Yippee it’s the end of the year! To celebrate, Shameless is going to take a wee holiday. We’ll be back in the new year, and until then please enjoy our top ten viewed posts of the year. Who doesn’t love a retrospective, even if some of these only made it into the top ten because of various references to female body parts…

Have a Shameless New Year!!

10) March 16: Nipples on a billboard in Toronto

The first time I saw one of these ads, I actually got off my bike to stare at the ad to make sure that what I was seeing was truly, ahem, nipple, and not just a dirt smudge or my imagination.

9) February 5: Fight Back (part II)

This post is a follow-up on one idea: that women can’t win fights with men. As with the last post (and really, as with any post), what is written below is based on what I have experienced and read…the three-pronged reply to “women can’t win fights with men”:
* A pound of muscle is a pound of muscle, regardless of who it’s attached to;
* Women are stronger than they think; and
* Strength alone doesn’t win a fight.

8) September 14: A Nice Surprise - Cosmogirl tackles the gender spectrum

…buried in the back [of the October issue of CosmoGirl], on page 149 there’s a thoughtful, insightful and in some ways, revolutionary piece written by Jessica DuLong, called The Gender Spectrum. In the piece, DuLong takes a sensitive and informative approach to transexual, transgender and genderqueer teens…

7) August 15: Female Ejaculation - Yet to Be Studied Systematically

…female ejaculation is an especially “hot potato” topic. I could put in links below to all the studies which say female ejaculation is urinary incontinence or that the G-Spot doesn’t exist, and then I could follow it with a matching number of links demonstrating that the G-Spot absolutely does exist, that women do ejaculate, and then follow that again by a whole whack of studies by people who just can’t decide.

6) February 26: Bluenotes Pulls T-Shirts

T-shirts emblazoned with the words ‘No means have aNOther drink’ are no longer being sold in Bluenotes stores nationwide…

5) January 11: Political Tragedy is the New Black

They’re called keffiyehs, or shemagh scarves, and while they originate in the Arab world, in recent years they have come to represent identification with the Palestinian side of the long and bloody conflict between Palestine and Israel over territory…but how did keffiyehs go from meaning “Intifada!” (i.e. “I’m for Palestine!”) to “I’m extremely fashionable and I’m probably going to a really cool party on Saturday night?”

4) September 6: Shameless in the Skies

A Southwest Airlines employee recently attempted to throw 23 year-old Kyla Ebbert off a flight to Tucson because she was “dressed inappropriately.”

3) March 14: Barbie Loves Mac

MAC, a Canadian company primarily famed for it’s gender-bending and drag-queen friendly take on high glam cosmetics, has recruited none other than our favourite antifeminist icon, Barbie, to sell its wares…

2) September 7: Facebook Defines Breast Feeding as Obscene

Facebook has began taking down pictures of women breastfeeding their children and in some cases, even banning users for putting the photos up in the first place. The claim is that such imagery is “obscene content.”

1) October 4: Wes Anderson - The Ultimate Heartbreaker

But the fact that the only role that people of colour can have in his movies are as sexual fantasies, sidekicks or deeply insulting cartoons suggests that, consciously or subconsciously, Anderson doesn’t think that much of real life people of colour. And between you and me, I’m not sure mine and Wes’ friendship can withstand that.

When I woke up on Monday last week and heard on the radio that a 16 year-old Muslim girl in Mississauga had been strangled by her father and was not expected to live, I thought Please, don’t let her die.

I thought this for the very obvious reason that Aqsa Parvez’s eventual death is a tragic thing. But I also dreaded the storm of reports demonising Islam and blaming Parvez’s death on her family’s faith. I dreaded the fact that this already awful event could easily be turned into an excuse to be racist and xenophobic.

And yup, as the web editor of the only Canadian feminist magazine for teenage girls and women, I knew we were going to have to say something - to say nothing would be wrong. And I also knew I didn’t know what to say.

How do we recognise without a single disclaimer, how terrible and saddening it is that Parvez is dead, and that women everywhere face this kind of violence from their closest family members in their daily lives - without falling into the easy racist traps that feminism has fallen into so many times before: when we demonise cultures where apparently women don’t have it as good as we do in white, middle class, educated, urban North America?

From the CBC to Salon.com, the internet has been rife with criticisms of feminists who’ve kept quiet about Parvez. Natasha Fatah writing for the CBC is particularly angry, saying women’s advocacy groups “have played mute” on Parvez’s death, asking:

Are we going to allow cultural relativism to be the scapegoat for abuse and murder in this country?

Fatah also asks of Muslim clerics:

Why are they so afraid of acknowledging that obsession with a religious ritual may have been a factor [in Parvez’s death]? It is because they fear their own culpability in this horrible tragedy.

I would argue however, that seeing violence against women as a systemic problem is a stumbling block not limited to the Muslim community.

(more inside…)

Holy Smokes! If like me you have days where you doubt the ability of The People to make a difference, here’s an excellent example from the CBC:

Paralyzed refugee claimant Laibar Singh can stay in Canada for the time being after more than 1,000 people protested his scheduled deportation at Vancouver International Airport’s departures terminal Monday morning, blocking traffic and causing delays.
…
Singh initially sought refugee status in 2003 on the grounds that he would be persecuted by police in Punjab, where officials have accused him of links to separatist militants, but his refugee claim was denied that year.

His appeals to stay in Canada were turned down by immigration officials, who ruled Singh couldn’t remain because he doesn’t have adequate community ties.

Harsha Walia, of No One Is Illegal, said that finding is outrageous, based on the support the community has already shown for him.

Walia said 40,000 people have signed a petition urging Ottawa to allow Singh to stay in the country on humanitarian grounds.

This is the third time Singh has avoided deportation.

For more on No One Is Illegal Vancouver and Laibar Singh: http://noii-van.resist.ca/

Because Fridays have become a fine excuse to post things that we love, which are only sorta kinda about feminism, can I present my new favourite song? I love this so much I could vomit.

Either as super way to congratulate yourself if you had the best week ever, or in a shocking act of defiant optimism if you had a disgusting week, ditch your fashionable cynicism and come sing along with Mary after the jump:

(more inside…)

Ooo, retro!

Seems like a good week for women in Hollywood to speak out against sexism: first Katherine Heigl and now Jennifer Love Hewitt.

On her blog, in response to some allegedly unflattering photos of her that were posted on the internet, Hewitt (or is it Love Hewitt?) said:

I’ve sat by in silence for a long time now about the way women’s bodies are constantly scrutinized. To set the record straight, I’m not upset for me, but for all of the girls out there that are struggling with their body image.

A size 2 is not fat! Nor will it ever be. And being a size 0 doesn’t make you beautiful…

I know what I look like, and so do my friends and family. And like all women out there should, I love my body.

To all girls with butts, boobs, hips and a waist, put on a bikini — put it on and stay strong.

I thought it was particularly nice that she says she’s upset on behalf of all of us. Go sisterhood!

Now, when is Britney going to tell the media off?

Research. It always gets you into trouble. This review was supposed to say “Empowering! Feminist! Realism! Actually Tough Women of Colour!”. But then I did a little googling, (damn you google!) and now I’m confused.

The movie Bandit Queen is based on the story of the real life Phoolan Devi. In the 80’s in India, Devi led groups of bandits to pillage high caste villages for money. She was notorious and fearsome, and this was a big, shocking, deal - not only was she a woman, she was a low caste woman.

A kind of Robin Hood with a gender twist: at 11 Devi was married to a 30-something man who raped and mistreated her. As an adult she found him and stabbed him in front of his village, as a warning for old men who marry young girls.

Devi was always described to me as a hero for poor people and women. Separate from who she actually was, Devi became a legend and a symbol of the one woman who just wasn’t going to take it anymore. She was tough shit! She was brutalised, pushed around and dehumanised by patriarchal culture (more on that later) - but she actually pushed back!

So a movie about the life of this feminist hero - ok, the violence she committed makes her a problematic feminist hero - would definitely be a feminist movie wouldn’t you say? Well, this is where the confusion kicks in.

What I liked most about this movie was how it is such an unflinching, unsentimental portrayal of life for women in a patriarchal culture. The violence against women in Bandit Queen is essentially constant and blatant (I didn’t say it was a fun movie to watch), but that amazed me. Because the movie seems to be saying, look, it’s not just that some men are bad apples, and it’s not just that women will experience gender violence once in their lives. It’s that under a patriarchal system the threat of violence and the incidence of violence against women is constant and total.

For example, often “rapists” and “wife beaters” in North American cinema are portrayed as dirty, creepy, foul-smelling and poor. The men who assualt Devi in Bandit Queen however, are just regular, average men. This seemed to say to me that, it’s not just lower income men who don’t wash their shirts who are capable of violence, it’s all men who’ve been socialised by rampant sexism.

BUT, that’s exactly the problem with Bandit Queen: the constant gender violence. (more inside…)

I’m a little late on this celebrity gossip:

Actress Sarah Michelle Gellar has changed her famous three-part moniker as a fifth wedding anniversary present to actor Freddie Prinze Jr. The couple was wed September 1, 2002.

A source close to the 30-year-old star tells Us Weekly,”She officially changed her name to Sarah Michelle Prinze” in honor of the occasion.

“On their anniversary, she showed [Freddie] her new driver’s license,” the source tells Us. “It was so sweet.”

I thought it was interesting that Gellar/Prinze made the decision to change her name so late after the fact. I wonder if it has something to do with the state of feminism in this here post-9/11 context - you know, the return to domesticity and traditional gender roles, yadda yadda…

I have noticed (and this could just be me) that more and more women I know are taking their (male) spouses’ names. My co-workers at the feminist organisation I work for, who are life-partnered and a few years older than me, tell me that ten years ago, no one was changing their name.

The whole question of name-changing is pretty much old hat - in the end, I support a women’s right to do whatever the heck she wants with her name. I should admit though, that I was a little demoralised to see the poll published just below the Gellar-to-Prinze news flash:

Do you think women should change their names for their husbands?
Yes 72% (4285 votes)
No 28% (1677 votes)

This forum and information fair organised by Canadians for Choice sounds great:

Join Canadians for Choice for an in-depth forum and information fair on how diversity influences access to sexual health services:

Through the Eyes of Diversity: Reproductive and Sexual Health in Canada

Time: 1pm
When: Saturday, 24 November 2007 (1:00 - 5:00 p.m.)
Where: Medical Sciences Building of UofT, ROOM 2158
1 King’s College Circle Toronto ON
Contact: Canadians for Choice
tel: 613-789-9958
info@canadiansforchoice.ca

Admission is free
Pre-register: info@canadiansforchoice.ca
Light refreshments will be served during the health break

Door Prizes: Come As You Are, Good For Her, and Toronto Women’s Bookstore

Featuring:
Judy Rebick
MorningStar River Singers and Eddy Robinson
Arsham Parsi, IRanian Queer Organization
Voices of Positive Women
Jessica Shaw, Canadians for Choice
Linda Roy, The Anne Johnston Health Station
Lisa Middleton, Canadian Youth for Choice
Jessica Yee (moderator) Canadians for Choice

Information booths from:
Come As You Are
Planned Parenthood of Toronto
Black Queer Youth Initiative
UofT Sexual Education and Peer Counselling Centre
YWCA
Toronto Women’s Bookstore
Maggie’s Toronto Prostitutes Community
Project
Global Aware

And more!

Do Shakira’s hips lie? I’m confused.

A Friday Funny (though this could also fall under the category of a Friday Cry-y): Women sway their hips the most when they’re least fertile, according to Queen’s University study.

Scientists at Queen’s are apparently blowing the minds of current zoology, claiming that women, contrary to a popular belief, make themselves less, not more, attractive when they’re “fertile.”

The study got 40 women (my goodness! 40 whole women!!) to wear clothes with special markers on them so that computers could track their movements, and then asked the women to walk up and down in a 6-metre area.

I keep on trying to come up with a clever critique of this study, but honestly I’m speechless. How and who came up with the idea for this study? Why is the degree of swayiness of my hips considered important? What is humanity supposed to do with this breakthrough information? And when are they gonna do a study on the boys, so I know when my man is most virile? Vomit!!