I just walked by a pro-choice demonstration at the University of Toronto and they provided some important facts I wanted to remind you of:

1. Only 15.9% of all general hospitals in Canada offer accessible abortion services.

2. Angus McLaren and Arlene Tigar McLaren estimate that between 4000 and 6000 Canadian women died from illegal abortions from 1926 to 1947 (McLaren 1986) and different sources have estimated that prior to 1969 there had been at least 120,000 illegal abortions performed every year (Childbirth by Choice Trust, 1998).

3. In Canadian medical schools, more class time is dedicated to the study of Viagra than to abortion procedures, pregnancy options counselling, and abortion law and policy combined.

4. Less than 2% of women choose adoption when faced with an unplanned pregnancy.

5. Every year, over 80,000 women die from complications during or after unsafe abortions. (The highest fatality rates are in Africa and Asia.)

6. In the US, death rates due to abortion fell by 85% in the five years following legalization. (Tietze, 1981)

These stats come from Canadians for Choice, Prochoice, and a CBC News backgrounder.

A screen capture from www.louloumagazine.com

Some days I like to point out when mainstream women’s magazines suck (which is often). Other days I like to be an optimist and point out when mainstream women’s magazines are doing positive things.

Today it appears to be a positive. Canadian “shopping magazine” LouLou (put out by the mega corporate Rogers Publishing) is partnering with Addition Elle to introduce a clothing line for plus-sized women that is branded with the LOULOU name:

“Collaborating with Addition Elle feels like the perfect fit,” says Marie-José Desmarais,Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of LOULOU. “Our fashion-forward plus-sized readers are always asking us for tips and shopping advice, and we feel that this collection meets their needs. LOULOU is a style-savvy shopping inspiration for women - no matter what their dress size. So at last: a fabulous, trendsetting collection designed especially for plus-sized women.”

The LouLou Limited Edition collection is “designed and developed by Addition Elle, using the fashion expertise of LouLou editors.” Also of note, LouLou has a section of their website called “14+”:

Tips and trends for the LOULOU girl who knows that sexy doesn’t stop at size 8.

So what do we think? A step in the right direction? Or just another marketing ploy?

Of course, check out our latest issue for more on size activism.

Via Canadian Magazines

Thomas Beatie, a 34 year-old Trans Man from Oregon who is carrying a child for his wife Nancy and himself, will be on Oprah today. I’m very interested to see how this story will be handled in the mainstream media. I hate to be a cynic, but my prediction is that it won’t be handled well (if the trailer is any indication,) but here’s to hopin’.

If you’re unfamiliar with Beatie’s story, The Advocate features a touching first person account here.

Our situation sparks legal, political, and social unknowns. We have only begun experiencing opposition from people who are upset by our situation. Doctors have discriminated against us, turning us away due to their religious beliefs. Health care professionals have refused to call me by a male pronoun or recognize Nancy as my wife. Receptionists have laughed at us. Friends and family have been unsupportive; most of Nancy’s family doesn’t even know I’m transgender.

I sadly will have to miss the show (but I’m going to get my Mom to tape it for me.) If anyone catches it, please post your reaction in the comments section.

Via Feministing.

Or does anyone else think it’s a bit messed up that Toronto Alternative Arts and Fashion Week‘s first-ever event is called [FAT]?

Look at the dimensions of their “alternative” models on their webpage, and you’ll see what I’m getting at.

And if you haven’t picked up our newest issue yet, we’ve got a great piece on size activism on the catwalks of the land.

Forgive the intense subject line, but this is the question that Audacia Ray had to face from mainstream media jerkos who were interviewing her on the Spitzer scandal in New York state. (It was off-air, but nonetheless off-putting.)

And why is it a nasty question? Well no sex worker wants to be called a whore, especially by some big shot who is about to control how the entire country is going to see you, your work and activism. Let’s just say there is a power differential going on, since sex workers have little to gain from public exposure and just about everything to lose.

And this same media industry also trafficks in representations of sex workers that only deal with the following images: dead hookers, exploitation, trafficking, arrests, and good girls gone bad…few of which truly give voice to the experiences of sex workers. Audacia has a great blog post on why sex workers aren’t accurately represented in the mainstream media, which she read to much acclaim at the WAM! conference session on Sex Workers and Media Representation this past weekend. I love the last line of this post.

(more inside…)

Woman told to remove nipple ring, with pliers.

Lately I’ve been getting links from co-conspirators around the blogosphere on both the fantastic and quite awful activities on the Feminist Front. And things move fast - last week I received a tip from Parents for Ethical Marketing that Procter & Gamble website BeingGirl.us had up an article that encouraged disordered eating in teen girls.

But before I could type “WHAT THE HEY YOU JERKS” into a subject line for a blog post, thanks to the efforts on the part of countless bloggers, writers and phone callers who inundated P & G, the article was removed from the US site.

So why am I blogging about this? Well, the article is still up on BeingGirl.ca, right here. Sigh.

You will note the article includes excellent suggestions like: force yourself to wait 30 minutes before you eat; write down everything you eat; and put up post-it notes around your room and locker to remind yourself not to eat, you fatty. Ok, the “you fatty” part was my own, but I can’t help but feel I was just making the implicit, explicit.

In case this doesn’t sound that bad to you, remember this information appeared unsolicited on a website targeted to girls just starting to have their periods. As in girls who are 12.

Let’s take a moment to celebrate the power of grassroots calls to action. Hooray! Clap clap! And now let’s start some grassroots action of our own: get in touch with Beinggirl.ca and ask them to get their nonsense off the Canadian site as well. Some places to start:

BeingGirl.ca Contact Us Form

Procter & Gamble Canada Contact Us Form

Responsible Shopper Profile With P&G Head Office in US Contact Info

Also check out the original call to action that started this all at the F-Word blog: it has numbers you can use to call the US office.

[And if you want to complain about some other things on this sprawling, multinational and honestly terrifying site, can I recommend that you also check out the page which reduces ALL of Africa to ten facts, mostly about giraffes and cheetahs. Also look for marketing that trains children on how to emotionally manipulate their moms into buying them deodorant.]

…or putting in a little extra.

We all know now that just about any image of a woman on a poster, ad, billboard, or album cover has been (heavily) manipulated. Smoothed and cloned and lifted and trimmed.

But it’s refreshing to know it in a tangible “look at that right there” way as opposed to a more hand-wavy ephemeral way.

To that end, I give you Photoshop Disasters.

It’s a site dedicated to posting and mocking any and all public Photoshop screw-ups. But there are so many reworked images of women to choose from that they currently make up the bulk of the posts. Women remade in the texture of rubber, moded to look like anime, or, more comically, given extra hands:

“Sir Lancelot gazed fondly into the soft blue pools of Lady Guinevere’s eyes and gently held her mutant third hand. Wait, what?”

Apologies to Ellen Page if this costs her a shot at spokeswoman for Minty-White International, but in her pre-Oscar interview with Barbara Walters it was clear that she had not succumbed to bleaching her smile. Her teeth looked good - healthy, normal - but also kind of weird for TV. The person I was with (who does not obsess over teeth as much as I do) actually pointed it out first.

We’re so used to seeing bleached teeth on screen that regular ones stand out like a wad of spinach. If you find yourself with the kind of free time necessary to start watching for this, you’ll see what I mean.

(more inside…)