I don’t know if you’ve heard but there’s a rumour in the media going around that women are to blame for the current Canadian doctor crisis - perpetuated in part by Maclean’s Magazine, the jerks! That’s right, along with the destruction the home and the pandemic of pants-wearing, feminism is now out to ruin your health!

There’s a fabulous editorial in the recent issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) that criticises this dirty rumour:

The message conveyed by much of the coverage [of the 2007 National Physician Survey] and commentary implied that female physicians simply do not work as hard as their male colleagues. These reports seem to be telling Canadians “if you’re having trouble finding a physician, a large part of the blame lies with the increasing number of female doctors in the system.”…

From Romanow and Kirby to McKendry and the George expert panel, we are all attempting to understand and address this serious issue for all Canadians. To suggest that a physician workforce that more equitably represents women in the workplace is the barrier to access is frankly a sexist excuse for logic.

Yeah! You tell ‘em, CMAJ!

What do we think of this opinion piece from The Root, found through Racialicious?

Any feminist worth the label should have “rejected and denounced” New York Governor Eliot Spitzer within an hour of his admitting his connection with an international prostitution ring. [Clinton] is a senator from New York. [Spitzer] has been one of her staunchest political allies. Now, he is engulfed in an international, illegal sex-trafficking scheme. Barack Obama had to “denounce and reject” Louis Farrakhan (with whom he has no official ties whatsoever) but Hillary can send her “best wishes and thoughts to the governor and to his family”?

Feminists do not stand by while their husbands prey sexually on the young women who work for them. Feminists do not accept the endorsement, support and financial backing of men who betray their constituents and their families by trafficking in women’s bodies…

And in other news, Heather Mallick comments on how a loss for Clinton will be a loss for all women…though it would seem then that her definition of women leaves out women of colour or anti-racist women or women who just like Obama over Clinton.

Make room in your daytimer, because we gots a new weekly feature!

Introducing Wired Wednesdays, our very own bi-weekly tech column to keep you up to date on all the gadgets, gizmos, whozits, whatzits and thingamabobs (No I did not just quote the Little Mermaid. That was your imagination.) you need to know about - though of course with a Shameless twist.

We are thrilled that Catherine has decided to take on the challenge, and plan to lavish her with comments full of teh’s and pwn’s. Please join in…and don’t forget to also pencil in Picks from Planet Venus and Film Fridays.

Sisters Doing It for Themselves: Celebrating Muslim Women Organizing

With eroding civil liberties, the war in the Afghanistan/Iraq, apartheid in Palestine, genocide in Sudan and political upheaval the world around, how are Muslim women and girls organizing and working towards building peace and justice? Sisters Doing It for Themselves: Celebrating Muslim Women Organizing will be an evening of poetry, performances, and visual art by Muslim women to discuss how our art, politics, and faith intersect with issues of gender, sexuality, race, and class.

Time: Thursday, March 6, 2008 - 6:30pm - 10:00pm
Place: Noor Cultural Centre @ 123 Wynford Drive, Toronto
Tickets: $5 - $15 (sliding scale)

Performances by: LAL, Farheen Beg, Paulina O’keefe, Asifa Sheikh, Fawzia Duale, Farzana Doctor (author of Stealing Nasreen), Bayan Khatib (author of Iraq: The Untold Tales)

Panel Discussions (from anti-islamophia to anti-imperialism to creative
resistance): Nadeen El-Kassem, Gilary Massa, Nuzhat Jafri, Laury Silvers, Rosina Kazi (LAL), Selma Alwy Visual Arts Gallery
Debkeh Workshop by Lemme Ibrahim (MOSAIC)

This event is organized & supported by: Noor Cultural Centre, Riverdale Immigrant Women’s Centre, Toronto Women’s Bookstore, Our Collective Dreams, CCMW - Canadian Council of Muslim Women

Update: Whoops, I made a mistake! The Ryerson fair starts at 1:30 pm, not 3 pm.

This weekend is International Women’s Day (IWD), huzzah! According to Wikipedia, International Women’s Day in some countries has been slightly depoliticised and turned into a day for men to show their love for women (free cuddles everyone!). But in Canada its primary purpose is still as “a major day of global celebration for the economic, political and social achievements of women.” Damn right! Though I guess we can still cuddle.

There are a gazillion events going on later on this week and into the weekend. This page here has events for Canada, you can visit the page for IWD Toronto here, and after the jump you can view all sorts of Toronto events. If ya got any, please (please please!) post info about any IWD events you know of, happening anywhere, in the comments section!

(Btw thanks to Nicole for compiling the Toronto events for us!)

IWD RALLY AND MARCH, MARCH 8

TIME: 11 a.m. (March leaves at 1 p.m.)
PLACE: OISE, 252 Bloor Street West
INFO: http://www.iwdtoronto.com/march.htm

Theme: The Rising of the Women is the Rising of us All! This year, IWD Toronto will be marking the 100th anniversary of the 1908 demonstration by immigrant women garment workers in New York City, where over 15,000 women marched through downtown New York demanding higher pay, shorter work hours, women’s voting rights and the end to child labour. This was during a time that women had little rights and marked an ongoing protest of a lack of gender equity across the globe.

Don’t forget to bring your banners and signs for the march! We’ll be
marching to…

IWD FAIR (END OF MARCH ROUTE), MARCH 8

TIME: 1:30 p.m.
PLACE: Ryerson University Student Centre, 55 Gould Street
INFO: http://www.iwdtoronto.com/fair.htm
COST: Free

The IWD Rally and March concludes with the IWD 2008 Fair hosted by Ryerson University’s Student Centre, featuring 50 exhibitors. Thousands are expected to attend the free Fair and workshops in this new student space, cafe and pub. (See link for list of Fair exhibitors and workshops.)

(more inside…)

WE ARE LOOKING FOR PEOPLE WHO… (requirements)
-are East & Southeast Asian identified & Woman identified
-have social justice seeking and anti-oppressive analyses and values
-can commit to 3-hour weekly practices on Sunday evenings (6-9pm), and
approximately 10 shows per year

**** All ages & sizes welcome ****

THESE WOULD BE ASSETS… (optional)
-Good physical stamina and fitness
-Drumming or musical experience
-Performance experience
-Experience in being part of a collective

WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN DURING THE AUDITION?
-you’ll be given some background info on RAW & North-American Taiko
tradition
-we will do some warm-up & drumming drills together
-we will provide some basic instruction
-you will be part of some creative exercises and a short performance
-we will do a short interview with you

AUDITION LOCATION & TIME:
Sunday, March 2, 6-9pm
Cabbagetown Community Arts Centre
454 Parliament St.
Toronto

WHAT IS THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS?
-> one 3-hour audition (March 2)
-> for call-backs only: two more audition sessions (March 9 and 16 - both days!)
-> for apprentices only: a one year apprenticeship (every Sunday, 6-9pm)

TO REGISTER, please send your name and contact info to:
Karen B K Chan
audition@ragingasianwomen.ca
416.568.2426

FOR FURTHER INFO on RAW, check out our website at www.RagingAsianWomen.ca

Update: Whoops! I originally posted that Raya Green was played by Vanessa Oryema. I was wrong - she’s played by Rutina Wesley. Sorry!

Ok, I’ll admit it, I kind of have a teen dance movie problem. One of my favourite movies of last year was Stomp the Yard (I will make an honest case for why I truly believe it is a passionate appeal for gender and racial equality! Also it is full of hot babes).

But while I understand why some might not quite agree that Stick It is among one of the most rousing and anti-establishment pieces of cinema of the early ‘00s, with ZERO guilty pleasure quotient I highly, heartily recommend How She Move.

In a word, what distinguishes How She Move from all the other teen dance movies that I hold dear to my heart, is how Real it is. And Realness is pretty unusual for a genre that can rarely hold itself back when it comes to fulfilling stereotypes about poor neighbourhoods, teenagers, men and women and physically impossible dance sequences.

Both the female and male characters span a broad spectrum of personalities, instead of falling into socially sanctioned roles of what it means to be a man or a woman. Or when they do fall into those roles, the motivations and reasons for why they choose to follow that path is clear - demonstrating (intentionally or not) that gender is learned rather than biological. That’s a pretty hefty topic for a movie featuring Keyshia Cole in a cameo.

(more inside…)

The Association of Ryerson Midwifery Students (ARMS) is pleased
to announce a special screening of The Business of Being Born on Monday February 11, 2008 at 730pm at Ryerson University.

Room: KHS 239 (Kerr Hall South, 40/50 Gould St. Toronto Ontario)
For map: http://www.ryerson.ca/maps/map_nf.html

Price: $2 for students, $4 for non-students (recommended) and free
for children.

50% of proceeds will go towards ARMS and 50% of proceeds will go
directly to Diversity Midwives Collective non-OHIP client support fund.

Children are welcome although please be advised that there will be no
babysitting available. Refreshments will also be sold.

For more information about the film: www.thebusinessofbeingborn.com

I found this announcement from the American organisation, the Family Violence Prevention Fund on the Women’s Health News blog:

Holes poked in a condom. Flushed pill packets. A boyfriend’s sneer that
“Depo-Provera is for sluts.” Widespread but often silenced, women’s experiences of birth control sabotage offer a prime example of how violence and abuse in intimate relationships are linked with reproductive health and rights.

This September, a groundbreaking study by Dr. Elizabeth Miller of the Center for Reducing Health Disparities revealed just how common the problem really is.

Miller found that a quarter of teenage girls with histories of abusive relationships living in poor neighborhoods in Boston reported that their abusive partners actively tried to get them pregnant by manipulating condom use, sabotaging birth control, and making explicit statements about wanting them to become pregnant.

Troubling stuff. And something that needs to be more openly dicussed — both in the women’s health community and in the wider national arena.

That’s where women like YOU enter the picture. The Family Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF) is searching in a wide variety of venues for women who are willing to share their personal experiences of birth control sabotage and other negative attempts – no matter how seemingly “small” – to control their reproductive rights.

Have you ever had to hide your pills from your boyfriend or husband? Has your intimate partner been verbally or emotionally manipulative about your birth control choices? Have you ever been pressured into an abortion or an unintended pregnancy? We want to hear your story, because we think it matters, and we believe it can make a difference to women in similar situations.

Your stories can be emailed to safewomenstories@gmail.com. If you’d like to share anonymously, let us know; if you’d prefer to take a more active role as a spokeswoman, tell us that, too. We’re eager to hear your thoughts, experiences, and ideas, and we think they’ll be a crucial part of this new effort to put a widespread and serious problem on the public’s radar screen.