Women on Waves, the amazing Dutch abortion activism group, has hit a snag, but isn’t letting that stop them. We wrote about WOW in the last issue: the group captains a ship called Harmony, which drops anchor in international waters off the coast of countries where abortion is illegal, and gives women access to safe, medical abortion. In doing so, they have been successful at getting reproductive rights back on the public agenda (and Portugal, where Harmony was met by warships four years ago, finally legalized abortion last year).

After dealing with bureaucratic mess where the ship lost its Dutch license, Harmony was back on the water, headed this time to Ecuador, where the World Health Organization estimates that 95,000 illegal and dangerous abortions take place every year. Unsafe abortion leads to 30,000 hospitalizations and is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality in Ecuador.

Unfortunately, the ship ran aground in a tropical storm. But they’re not letting that stop them. (more inside…)

I’m very excited to announce that our own blogger Cate Simpson has taken over as web editor of the Shameless blog!

Last January, Cate left her native Edinburgh, philosophy degree in hand, to take over Toronto as a freelance journalist.

Now, in addition to blogging for us on everything from trends in queer rights cases in the U.S. to Grand Theft Auto, Cate writes for Xtra and Torontoist.

She’s completely shameless, and really, really nice. We are totally lucky to have her on the team.

Welcome, Cate!

The Shameless launch party is tomorrow! Come by and grab the new issue, silkscreen your own Shameless gear, win tons of raffle prizes and more!

We’ll have great performances by Lisa Bozikovic, Emma McKenna and DJ Winnie.

Our raffle prize list has seriously gotten out of hand. Here is our list of terrific donors and sponsors:

Good for Her
Groundwood Books
Vintagelove
SK Clothes
Sugarfire Jewellery
Bad Dog Theatre
A Heart Apart
Grapefruit Moon Café
Margie Jewellery Studio
Ariella Meinhard, Acupuncturist and Massage
Worn Magazine
Briarpatch Magazine
Make/Shift Magazine
THIS Magazine
Shaimaa (www.craftabulous.etsy.com)
Shelly Hering
Nicole Cohen
Thea Lim
Myna Wallin
Tightrope Books
Anarres Natural Health Practitioners
Repeating Pig Press

So make sure to come by — March 15 from 1-4 at the Gladstone Hotel. And make sure to say hello!

Yours Shamelessly,

Megan and the Shameless Team

We’re thrilled to be nominated for FOUR Canadian F-Word Blog awards:

Best Canadian Feminist Blog
Best Entertainment Blog
Best Group Blog
The Support Bro: Best support by a male

The first round of voting continues today and tomorrow, so please swing on over and lend us your support. While you’re there, check out some of the other amazing sites that have been nominated.

UPDATE: Sorry, I missed Wesley’s category earlier. He snagged two nominations for this award, congrats, Wesley!

The Guerrilla Girls take on the problems of Hollywood. (gurerrillagirls.com)

A few weeks ago, filmmaker Erin Laing sent me an e-mail about the lack of attention female directors have been getting by mainstream bloggers. What pissed her off, specifically, was Filmshowing’s list Why 2008 Will be an Awesome Year for Movies. Fifty-four films, and not a one made by a woman. (You can read Erin’s own blog about the list here).

Other most-anticipated lists are not very different. Slash Film’s list of 55 must-see films does include one woman: Mira Nair’s film Shantaram, set for release this fall. At least The Times’ list of 50 biggest movies of 2008 includes a whopping three pictures: Persepolis, 27 Dresses and Mamma Mia!)

Clearly, the criteria used to make these lists are, well, pretty subjective. (I know I can’t wait until the April release of Repo! The Genetic Opera!, a paranoid apocalypic musical starring Paris Hilton [no, not really].)

(more inside…)

Enchanted, the new Disney kid-flick, is being sold as a kind of post-modern fairy tale, inverting the stereotypes that Disney has helped construct about femininity. Sound progressive? Well, it’s still more enchanted than empowered.

The first scene paints a familiar Disney picture. Our classic heroine is singing to the forest creatures in her living room and dressing a dummy like Prince Charming so that all the animals can recognize her one true love. Her waist is the size of her neck, her eyes are wide and doe-like, and she’s pluck and perky as she trills about dreams and true love and her perfect prince.

One can’t help but picture the scene in YouTube parody: how completely insane-o, desperate and sad such a scene would seem un-animated. Which is, as it turns out, exactly where this is headed: into live action (and into parody). (more inside…)

Shameless publisher and tireless blogger Stacey May Fowles is about to launch her very first novel, Be Good.

Be Good, the debut novel by Stacey May Fowles

Here’s a description of Be Good:

Be Good interweaves competing accounts in the first person of the same series of events: love affairs, failed relationships, obsessions, and moving from familiarity. The faulty nature of memory and recollection are revealed as each voice speaks only from personal experience and therefore ultimately contradicts the other. The experiences of these twenty something characters are often their first taste of departure from the familiar, from home, revealing their ongoing alienation and isolation where the only reliable narrator is the future.

And here are the details about the party. Hope to see you there!

Wednesday, November 14th, 7:30 PM
Revival
783 College Street West @ Shaw
Toronto, Ontario

Featuring a performance by Tomboyfriend and DJ Ashley Olsen, and a reading by Dayle Furlong.

Congratulations, Stacey May!

Compare and contrast: Dove wants us to feel good about ourselves, and the Body Shop wants us to help fight sex trafficking.

The Body Shop has partnered with the Helen Bamber Foundation to spread the word about the reality of sex trafficking. There have been a series of interactive installations on the topic in London, and the web video is the latest addition to the campaign. Starring Emma Thompson, the video tells a first person account of sex traffic from the visual viewpoint of the john (watch the video here - warning: it’s graphic and disturbing).

The Helen Bamber Foundation is a human rights group based in the U.K., working on both the legal and psychological fronts of sex traffic. The Body Shop is helping raise money, disseminate the video, and get people to sign petitions to delay the deportation of women arrested when sex traffic rings break up.

I’m curious what other people think of this.

If you’re in Toronto, make sure to come by Canzine on Sunday and support independent publishing!

If you haven’t been before, Canzine is an independent press extravaganza with more than 150 zines from across Canada. The event runs from 1 to 7 p.m. at the Gladstone Hotel (here are directions to the event). Admission is only $5.

And besides stocking up on zines, comics (and, of course, issues of Shameless), there are great events happening all day throughout the building. Here are some details from the Broken Pencil website:

Featuring Ghost Stories at the Canzine Camp Fire, all day Indie Horror Videos, and our Cheap Thrills Special Effects exhibit. Also: Canzine Gorefest! Take the Canzine workshop on do-it-yourself gore, then ham up your fake black eye, bloody lip and severed hand at our “Cheap Thrills Special Effects Exhibit”. Plus: All day indie horror movies in the Canzine screening room.
(more inside…)