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.

Another topic on the horizon of teen pregnancy: soon-to-be moms at Colorado high school ask for four weeks of maternity leave.

Pregnant students in a Denver high school are asking for at least four weeks of maternity leave so they can heal, bond with their newborns and not be penalized with unexcused absences…

Teen mothers face a challenging future, with many dropping out. A third of teen moms receive their high-school diplomas and 1.5 percent get college degrees before they turn 30, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.

I’m all for this. If we accept that pregnant women have a right to maternity leave, then shouldn’t we accept that pregnant girls do as well?

One of the arguments against allowing teen moms four weeks off school following birth is that such a policy will encourage teen pregnancy. But why is it that any type of harm reduction program is always painted as encouraging “deviant behaviour”?

While those four weeks will make the beginning of motherhood easier, to say that it encourages teen pregnancy is to say that it neutralises all the other difficult things about young motherhood - so much so that motherhood becomes attractive for girls who weren’t otherwise considering it. Now that’s just plain silly. And insulting! It’s not as if teenage girls are a bunch of bubble heads who make lifelong decisions on the basis of a paltry four weeks.

What harm reduction does is accept what our reality is (in Denver the reality is that of every 1,000 girls ages 15 to 17, 54.5 will become pregnant in the city), and tries to roll with it. That’s way better than attempting to prohibition-style force people into making socially acceptable choices, instead of the choice they know is best for themselves. And forcing people to do what’s “proper” never works anyhow.

If you read this website at all regularly, you’ve probably heard me moan about how marginalised groups fighting for their rights rarely seem to recognise their commonality. Whether it’s feminists having trouble reconciling with anti-racists, or green anarchists distancing themselves from anti-ableism activists, the whole thing gives me the weepies. Wouldn’t things go much faster if we all recognised how ultimately linked all of our causes - like feminism, queer rights, indigenous rights, racial equity, anti-poverty efforts, ability activism - are linked, and then work together? Instead, what seems to happen more often than not is a competition to see who has it worse. I tell you, it’s enough to tire a girl out.

One thing in particular that’s always stuck in my craw is the green movement’s tendency towards racism (or at least racial obliviousness) and classism. While feminism and environmentalism have managed to make the happy marriage of ecofeminism, anti-racism movements and environmental movements haven’t always gotten along.

That’s why I was thrilled to find out about Black.Brown.Green., “a web portal of resources and information that integrate people of color and our needs and issues with the movement for environmental sustainability.” As they say most eloquently:

We hope to spread the understanding that all things are connected and that we are stronger when working together than we are when we are tearing each other apart.

I love this site. Where else would you find the 12 Principles of Permaculture integrated with Malcolm X? Excellent! Incidentally Black.Brown.Green was started by damali ayo, who also created the hilarious (and useful) I Can Fix It! guides for ending racism.

What do I mean when I say that the environmental movement can be racist or classist? (more inside…)

From the Toronto Star:

A Brampton church has removed a sexually suggestive message from a sign in front of its building after a complaint from the public…

A church official said they were unaware the sign would offend anyone.

Last week we had a really interesting discussion on the topic of oppression olympics - i.e. when one marginalised group vies for prize of “we have the hardest time!” over all others - following Stacey May’s post on the rough time Hillary Clinton is having with her campaign.

In turns out we’re not the only ones noting how easily “Obama VS Clinton For President Elect” can turn into “Black Men VS White Women for Most Oppressed.” Famed 2nd-wave feminist Gloria Steinem wrote a piece for the New York Times last week called Women Are Never Front-Runners. In it, she invents a fictional female version of Barack Obama for the purpose of arguing that “gender is probably the most restricting force in American life”, saying that the sex barrier is not taken as seriously as the racial one.

I tell you, it hurts me when old time feminist heroes express ideas that to me, feel darn counter-productive - and that in addition, reinforce stereotypes that feminism is just for middle-class white ladies. It’s hard for me to understand why Steinem feels it necessary to use Clinton’s troubles as a springboard to say that women have it the worst. I don’t understand how this argument is useful, or for that matter even true.

Jennifer Fang for the blog Reappropriate (which I found through Racialicious) dissected Steinem’s stance most excellently, saying in her post Pitting Race Against Gender that:

How can one compare racism to sexism – and if one tries, where do those of us who are disadvantaged both by our race and by our gender fit in?…In truth, the juxtaposition is disingenuous, divisive, overly simplistic, and ultimately harmful, because it redirects our attention away from efforts to break the White male patriarchy that excludes all the Others, but towards in-fighting where we all compete to see both who’s more oppressed, and who will make it out of that “Oppression Box” first.

Fang goes on to say this, which maybe gets to the heart of why I find oppression olympics so exhausting, silly and sometimes hurtful:

(more inside…)

We’re a little bit late on this topic: in November of last year, the sex worker’s organisation British Columbia Coalition of Experiential Women put in a proposal to open a “co-op” or legal brothel in Vancouver. The hope is that such a space will provide a safer working environment for sex workers when the city receives thousands of visitors for the 2010 Olympics. Interestingly some Vancouver politicians, including Mayor Sam Sullivan, are in support of the proposal.

Obviously this proposal has generated a great deal of controversy - but most notably from groups like X-PALSS (Ex-Prostitutes Against Legislated Sexual Servitude) and the Aboriginal Women’s Action Network.

X-PALSS has released a statement saying:

…We believe that no amount of changing the conditions or the locations in which we were prostituted could ever have significantly reduced that harm. We experience the normalizing of that harm by calling it “work” insulting at best…It matters very little to us whether we were prostituted on the streets or in the tolerated indoor venues and escort agencies of Vancouver…We oppose any measure that would put more power in the hands of the men who abused us by telling them that they are legally entitled to do so. This proposal does not speak for us, would not have affected our level of safety in a way that matters, and would not have spared us the harm that is inherent in prostitution.

The Aborginal Women’s Network says in a similar statement:

We have a long, multi-generational history of colonization, marginalization, and displacement from our Homelands, and rampant abuses that has forced many of our sisters into prostitution…The Aboriginal Women’s Action Network opposes the legalization of prostitution, and any state regulation of prostitution that entrenches Aboriginal women and children in the so-called “sex trade.” We hold that legalizing prostitution in Vancouver will not make it safer for those prostituted, but will merely increase their numbers…[legalizing prostitution] would only serve to make prostitution safer and more profitable for the men who exploit and harm prostituted women and children.

(more inside…)

A Public Forum with Thomas P. Smith, Chairman of the Board and Co-Founder, TASER International, Inc.

Hosted by The Toronto Police Services Board

Date: Thursday January 17, 2008
Time: 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM
Place: Toronto Police Headquarters
40 College Street
Auditorium
Toronto ON

Recent events have raised questions about the proper use, effects and desirability of the TASER as a tool for policing. This is your opportunity to hear directly from the Chairman of TASER International and to have your questions answered by him.

Space is limited.

For further information, please call 416-808-8080.

He was right for her. She was his one and only.

Here’s a funny story from the CBC: Harlequin of the Harlequin romance novels have created new imprints to appeal to (female) readers of African and (East?) Asian descent:

Publishing houses across North American are creating new lines of romances aimed at people of Asian and African descent, according to Brian Miller, a Seattle journalist who follows the market for romance novels.

While that may sound like disgusting targeted marketing, Miller makes this excellent point about how people of colour have been traditionally left out of romance novels, or at least rarely seen as protagonists:

“So much of romance has been English and set in the past, whereas people of colour were the great other across the waves,” he told CBC cultural affairs show Q.

Damn right we should all have equal rights to trashy romance novels!

Does anyone know of romance novels that appeal to queer women?