Announcing the first event in the Media Action Presents series:

Beauty (Mis)Represented:
What’s the matter with airbrushing advertisements?

Is photo-manipulation in advertising benign and irrelevant, or damaging and indefensible? Join Media Action Média (formerly known as MediaWatch) in its first public discussion as we debate the issue from all sides.

Featuring:
Shari Graydon (author, activist and Media Action Média member)
Stacey May Fowles (publisher of Shameless Magazine and author of Be Good)
Tonika Morgan (community activist and member of the Medina Collective)
Ivan Pols (Associate Creative Director, Ogilvy & Mather)

* Thursday, March 5 * 7:30-9 p.m. * Room 5-280 * Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (252 Bloor St W) * Free *

In Partnership with The Centre for Women’s Studies in Education and Shameless Magazine

Every Thursday I profile a new incredible woman, each from a different walk of life. Different professions, causes, backgrounds, ethnicities, orientations, and anything/everything else!

So without further delay, let me introduce the fantastic Wendy Donnan…

As VP of Original Programming and Acquisitions for OUTtv, “Canada’s Premier gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender television network”, Wendy Donnan is responsible for bringing the best of Canadian and international LGBT lifestyle and general entertainment shows to our teletubes. Handling a line-up that includes shows like Sugar Rush, Bump!, Curl Girls, Queer as Folk, and Chris and John to the rescue, Wendy takes time to tell us why not accepting mediocrity and striving to be the best person you can be can change the world.

(more inside…)

Jennifer Cowan’s debut novel, due to be released in April, follows the journey of sixteen year old Sabine, aka “Bean”, aka “earthgirl“, from her status as a regular kid hanging out with her “grrlz” to her realization of a new, eco-warrior identity. Spurred to action by the wayward and messy leftovers of a Chicken McNugget meal thrown out the window of an SUV and all over her hoodie, Sabine declares immediate and all-encompassing war on the uberconsumerist society which she has until this moment accepted without much question.

Sounds like a fun premise. The execution, sadly, leaves a bit to be desired.

(more inside…)

Continuing with this week’s theme of Shameless people doing awesome things, I’m incredibly excited for the launch of Tuval Dinner‘s new blog, masc!

masc is an alternative magazine for guys that aims to be a positive space for men to explore how masculinity affects their lives, examine stereotypes and talk about gender, sexuality and health. The first few posts are up already.

It’s maybe a little odd to promote a magazine for men on the website of a magazine for girls and young women, but in many ways masc is committed to the same feminist goals as Shameless.

(more inside…)

This weekend I talked to Jill Filipovic, one of the contributors to Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Power & A World Without Rape, about her essay “Offensive Feminism: the conservative gender norms that perpetuate rape culture, and how feminists can fight back.” The interview was part of the Yes Means Yes virtual tour, which - to name a few - has stopped at Feministing, The F-Word, Our Bodies Our Blog, Bitch Ph.D. (see the full list here).

Jill is a blogger for Feministe, one of the web’s first feminist blogs, as well as a journalist and recent graduate of New York University’s law school.

Tell me about the book and how it came together.

It was Jaclyn [Friedman] and Jessica [Valenti]’s brainchild. There were a lot of conversations across online feminist communities about how we discuss rape and sexual assault, and a lot of the long-standing issues came to a head when there was this article by Liz Funk called “Underage Women Sidle up to Barroom Risks”, that claimed by going out drinking or engaging a certain way with men that women are putting themselves at risk for rape.

It put the onus on women to avoid being raped and this is something we’re used to seeing in the media generally but this was published in Women’s e-News which is a feminist publication, and that was sort of unnerving for a lot of us. So Jaclyn and Jessica wrote an article on Women’s e-News in response, and there was a lot of good online discussion and they got the idea to put all of that discussion in one place an turn it into a book.

(more inside…)

The cover of Inio Asano’s new manga, Solanin, caught my eye—this band-aid faced, toque wearing, worried looking girl. What’s her deal?

Solanin follows Meiko, a young Tokyo woman who feels like she might not be making the most of her life. Meiko takes a look at her savings account and realises she can survive for a few months without an income. She quits her boring office job without any real plans, just the excitement of knowing she won’t have to work every day.

Meanwhile, her boyfriend Taneda is getting his old band, Ratti, back together, and thinking about quitting his day job too. They live like this for a while—Taneda writing new songs, and recording a demo, and Meiko spending her days in that bored/blissful state of unemployment, mostly playing video games and meeting friends for coffee.

And then, (spoiler alert!) I’m going to tell you what happens because I feel like this is where Solanin gets good.
(more inside…)

Michael Muhammad Knight’s The Taqwacores Arrives In Canada!

This Is Not A Reading Series celebrates Freedom To Read Week with the Canadian premiere of Michael Muhammad Knight’s controversial novel about the Muslim-punk movement, The Taqwacores (Soft Skull Press).

Montreal filmmaker Omar Majeed is currently working on Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam, a feature documentary about the real-life bands who were inspired by Knight’s fictional creation. Majeed and Knight will show footage and discuss the politics of the Muslim-punk scene. Knight will then have an extended Q & A session with the audience, to be included in the documentary-in-progress. – A This Is Not A Reading Series Event presented by Pages Books & Magazines, Publishers Group Canada, Eyesteel Films, EYE WEEKLY, Gladstone Hotel and Take Five On CIUT.

Gladstone Hotel Melody Bar, 1214 Queen Street West, Toronto
Tues Feb 24; 7:30pm (Doors 7pm) $5 (Free With Book Purchase)

(more inside…)

Congratulations to Shameless Magazine‘s own Jessica Yee who is the 2009 YWCA young woman of distinction!

photo credit: Michael T Photography and Design Inc

“Jessica Yee is fearless in her audacity as an organizer, educator, writer, facilitator, and activist. At 23 she has already spent almost half of her life committed to promoting and supporting youth, through feminist and aboriginal activism and has created numerous platforms to channel these movements. Jessica Yee is the 2009 YWCA Young Woman of Distinction.”

Click here to read more about Jessica’s amazing work and why she so rightly deserves this recognition.

You’re awesome, Jessica! We’re lucky to have you on the team!

Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Power & A World Without Rape is on tour right now. Edited by Jaclyn Friedman and Feministing‘s Jessica Valenti (who Shameless interviewed last year), Yes Means Yes includes an essay by Shameless publisher Stacey May Fowles, as well as some other familiar names from the feminist blogosphere (Feministing’s Samhita Mukhopadhyay, Racialicious‘ Latoya Peterson, and Feministe‘s Jill Filipovic).

I talked to Jill Filipovic last night about her essay, “Offensive Feminism: the conservative gender norms that perpetuate rape culture, and how feminists can fight back”.

Check back tomorrow for the Q&A!