I have to admit lately I feel *very* ambivalent when I see everyday activities turned into political statements. One minute you’re shopping for some new undies at Zellers, the next, reading the 3 pack of bamboo bikini cuts that says “Protecting your earth” and thinking, “Is this true - does covering my derriere with bamboo instead of cotton really make a difference?”

The trendier social politics becomes, the harder it is to discern genuine change from marketing rhetoric. The more we consume, the more we use consumption to define our politics, saying things like, “I stopped buying Nikes in 2000 because of their labor practice”. As social marketing evolves, it attempts to define consumer politics so we don’t have to make the effort. So when going out to buy diapers the consumer doesn’t just have to decide if absorbency and convenience trump ecological responsibility, they also have to read, “A dollar from every package of Huggies sold helps educate a child in India!”

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Image from Drawn: In the Studio with Jillian Tamaki (Jillian Tamaki)

According to today’s Globe and Mail, Skim, one of my favorite comics of the year is up for Governor General’s award. Exciting and wonderful as that is, there is a problem in that the book’s text-author Mariko Tamaki was nominated in the text category, but not the book’s other author and illustrator Jillian Tamaki.

The independent comics community has rallied in support of the Tamakis, writing an open letter to the Governor General, which explains that text, image and authorship are not so easily separated in the world of comics, and asking for the inclusion of Jillian as illustrator on the Tamaki ticket. Names in support of the Tamaki’s include Art Speigelman, Chris Ware, Lynda Barry, Julie Doucet, Michel Rabagliati and Adrian Tomine.

Of course the GG’s office, not being very quick on its feet, has said it is too late in the process to change the nomination. So, I would humbly suggest that the Governor General’s awards committee take the time to read and enjoy: Understanding Comics, a book that bills itself as “a comic book about comics”. In it, author Scott McCloud lays out the framework and method that makes comics work as they do, and why comics are not the same as a book with illustrations.

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I am a Victim of H8 is a Facebook photo album created by Gary Shay. Each of the images is of the same slogan, and the idea is that people should tag the images with the names of everyone they know who is negatively affected by Prop 8. Presumably this includes self-tagging.

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It’s true, “GenderAnalyzer” told me so.

I even took a pic of the form results so there is proof. Next time anyone accuses Shameless of being say… a harpies nest of left-wing feminist reactionaries, we can easily fire back with “yeah but we write like men, so whatever, talk to the pen!”

Shameless writes like a boy. Who knew. (Miriam Verburg)

Apparently I also write like a man, or pick manly topics, or use manly sentence structures, or have a masculine vocabulary? Who really knows (sigh). From a quick scroll of the last few entry topics on Shameless we’ve written posts on:

• The US election(4)


• Masturbation(1)


• Halloween(1)


• Abortion(1)


• Fairies vs. Princess (1) ahem - ever so manly


• Sci Fi and Occult TV shows

Oddly both Feministing, and Blogher, were correctly attributed to the ladiezzz. So the theory that this weeks emphasis on politics may have gotten us onto the other team fails, as a quick glance reveals that those two US-based blogs are even more heavily weighted with political content.

(And yes of course it’s silly that ‘political’ writing is considered more masculine, I don’t make the stereotypes I just write about them.)

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According to this Boing-Boing post

Researchers from the U. of Florida found that men who believe in what they call ‘traditional roles for women’ (a woman’s place is in the home, employing wives leads to more juvenile delinquency, etc.) earn more money than men who don’t. The same is not true for women.

notabene: I think by ‘employing wives’ the author does not mean ‘I’m a gonna go out there and hire me a wife’, they mean, ‘women who are married also having gainful employment’.

That’s right. Feminist ladies, you should be making more money then your traditional-minded counterparts, and if you’re not you are (still) not working hard enough. Dudes, drop that copy of the Feminine Mystique and start wearing Old Spice as if your life depended on it - or else you will be poor.

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About a month ago, I stopped taking the pill after about 2 years. September hit me like a ton of bricks and I just had so much on the go that I forgot to go and pick up my renewal. When it got to the point that would have to skip a month anyways, I decided to take a hormone vacation and see what happened.

Well, let me tell anyone who has been taking the pill long enough to have no clear memory of pre-pill time. It is groovalicious to go off the pill.

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Good morning to all you Saturday surfers :). Today I’d like to bring some attention to this troubling article from yesterday’s Globe and Mail - Faceless no more: Social networking comes with a price.

The basic premise is one we are familiar with: “Young Canadians share too much information online and they don’t understand the risks involved - or care about their privacy.”

“During a two month-long investigation, The Globe and Mail tracked more than a dozen Canadians through their open social networking profiles, and used freely available web tools to build detailed profiles of each individual user.”

This not just a speculative moral panic, the Globe actually went and stalked some young Canadians, all in the name of privacy? Whatever sells your paper, right?

The real problem however is not the data-mining (although as far as I am concerned that’s pretty creepy), it’s how the gender of the youth providing the data is framed. Let’s call it the “the naive sex kitten” versus “wild party animal” bias.

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From the National Center for lesbian Rights: Community Mourns The Loss of Beloved Civil Rights Leader Del Martin, 87.

Del Martin was instrumental in many civil rights struggles, from the founding of the first social group for lesbians, “Daughters of Bilitis”, in 1955 to her wedding two months ago to long-time partner Phyllis Lyon.

Photo Courtesy of the SFChronicle

For more photos visit: Lesbian rights pioneer Del Martin dies at 87
(SF Chronicle)

I think it is crucial to remember as we honor Del’s rich and wonderful life, that whether you identify as queer or not, the work these women did as Lesbian activists is of massive importance.

For more images visit the Sf Chronicle article photo page (Photo by Noah Berger)

Del and Phyllis struggled to live as they chose, and to be the people they wanted to be. They fought for the right to love one another as a matter of public record and without shame at a time when having rights related to intimacy and love was hardly even considered a feasible point of discussion for anyone, let alone members of North America’s nascent gay community.

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Christie Blatchford has an interesting piece in today’s Globe and Mail about the tendency for female athletes to appear in magazines, and sometimes on the cover, nekked. Or at least, naked but for a carefully placed volleyball.

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