Strength in unions, the great intern debate, and support for sex workers.
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All posts written by Sheila Sampath
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Are you a teen with something to say? Shameless wants to hear from you!
We are looking for opinionated female- and trans- identified youth to write for our magazine’s She Said/She Said column. No experience necessary!
Please email wire@shamelessmag.com for more information.
On November 2, 2011, Oakland went on strike. In a formidable display of solidarity and support, workers across the city united in opposition to oppressive government policies, industry exploitation and state violence.
At home in Toronto, I watched while an estimated three thousand protesters successfully forced an operational halt to the Oakland Port. I was moved when I saw local businesses shut down in solidarity and I cried when I saw hundreds of school-aged children carrying crayon-coloured “Occupy our future” placards. The messages of anger, frustration and solidarity were echoed in Occupy and Decolonize protests across the world.
When workers are able to shut a city down, we are reminded of the power of labour. In the same way that we work to support our causes, our families and ourselves, we are, everyday, supported by hundreds of fellow workers: workers in the public sector who educate us, keep us safe and keep us healthy; workers in the private sector whose labour is sewn into the clothes we wear, assembled in the computers we use and written in the books we read. Labour is embedded in every product we consume and every service we rely on.
The production and consumption of wage labour is a necessity under capitalism; a necessity made even stronger by the growing income gap and increase in privatization. However, pervasive austerity measures, the normalization of contract and precarious or unpaid work and global and migrant labour divisions make it harder than ever to earn a living with dignity and respect. These government and industry policies disproportionately affect already marginalized groups of people: the working class and poor, women and trans people, migrant peoples, (dis)abled peoples, people of colour, Indigenous peoples, and, significantly, youth. Under a system of global capitalism, these policies fuel the income gap and contribute to a cycle of deplorable workers’ rights.
We spend a lot of time working, training to work, thinking about work, looking for work and recovering from work. While work has come to shape so much of our day-to-day lives, we need to start thinking about ways of using our work to shape the world around us. While work has come to define so much of who we are, we need to start finding ways of defining the terms of the work that we do. With this issue of Shameless, our labour issue, we hope to use our work to encourage you to think critically about your work.
In this issue, we feature workers speaking about unions (p. 18), internships (p. 24) and sex workers’ rights (p. 28). We bring you stories about tree planting (p. 8), workers going green (p. 16) and young women farmers (p. 38). We help you learn your rights at work (p. 12) and consider the labour that goes into the clothes we wear (p. 40). By sharing these stories of fellow workers, we hope to facilitate a dialogue around what it means to work with dignity and respect, and to facilitate solidarity among working people that allows all of us to collectively speak up for all of our rights.
I want to take this opportunity to thank our volunteer staff, writers and artists who continue to work tirelessly bring these issues to you. Shameless is a labour of love and we hope that with it, you are able to find love in what you do.
Yours shamelessly,
sheila
sheila@shamelessmag.com
I’ve never felt disillusioned by the role or the intent of the Canadian government. That’s because I’ve never believed it works in my best interests, or in the best interests of most people I know. Still, from the time I turned 18, I did my best to make it work: I voted. I worked for a major political party. And I even came a breath away from running for one myself (note: never share empanadas and dissent with a party organizer).
But those were acts of desperation. I’ve known for a very long time now that I live and work on stolen land. I know that our country exists because of the genocide of Indigenous Peoples, that Canada continues to exist because of ongoing colonization. I know the ways in which government fails Indigenous Peoples and continues to create huge disparities among settler populations along lines of race, gender, sexuality, (dis)ability, status and class. My acts of political engagement within the system come from a belief that I can be empowered to make a change, and that any change has got to be an improvement on what we’ve got.
For those of us who engage with party politics, this past year has been particularly exhausting. Shameless HQ is in Toronto, and 2010–11 brought us three disappointing elections. Now, in the name of austerity, we face threats to social services, the arts and economic and food security — things that make up the social fabric of a society. It hurts.
When things get this bad, I am especially grateful for other kinds of political engagement. I came into my current life via community organizing, crisis counselling and by exploring the intersection between art and radical politics. I am grateful for community: for groups like the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/Multi-cultural Women Against Rape, who have organized 31 years of Take Back the Night, for those who took to the streets during the G20 in Toronto last year, and for those who identify with the 99% and continue to resist as I write this. I am also grateful for Shameless.
Shameless has become a community to me: a community within itself, and a community that extends beyond the amorphous walls of “Shameless HQ.” When Jack Layton passed away and I needed someone to talk to, there was a Shameless editor equipped with sushi and insight there for me. When the experience of reading Feminism for Real totally rocked my understanding of what it means to identify as a feminist, there was a group of editors, writers and bloggers around to take that journey with me (stay tuned for our very first Shameless Book Club podcast). And, when we as an editorial staff struggled with the enormity of putting out a “politics” issue, there was Erin Konsmo (Métis/Cree Indigenous feminist artist and change maker), who provided invaluable support and guidance that saw this process through. I am grateful for Shameless because this community provides us with ways of moving beyond desperate acts of political engagement and empowers ourselves to produce the kind of media that we want in an effort to create the kind of world that we want.
As a reader, you are a part of this community, too. The most basic building block of dissent is dialogue, and we hope to promote that with every issue. As you flip through the pages, read about Indigenous Sovereignty (p. 18), question the system that we’ve got (p. 23) and challenge what Canada is doing abroad (p. 29, and check out the feature online here). When you’re done, I invite you to join the community that’s become so important to me: write to us, continue the conversation and empower us to produce the kind of media you want, to create the kind of world that you want.
Yours shamelessly,
sheila
sheila@shamelessmag.com
Issue 18: Spring 2011.
This March marked the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day. To honour the occasion, The Globe and Mail’s Margaret Wente got her hate on and wrote a scathing letter to Canadian feminists. The message: it’s 2011 and feminism is irrelevant. Get over it!
Shameless blogger Emma Woolley fought back. On our newly re-launched and fresh-faced blog, she brought forth the kind of sass that does us proud — the smart, articulate kind — the kind that takes a pretty bogus argument and challenges it, point-by-point, until the only thing you can possibly do after reading it is take to the streets, rally, march and celebrate the 100th International Women’s Day with more gumption than ever.
This year is Shameless’s seventh anniversary, and my fifth year with the organization. Admittedly, it hasn’t always been easy. Working for an independent magazine means a lot of deadlines and responsibilities. It means barrages of emails and lots of long days and late nights. But I re-discovered, after reading Wente’s article and Woolley’s response, that words are powerful. They have the ability to anger and to inspire. The words that we write, edit and publish here at Shameless have that potential as well. And, navigating that potential and doing my part to keep Shameless alive has grown to become my own act of feminist resistance.
The power of words, the power of language: that’s what this issue is all about. In it, we learn the meaning of the word stud (see “Sexy. Sef-Assured. Stud,” p. 28), and question the true meaning of justice (see “Justice for Girls Makes the Case,” p. 24). And we explore the ways in which we use language to resist (See “The ABCs of Words: An Activist’s Toolkit,” p. 18), reclaim (see “What is a Bitch,” by Shameless Wire grads, p. 10) and reflect (See “This is About Having an Accent,” p. 48). With that, I leave you to eagerly await this issue, these words and this feminist act.
Yours shamelessly,
sheila
Shameless magazine, Canada’s independent, feminist voice for young women and trans youth, is hiring a features editor. Are you devoted to grassroots publishing? Do you have a commitment to anti-oppression and inclusive feminist politics? Do you have some time to volunteer and a vision for Shameless? Then we need you.
We are looking for a smart, sassy, shameless person to work as our new features editor.
Job description:
• Works with the editorial team to plan and assign the feature well
• Assigns stories to writers and works directly with writers to shape stories
• Edits stories
• Occasionally represents the website and/or the magazine at events such as Canzine and Word on the Street
The ideal candidate will:
• Have an understanding of and commitment to Shameless’s mandate
• Have excellent writing and editing skills
• Be super organized and an excellent communicator
• Have lots of story ideas (contacts with writers is a plus)
• Be available for regular editorial meetings
• Work well with a team
We are looking for people who work well collaboratively, who have a good sense of Shameless’s editorial vision, who are committed to anti-racist feminist politics, who have editorial experience, and who are excellent communicators and work well over email (Shameless has no office).
All positions are part-time, requiring 5-10 hours per week, depending on the production cycle of the magazine. Most people who work on the magazine do so outside of regular business hours, and meetings will likely be held during evenings and weekends.
Like all roles on this volunteer-run magazine, these positions are unpaid. (If you have ideas for how we can change that, then please get in touch!)
We strongly encourage applications from women of colour and First Nations women and those with experience with anti-racist feminist politics and/or anti-racist feminist organizations. Preference will be given to residents of the Greater Toronto Area to facilitate face-to-face meetings with magazine staff.
Please email a resume, a cover letter containing your ideas for the magazine/website, and three writing samples (published or unpublished) to volunteer@shamelessmag.com. The deadline for applications is Monday, March 14, 2011. We’ll contact you if we’d like to set up an interview.
Earlier this year, we released a new mandate and, with it, we sent out a call: we are Shameless, and we are putting together a team of people devoted to grassroots publishing, each with a commitment to antioppression and inclusive feminist politics; each with time, vision and a desire to work many (many) hours to bring this unapologetic alternative magazine to young women and trans youth. Three times a year.
Admittedly, it was a tall order. In all honesty we expected, at most, a handful of applicants; we anticipated having to extend the call or combine roles to cope with a poor response. Instead, we got tons of amazing, talented feminists with great politics, awe-inspiring experience and boundless energy, all wanting to work together to take what we as an organization have built over the last six years to a new level.
In a couple of weeks, our new Shameless will be hitting the stands, and I couldn’t be happier. From concept to completion, the issue is a reflection of the voices and politics of our new staff. In it, we explore the relationship between pop and politics, the history of body-shaping under-things and the unfair ways in which young women are targeted in public awareness campaigns about sexting. We reunite with our old friends from the Miss G_ Project, and make new friends with Linda Manzer and Maylee Todd. We introduce three new columns to the magazine: green scene (exploring environmental issues), she said/she said (a face-off between two teens taking opposite sides of a debate)and a comic by our dear friend and long-time contributor, Coco Riot.
This is the new Shameless. Welcome.
(trccmwar.ca)
This Friday marks the 30th anniversary of the Annual Take Back the Night rally and march in Toronto.
Take Back the Night is about women and trans people reclaiming our streets and bringing visibility and public awareness to the impact of sexual and gender-based violence in our communities. Our stories include those of personal and domestic violence, institutional, and political violence. They come together, once a year, to take over the streets and to create new narratives of survivorship, strength and sisterhood.
This year’s theme, “30 Years of Struggle, Resistance, Liberation” is a reminder both of how far we’ve come in the last thirty years, and how much more we have left to go. We’ve seen a movement from second- to third- to no-wave and radical feminism, as we still work to create multiple definitions of the f-word that truly reflect the diversity of our experiences and oppressions. We’ve seen huge strides in sexual assault legislation in Canada*, yet we still see survivors of sexual assault re-victimized by our justice system. We’ve seen December 6th. We continue to see missing Aboriginal women, sexual bullying in the classroom, stranger rape on our campuses. Day after day, we are sadly reminded of why Take Back the Night, after thirty years, is still relevant.
Tomorrow, women and trans people in Toronto will have the opportunity to reflect back on the last thirty years of struggle, resistance and liberation and lay the groundwork for the next thirty years. We will take over the streets, and remind our aggressors, both personal and political, that as long as these forms of violence exist, we will not be silent. We will take up space, take over the streets and we will fight back.
The Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/Multi-cultural Women Against Rape Presents:
Take Back the Night, 2010: 30 Years of Struggle, Resistance, Liberation
Friday October 21st, 2010 at Yonge & Dundas Square in Toronto
Community Fair: 4pm – 8pm
Community Organizations will provide information tables and resources to share with the public.
Town Cry: 4pm – 8pm
Includes discussion, solidarity greetings and voices from the communited. Hosted by the Parkdale Anti-Violence Education Working Group.
Rally: 4pm – 8pm
Speakers, performances and other presentations will take place on the Yonge-Dundas Square stage.
March: 8pm – 9:30pm
The march will start and end at yonge-Dundas Square. Marshalls will provide security and guide marchers on the undisclosed route. The march is for women and trans-people and children only.
After Party: 9:30pm – 11pm
With DJ Jola and DJ Zahra at Yonge-Dundas Square
Take Back the Night is wheelchair accessible. Free childcare and ASL interpretation will be provided. For more information, visit http://tbtn30.weebly.com/ and follow @trccmwar on twitter #tbtn30.
*(eg. the introduction of Bill C-127 which first defined spousal rape as a crime, chipped away at some of the gender-biased conditions of the existing legislation and tried to improve the way in which survivors were treated after reporting an act of sexual violence; new rape-shield legislation in 1991, which provided guidelines about whether a survivor’s sexual activity could be admitted in court, and further defined the meaning of ‘consent’ in the eyes of the law)
Note: I’ll be doing a follow-up blog entry with reflections from this year’s TBTN. If you’re a teen attending for the first time, and are interested in being interviewed for our blog, please email sheila[at]shamelessmag.com.
When I joined Team Shameless as art director in 2006, I couldn’t have predicted the impact the magazine would have on my life. Shameless gave me more than an opportunity to flex my design muscles: I became part of an amazing community of inspiring feminists, each with stories to tell and endless energy with which to tell them. That’s just one of the reasons that I was excited to step into my new, additional role as editorial director at Shameless.
Watching our organization grow over the years has been nothing short of amazing, and I’m looking forward to even more exciting projects and experiences ahead.
Since our last issue, we’ve drafted a new mandate, welcomed some new editors to our staff, brought in a new web team (with a site overhaul in the works) and restructured the way we work to better reflect the anti-oppressive values at our core (stay tuned for ways you can get involved). In the midst of this, we also assembled an interim staff of truly shameless women, who, in addition to their roles as board members, writers, educators and editors, took on the extra work of putting together what I think is a fantastic fall issue, currently on the presses. Once you get a hold of it, be sure to check out our masthead and send them a little “thank you” for their dedication, hard work and that endless energy I mentioned earlier.
This coming issue (expected to arrive mid-September) is the first of many that will strive toward our new vision. In it, we bring you a chorus of bicycle bells, the voices of our sisters at AQSAzine and options for life beyond high school. We explore rape culture, the intersection of race and feminism and the etymology of the word “cougar”. And, to tide you over until the winter, we give you the tools you need to surf the web in style, make a mean eggplant lasagna and fly a kite. Be sure to take advantage of our subscription sale before the month’s end, and I hope that you enjoy our fall issue as much as we’ve enjoyed putting it together for you.
Yours shamelessly,
sheila
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