All blog posts published in May 2009 - Shameless Magazine - your daily dose of fresh feminism for girls and trans youth

All posts published in May 2009

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- Shameless Women
Aliya-Jasmine Sovani: Hanging with Rockstars and Helping Others at MTV Canada

May 7, 2009 • Desirée O

Every other 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 awesome Aliya-Jasmine Sovani…

Interviewing the famous and reporting on the music biz is all part of the job for Aliya-Jasmine Sovani. Volunteering to teach English and social skills to Afghan children who have recently arrived in the country is also an integral part of the MTV News and MTV2 Videos host’s life. If this wasn’t enough, Aliya-Jasmine also has an impressive list of credentials including interning at Fashion Television, working part-time as a cable-wrangler for Star! TV, acting as a field producer and host for BPM: TV, as well as a producer for MuchMusic’s MuchOnDemand, traveling across Canada as the tour correspondent for MuchMusic’s VJ Search.

Also involved in an initiative between MTV and Plan Canada, Aliya-Jasmine recently traveled to Sudan to look at the issue of young girls being forced into marriage, which was documented and made into the documentary Girls of Latitude.

Aliya-Jasmine tells us why we should never under estimate the power of conversation and why Superman doesn’t have to be the only hero!

(more inside…)
- Media Savvy
- On The Job
‘High Maintenance’ is the New Ambitious?

May 7, 2009 • Mir Verburg

I am not usually one to write on politics, but this headline, “Scandal sidelines ‘high-maintenance’ Liberal MP’” isn’t so much about politics either.

Ruby Dhalla is the first female Sikh MP in Canada, a high profile member of the Liberal Party, and the critic for youth and multiculturalism. At least the article mentions that.

There have been other women and other Sikhs in parliament, just never one who might describe herself in an online personal as “SSF,” because guess what? She’s not married either. Amazingly, the article doesn’t mention Ms Dhalla’s age. Amazing because pretty much every other aspect of her personality, looks, and behavior is put under the microscope.

(more inside…)
- Comics are for Everybody
Out of Birch Control

May 5, 2009 • Tiina Johns

An old lady with an invisible house. A crust punk who discovers a water nymph. A traveling musician who has to build a magical artifact before he can marry a woman he’s never met. These brilliantly strange and beautiful stories all appear in the new issue of Laura Kenins’s immensely engaging Birch Control #2.

Whether Kenins’s comics are based on a Finnish epic, or they involve teenagers walking around, being snotty, Ghost World-style, they all feel like folk tales. They slip in and out of unreality with ease, and even the most fantastic moments are familiar and honest.
(more inside…)
- Playlist
Just In Time For My High School Reunion

May 4, 2009 • Diandra Jurkic-Walls

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I can’t even begin to contain my excitement about the No Doubt reunion tour of 2009. I am unable to participate on all fronts due to working and defending my thesis this summer, but I can relish in the onslaught of YouTube’d live performances and as-seen-on-TV specials, such as this first one from Friday’s Today Show.

Often, hearing about my favourite band from Grade 7 going on tour makes me feel old, but this one makes me feel like a teenager again. And from this day forward I commit to cramming my summer full of being outside, wearing mis-matched clothes that claim my independence from the pseudo-corporate “casual business attire” world, and dying my hair from bubble gum pink to a platinum blonde.
- Event Listings
Youth Week 2009!

May 1, 2009 • Cate Simpson

Today is the first day of Youth Week 2009, a festival of youth community engagement and creativity run by Youth Action Network in Toronto.

This year’s theme is Art & Activism, and it kicks off tonight with Three Dollars an Hour - a night of radical music, poetry, burlesque and performances by the Asian Arts Freedom School and Zameen Shadbad, hosted by the Asian Arts Freedom School and Mayworks. Also tonight is the opening of Grounded - an exhibition of socially reflective artworks and performances by young people which runs till May 6, and unContact, a photography exhibition charting the evolution of Toronto graffiti culture.

Check out the Youth Action Network’s website for a full schedule of events in Toronto and beyond. The festival runs from May 1-8.
- DIY
The Big Embroidery Scandal of 2009

May 1, 2009 • Diandra Jurkic-Walls

Similar Space Girls much? (www.dinosaursandrobots.com)

The interwebs are ablaze with activity and anger about a recent embroidery showdown. Some crafters are claiming there’s been a copyright infringement of Sublime Stitching original designs created by Jenny Hart. The perpetrator? Urban Threads.

To date no official comment has been released on either of Hart’s websites, but an incredible amount of data is being batted back and forth online. Without going into too much detail (you can find blogging here, here, here, and here) it saddens me that this kind of widespread artistic infringement happens in the indie craft world. I mean, Urban Outfitters has been accused of similar in the past, repeatedly, but you kinda hope that last time is really the last time.

To add fuel to the fire, Urban Threads has provided a rebuttal for the entire online craft world to dissect and discount as well as a letter from the big cheese meant for Jenny but published on the Urban Threads website for the whole world to see.

(more inside…)