All posts written by Teresa Chun-Wen Cheng

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• • Body Politics
  • Race and Racism

  Rape culture, not specific ethnicities, cultivates shame

  July 26, 2009 • Teresa Chun-Wen Cheng

  An eight year-old Liberian refugee girl was raped by a group of four boys in Arizona, just a little under two weeks ago. According to the Phoenix police, the four boys, ages nine to 14, lured the girl with chewing gum into a shed by a vacant apartment unit, where they restrained her and took turns sexually assaulting her. Charges have been filed against the boys, with the oldest boy being tried as an adult.

  Oddly, the media and public outcry isn’t around the actual crime and the socio-economic factors that may have contributed to the horrific incident. Instead, what many are outraged about is how the girl’s family has disowned her for the shame she has brought onto the family. There is no doubt that the incident was awful and demands justice and healing for the girl, but what is going on here?! As expected, there are many racist comments on the “backwardness” of “these people” and how they need to be reminded that the United States is a “civilized” society. Let’s try to remember that cultivation of shame around rape also exists in our own backyards. How many times have girls and women been told that they shouldn’t have worn that outfit or that they shouldn’t have looked at that person that way? How many times have girls and women been told they were lying about their assaults? All of this suggest that rape is at the fault of the victims and they ought to be ashamed of themselves. Shame around rape is not specific to ethnicities. The end.

  Media networks, the Phoenix police and child welfare organizations have received many phone calls and emails from concerned citizens who “want to help.” Many want to help by giving money and others…want to adopt. The idea of a young girl who has recently undergone serious trauma, coupled with the fact that she was forced out of her homeland due to violence, being snatched up by some good Samaritans is horrifying. Need I remind these do-gooders that adoption might not be in the best interest of the young refugee girl? Let us not forget the plethora of problems with adoption, specifically transnationally and transracially. Clearly, at this point, the girl needs to be temporarily looked after and cared for, but that’s a different story.

  We know nothing about the relationships within the girl’s family. Neither do we know the factors that contributed to the family disowning her. What I do know is that the general public does not take into consideration the nuances behind such an incident and are very quick to jump to racist, “well-intentioned” conclusions.

• • Event Listings

  Sex Workers Vs. The Media film screening tonight!

  July 15, 2009 • Teresa Chun-Wen Cheng

  Sex Workers Vs. The Media
  Short films by sex workers from Canada and abroad about the media

  Wednesday July 15, 7 pm screening
  The 519 Community Centre, main floor
  Tickets $8-12 sliding scale, available at the door
  Free for sex workers

  Wheelchair accessible

  The drug addicted sex worker on the street, the high class escort, the
  trafficked Thai woman…

  The media is always telling stories about sex workers—but what do sex workers think about the media? More and more sex workers both in Canada and abroad are creating media that reflects the realities, joys, complexities, humour and pathos of this incredibly diverse industry—and rejecting or satirizing the stereotypes we’re abundantly familiar with. Come here the stories sex workers flip the lens to reflect on themselves and the media itself.

  This evening of short films from the US, Cambodia, India and Canada includes the Canadian premiere of In Our Image, a short documentary about the making of the sex worker run $pread magazine. These screenings will be followed by an audience discussion moderated by Kara Gillies, sex worker, activist and organizer of nearly 20 years.

  Organizer: Juliet November; Sponsors: $pread Magazine, Good For Her, Maggie’s; Curatorial assistance: San Francisco Sex Worker Film, Art and Music festival

• • Miscellaneous

  Mariah in drag? Yes, please.

  July 14, 2009 • Teresa Chun-Wen Cheng

  

  Mariah Carey’s newest single has been leaked! Not only that, but the video as well! The best part is that Mariah is in drag.

  While I am incredibly excited for my favourite mainstream diva to be performing in drag, it is a little concerning that she is pretty much dressed like Eminem. When will this epic battle of Mariah Carey/Nick Canon versus Eminem come to an end? This very public dual has reached a new level, which actually makes for interesting analysis around Mariah’s identity as a diva and a mixed race woman. Women who know what they want are often brushed off as catty, revengeful divas. To add to that, Mariah is a mixed race woman and women of colour have long had to live with stereotypes of themselves as dangerous and evil. But that’s another post.

  For now, let’s just oogle Mariah, international songstress babe, in drag.

• • Arts
  • Race and Racism

  Paintings depicting Vancouver’s missing women

  June 25, 2009 • Teresa Chun-Wen Cheng

  

  Pamela Masik working on The Forgotten, a portrait series of Vancouver's missing women.

  Vancouver-based artist, Pamela Masik, has unveiled the first painting in a series of portraits depicting the missing women of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The series, entitled The Forgotten, includes a total of 69 paintings, each standing at 8 by 10 feet or 8 by 12 feet. Many of the “missing women” of the downtown eastside were indigenous, poor and working the streets. As well, many of these cases not only remain unresolved but were never taken seriously by officials.

  The style in which Masik paints is violent and aggressive. She uses fast brush strokes and giant sweeps across the canvas, which fits and reflects both the pain that exists in indigenous communities as well as the pain she herself feels.

  Masik has completed nearly 60 of the paintings and hopes to exhibit the entire series by 2011.

  I actually found out about Masik’s work through The Globe and Mail. The title of video clip was “Vancouver artist paints missing women.” I clicked on the link and was annoyed to find that The Globe and Mail never actually named the artist, only refering to Masik as “a Vancouver artist” (while the video clip did). Readers should be able to have easy access to information like the artist’s name, which could empower them to do further research and education. Without having watched the video, I would have just had to google something like “vancouver artists painting missing women.”

• • Media Savvy
  • Race and Racism

  Extra, extra! Strong women of colour TV characters exist!

  June 5, 2009 • Teresa Chun-Wen Cheng

  

  Claire Huxtable in <i>The Cosby Show</i>

  Jezebel, a popular Gawker blog that features “celebrity, sex, fashion for women,” recently published a blog post on “20 Feminist TV Characters.”

  Tracie, the author of the post, was quick to point out that “unfortunately, all of [the characters] — including the animated ones — are Caucasian.” Her list included characters such as Maude Findlay of Maude (which I’m actually quite curious about and would love to get my hands on…), Lisa Simpson of The Simpsons, Roseanne Connor of Roseanne and Miranda Hobbes of Sex and The City.

  As a woman of colour, I found Tracie’s disclaimer to be insincere. She profiled characters who “more openly flew their feminist flags…[speaking] openly about being feminists or feminism.” Isn’t the answer to Tracie’s so-called difficulty with coming up with female characters of colour obvious? She was explicitly looking for feminist characters, disregarding the fact that some women of colour, while embodying all sorts of politics and values that can be found in what some of us know as “feminism,” may not identify with this Western notion. What many of us know as feminism in North America has had a long and painful history of exclusion and oppression, specifically by heralding gender inequality as the prime form of oppression that all women should gearing their energy towards.

  (more inside…)

• • Body Politics

  Attempt to redefine beauty falls short

  May 15, 2009 • Teresa Chun-Wen Cheng

  

  I just stumbled across the National Organization for Women Foundation’s Love Your Body 2009 poster campaign. And I was especially disappointed and miffed with one of the results.

  The poster campaign’s goal is to “challenge the media’s use of violent, drug-addicted, starved, surgically-enhanced images of women and to fight against industries that profit from women’s dissatisfaction with their bodies.” Contestants from all countries are invited to submit poster entries that “demonstrate beauty is not limited by body size, body type, ethnicity, age or physical appearance” (umm, too bad the website is entirely in English, which severely inhibits potential participants from non-English speaking countries). So, this poster was the 2009 winner of the university/college category.

  Ummm, come on. Really? The entire concept of this poster is based on the problematic “female washroom” symbol. All of the women are wearing dresses as if that was what was normal. This is so dangerous, especially when the campaign is about beauty. I am surprised that the organizers chose something that so essentalizes what it means to be a woman for their national campaign. I love dresses, but not all women do, nor should they be made to feel like they should.

  Also, the colours of the women are a little funny. How come the women are strange shades of purples and aquas? Using non-skin colours seems to just be a nice way of brushing the racialization of beauty under the rug. I, for one, am not forgetting the fact that skin tone and all its accompanying implications is still a very real and determining factor in the way a person is treated, whether it be in sex work or the modeling industry. The idea of race is erased by the callous use of fun and bright colours. Women of colour exist! We must be represented, especially in campaigns of positive self-image and empowerment.

  There are definitely other problems and potential discussions surrounding the poster (including representation of disability and problems with representation in general), but to show that I’m not a total party pooper, I will say that I quite liked the grand prize winning poster. Simple and poignant message. Aesthetically appealing and effective. Ultimately, I can apply this message to myself. See? I don’t and won’t always just critique the crap out of everything. I can do fuzzy and warm feelings too.
  

• • All About Shameless

  Hi, Shameless!

  April 30, 2009 • Teresa Chun-Wen Cheng

  Hello, Shameless readers!

  My name is Teresa and this is my first of, hopefully, many blog posts to come. I am a queer Chinese/Taiwanese daughter, sister and friend (relationship titles that I really value). I’ve spent half of my life living in Taiwan and the other half in Canada. I spend the daytime working at the Toronto Women’s Bookstore, one of the largest feminist bookstores in North America. During my off-time, I am usually obsessively reading various blogs, with at least 12 browser windows open at once. When I’m not doing that, I spend my time making zines, journaling and writing down family stories.

  My interests include fashion/style/trends, representation of race in pop culture, and urban and public space. I will be centering most of my posts around these issues.

  And just as a fun random fact about myself, one of my earliest feminist and anti-racist influences was The Baby-sitter’s Club series by Ann M. Martin (and by “earliest,” I’m talkin’ when I was nine or ten years old). There was something about a group of girls my age, coming together to “do it for themselves” that had me hooked. They built community, empowered themselves and threw pizza parties with the profits they made. And this all came about because these girls recognized their different skills and potential and applied them to something that was bigger than themselves. And for those familiar with the series, you must remember Claudia Kishi, the kick-ass, creative, fashionable and sassy Japanese-American character. Her character traits were “unexpected” of her as an East-Asian character (stereotypical East-Asian girls as equating to quiet, obedient and excelling in school), which really appealed to me. Granted, all the babysitters had class privilege, amongst other problematic aspects of the series, but I was young and to my nine year-old self, the sitters were incredibly inspiring.

  I look forward to being a part of the blogging team!

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