the popular Caribbean food and
beverage reception at 5:30p.m.; films, panel discussion and Q&A from
6:30-9:00p.m.; and a silent auction. Brand new Mpenzi T-shirts and other merchandise will be for sale.

For more information, please visit www.mpenzi.ca.

Feminists More Open-Minded on Weight.

They did a study and everything. You know what they found out? Women who call themselves feminists might be less likely to be taken in by the notion that the most important thing for women is to be thin.

“Feminism,” the authors write, “does appear to afford women a more inclusive perception of who is physically attractive.”

Again: Duh.

I love videogames. I’ll talk about why and what I enjoy in bits and pieces as we go along. But here’s the short version of what I don’t like:

Videogames, in North America at least, somehow got themselves treated as a special kind of media. Videogames, and people who play them, get referred to as a distinct subset in a way that doesn’t happen with other modes of entertainment. We don’t call people who like movies “filmers”. You might be a film-buff, but I think most people would see a film-buff as pretty categorically different than a “gamer”.

How that happened, I don’t really know (though I’m sure someone(s) somewhere are writing their Masters on it). But I think it sucks. Because the world of “gamers” ended up being kind of exclusive and kind of in a The-Simpsons-comic-book-guy way. And a lot of women ended up feeling like they were on the outside of that world.

We’ll get into some of the crapulent content and marketing and stores that make women feel like it’s a straight-boys-only club. But that’s not where I want to start talking about videogames. I want to start by showing them a little love.

And it’s a good week for videogame love.

If you live in Toronto, it’s possible you’ve noticed some odd protrusions on the side of a couple of downtown buildings. Protrusions that look like this:



(more inside…)