Beyond my requisite Women’s Studies viewing of Marilyn Waring’s Who’s Counting: Sex, Lies and Global Economics (which is kick-ass), I hate economics. Economy talk makes me mad. It’s because pundits talk about it as if it’s something more precious than life itself. Same with the market. Or capital. I like my political talk to start and end with living beings and their rights to live, work, and die with dignity.

Ok, ok, I’m also intimidated by economic talk - even with university courses in macro and microeconomics under my belt. It’s been a long road to realizing that my lack of confidence isn’t just my own personal failing, but this feeling is rooted in the way that economic theory is purposefully held outside the reach of ordinary people. We are led to believe that the economy is a precious stone that can only be handled by a few experts.

My friends and I have been trying to talk through the big news from Wall Street this week on the proposed (and now failed) government-led bailout of the US economy. None of us feel capable to explain it, or understand it. How can anyone even think about allocating $700 billion to the very crooks who created this whole mess?

Lucky me, my union local gave me a free ticket to go see Naomi Klein talk about her new book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism last night. This post is mostly a synopsis of her talk, which is also available as an audio file, if I manage to get you intrigued.
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The fall is always a busy time for me (and Shameless) but I never seem to learn and always end up with a bad case of “too many deadlines” burnout. Today I really needed to get back to basics and have a quiet moment with a gender-bending super-hero. Here it is, my end-of-day lift. Whose music do you spend time with when it gets to be too much?

Thanks to poet Evie Christie for unknowingly picking me up.

I’m excited to share with you TWO events happening on October 7th where strong women from my community will be speaking on what strong woman-ness and Indigenous feminism (the first!) means to them.

Aboriginal Women Today: Revealing the Impacts of Colonization and Reclaiming Identities

The speaker, Dr. Cyndy Baskin, is of Mi’kmaq and Irish descent, and is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at Ryerson University. Dr. Baskin will be talking about how Aboriginal women have been negatively affected by the historical process of colonization and its current impacts based on their race and sex.

Today, despite these ongoing impacts, Aboriginal women are taking the lead in reclaiming their identities, creating social justice movements and holistically healing themselves, their families and their communities.

When: Tuesday, October 7th 2008
Time: 5:30 - 7 p.m.
Where: CAMH Russell Street Site, 33 Russell Street, 2nd Floor Meeting Centre, Room 2029

Towards a Global Feminism

Lee Maracle, of Salish and Cree ancestry, a member of the Stó:lõ Nation, was born in North Vancouver, B.C. in 1950. She is the mother of four and grandmother of four and was one of the first Aboriginal people to be published in the early 1970s.

The author of a number of critically acclaimed literary works including: Sojourner’s and Sundogs, Ravensong, Bobbi Lee, Daughters Are Forever, Will’s Garden, Bent Box, I Am Woman, she is also the co-editor of a number of anthologies including the award winning publication, My Home As I Remember. She is a co-author of Telling It: Women and Language Across Culture. Lee is widely published in anthologies and scholarly journals worldwide.

When: Tuesday, October 7th 2008
Time: 7pm
Where: Room 5-260, OISE/UFT (252 Bloor St. West)

From Daily Kos:

Muslim Children Gassed at Dayton Mosque After “Obsession” DVD Hits Ohio

On Friday, September 26, the end of a week in which thousands of copies of Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West — the fear-mongering, anti-Muslim documentary being distributed by the millions in swing states via DVDs inserted in major newspapers and through the U.S. mail — were distributed by mail in Ohio, a “chemical irritant” was sprayed through a window of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, where 300 people were gathered for a Ramadan prayer service. The room that the chemical was sprayed into was the room where babies and children were being kept while their mothers were engaged in prayers.

Recently I’ve heard a lot of talk about how the deaths and abuse of women and children of colour are not taken as seriously as the deaths and abuse of white women and children.

Why We Want Our Kids Back Too
From Racialicious:

There were no crush of grief counselors when our 11 year olds got shot by strays or on purpose. There were no pundits filling column space and air time when our girls got raped or became pregnant too soon. And when our children came up missing… when our children came up missing…I saw enough missing and dead black kids coming up that it taught me something about black folks, or at least the way black folks are perceived:

Black children are disposable expectations.

Justice Delayed, Denied, Disgraceful
From TransGriot

It seems that no matter where we live or what decade we’re talking about, when the justice system concerns transwomen of color, justice is delayed, denied, and disgraceful.

The argument - that the media and the public in general respond more when a white woman suffers - used to give me some pause. While I know, for example, that the numbers of missing and murdered Aboriginal women is collosal, the numbers of women in general who experience violence in Canada are just as shocking:

Half of Canadian women (51%) have experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence since the age of 16; Every minute of every day, a Canadian woman or child is being sexually assaulted; One to two women are murdered by a current or former partner each week in Canada. (Source: Canadian Women’s Foundation).

But if racism is not a factor when it comes to reporting acts of violence against women and children, why are there virtually no stories in major North American media about last Friday’s attack on Muslim babies and children?

If you have a blog, if you are a journalist, if you just have a lot of friends on your email contact list - write about this. It is completely abhorrent to me that almost no one, so far, is talking about this. Let’s prove to ourselves that our society is not as horrifyingly racist as it appears to be today.

Hat tip to Muslimah Media Watch

I’ve loved Vancouver-based Kinnie Starr since she emerged on the music scene in 1995, so I was more than happy to hear that she’s put her fantastic songwriting talents to the page with a new book titled How I Learned to Run (House of Parlance Media):

From Kinnie Starr, an incredibly talented artist deemed “edgy” and “enchanting” by The New Yorker, comes a beautifully rendered – and oft-times haunting – collection of poetry. These are poems that evoke and provoke and sing and scream. Kinnie has mastered the art of making words live and breathe. Her words are not soon forgotten.

You can check out some sample poems from the September 2008 release here, and catch some of Starr’s musical talent below.

I will not add anything to Pike’s awesome post on Take Back the Night this year, except to say again that women united will never be divided!

If you were ever a previous attendee, or maybe thinking of becoming a new one, we need you there with us each and every year, and there just isn’t too many times you can go. Because, let’s face it, violence against women affects us all, and we need to remember those who cannot physically be with us, but who are trying to take back their night, in their own way, on their own terms, every day.

Some photos from this year’s event to inspire YOU to keep Taking It Back!

Markings of what we stand for were written everywhere we marched

Taking it to the streets

Standing in solidarity with my sisters as as a proud Indigenous feminist

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Wow, there were so many women and transwomen at Take Back the Night last night here in Toronto. Women sang a capella of freedom, told their herstories in multiple languages, gave testimony of their rape or experience of genocide, shared success stories of ending violence in their lives, read out their frustrations with feminist movements, talked of creative collaborations on the amazing giant puppet that accompanied us, and kids held lanterns high. My bum was cold. But my spirit was warm.

I haven’t been to Take Back the Night since I moved to Toronto four years ago, and all my experiences of this important event came from a small university town where the local women’s shelter headed up the event mostly by memorializing the women killed by domestic violence. While of course I think it is important to remember our dead, I don’t think that Take Back the Night is that time. It always felt like a seriously muted understatement to quietly do our little memorial in a dark park. None of that in Toronto! Just being a part of a group of women come together in the spirit of resistance and survival - hell, not survival, but to flourish - was mind bending, especially since I’ve been hiding away for many months writing my Masters’ thesis. It was a great way to come back out into my community of allies, and I got to come with a friend who had never been to Take Back the Night before. It was hard to yell that oh-so-quiet word RAPE out loud walking down Queen Street West, but when we started chanting “Hey mister mister keep your hands off my sister!” it felt so good to have words this time when so many other times I didn’t.

If you missed it and you’re craving some serious kick-ass women community, on October 2, there is a march and rally happening to support women without status who flee violence.
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Shameless magazine, issue 12

The new issue of Shameless is here! It’s packed with great stories, including:

Things we didn’t learn this summer: Monique Woolnough reflects on her years at camp and asks why the lessons about Native culture are so wrong

Abby Blinch teaches us how to build a better bonfire

Nicole Cohen watches the credits on Hollywood blockbusters and wonders who the writers are

Kate Bornstein talks about why we need more gender outlaws

Saintsierra Leonty shares what it’s like to live without residency status

The Parkdale Street Writers show us their stuff

Zahra Rasul gives us a history lesson about a controversial fashion accessory

plus: decode your political personality in our first Shameless quiz! (Why should bad women’s magazines have all the fun?)

If you’re in Toronto this weekend, make sure to come grab a copy at Word on the Street. If you’re outside the city, look for issues on a newsstand near you or subscribe online.

Check out this interview with Shameless Magazine Editor Megan Griffith-Greene over at the Pages Books & Magazines:

Well, in our last issue, we had a story about nipple hair, a bind-your-own-book craft project, a feature on student loans, a piece on Canada’s first university women’s cricket team and a story about seal-flipper pie. I think there are many reasons why we’re unique, but that lineup is one of them. Popular opinion holds that all teen girls are shallow, apathetic, consumeristic and immature. We beg to differ. And we’re fun.