QuillBlog has an interesting piece up titled “Two takes on censorship,” which briefly explores how the media interprets the censoring of books based on context. They look at two recent cases of “a small group of people imposing their values on a much larger group” that speak for themselves:

Responding to complaints by a Muslim creationist that “its contents were defamatory and blasphemous,” a Turkish court has banned Internet users from viewing Richard Dawkins’ website. Meanwhile, here in North America, Scholastic has pulled all Bratz books from its lineup, the culmination of a campaign by a Boston-based group charging that the series, designed for reluctant readers and based on a popular line of dolls, encouraged “precocious sexuality.”

What is interesting about these two news items is how they’ve been interpreted by the media:

…one case is portrayed as the victory of a small-minded zealot over freedom of speech (in The Guardian), while the other is the triumph of grassroots activism over crass commercialism (as reported by the National Post).

The most noteworthy thing about the National Post piece is that I could have easily written a post and linked to it as a victory for feminist values. The “triumph of grassroots activism” in question is exactly the kind of thing we support at Shameless:

“We’re just really thrilled and it really attests to the power of people working together to try and make change,” said campaign co-ordinator Susan Linn.

“The Bratz are a highly sexualized brand and when a brand is marketed in a school, it has that school’s endorsement. Essentially, schools were saying to their students, ‘This is a good way to portray girls, these are models that you should strive for.’ “

But who gets to decide what books get pulled and what websites get banned? Only the people I agree with? The problem with the politics of censorship is this; it’s difficult to argue against the censorship of a thing you strive to eliminate every day.

(more inside…)

I was also depressed by this morning’s sad note from Bitch. In fact, I was in the middle of drafting my own note about why saving Bitch Magazine is important, but Stacey May beat me to the punch. But I wanted to add a small note anyway about the situation from where I am sitting.

Shameless HQ is a little room in my apartment filled with back issues, mailing envelopes, letters and the piles of work which will soon materialize as a new, shiny issue. (I swear, it is on its way.) This is part of the reality of independent media: we don’t have an office; we toil away as volunteers after we come home from work and school, working on messy desks, like mine, in our own apartments. We don’t get huge cheques from advertisers and investors. Instead, we usually point out that advertisers sell most people short, especially young women.

Independent media is something we all feel quite passionate about, even if it means that Shameless will never be our full-time jobs. We stay independent because it means we can write about anything, because nobody owns us and there is no corporate board room demanding a higher profit margin. And we get to be in a community of other magazines that we think are pretty amazing - like Bitch and THIS - which a larger media empire might see as competitors. We prefer to see them as family.

We at Shameless HQ think it’s pretty important. (OK, the current staff in the Shameless HQ is me and a grumpy printer that’s running low on ink - but I think you get the picture.)

So thanks to our readers for your amazing support. If you can afford to, donate some money to Bitch (I just did). If you have some extra money, help us out by buying a subscription. The new issue is out really soon, and we’re quite determined that it will not be our last.

I felt like it was really important to post this video for a number of reasons. The obvious one is that the wonderful Bitch Magazine is more than worth saving - in fact, Bitch is not only the reason that magazines like Shameless exist, but it’s also the reason that feminists like me exist. The first issue of Bitch was published in January 1996 and the mag has acted as “a feminist response to pop culture” ever since.

We had the rare pleasure of meeting the lovely ladies of Bitch Mag last year at WAM and it really solidified for us how vital they are and how vital Bitch is as a feminist publication. We love them and we need them to carry on, so I encourage everyone with a dollar to spare to help them out. They need to raise $40,000 before October 15th or the current issue may be their last.

The other reason I wanted to post this video was because it gives you, the reader, a really good idea how hard it can be for independent feminist mags out in the world, and how much we rely on reader support to get things made and out the door (something that Megan, our editor, will be writing more about shortly.)

Bottom line: if you value having independent, alternative media, please support the mags you love as much as you can. We need (and love) you!

To make sure that this is not Bitch’s final issue, click here and help them out.

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.

(more inside…)

Witness the stellar journalism that is today’s Toronto Star analysis of Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain’s fashion sense:

Accessible style vs. expensive tastes: Designers at New York Fashion Week say they would rather dress Michelle Obama than Cindy McCain

Thank goodness that someone is writing about Cindy’s “saucy updo,” because we all know that’s vital to the political discourse.

I really should change the radio station on my alarm, because waking up to the news just makes me start my day angry.

Half-awake, I drift in and out of how the Green Party is (once again) not being included in the leaders’ debates.

Why? Because the Conservatives, Bloc and NDP threw “if she’s there I’m not going” hissy fits.

Elizabeth May fronts a party that received nearly 5% of the votes in the last election, when they received the votes of 664,068 Canadians. Canadian taxpayers finance the Green Party (political parties with more than 2% of the popular vote receive federal funding). They even had a member sitting in parliament (since BC independent Blair Wilson joined the party in 2008). A criteria that a 2006 CBC ombudsman report declared “indisputable” for inclusion in the national debate.

There’s a good rundown presented by the Green Party here. Which includes some “fun” facts on the arbitrariness of inclusion in these debates. Like how Preston Manning was included in the 1993 debate, based on Reform winning one seat in 1989. Or the Bloc getting a podium, which they’ve had since before they had a member in parliament, and before they had official party status.

If this bothers you, this is the petition set up the last time an “editorial decision” excluded the Green Party.

“Tell the network executives who control the leaders’ debates that Four Men in Dark Suits is last year’s show. The new season demands a vivid splash of Green.”

In my household we yell out the word “tricked” every time we watch a televsion ad that makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside, only to find out in the end that it’s for an SUV, a soft drink, or some equally bad corporate product that is likely contributing to the destruction of humanity. Give me a good tune and some heartwarming imagery and bam! I feel hope, joy, bliss, choked up and then total dismay that a (insert product) commercial had the power to do that to me.

This one takes the cake.

Ads plastered in subway stations and a provocative television preview (above) have alerted me to the fact that a new version of Beverly Hills 90210 is about to air. While the original show, which ran for 10 years in the 1990s, had a massive impact on television and teen culture—see, for example, the slew of academic discussion analyzing the show—I’m guessing 90210’s revival has a lot more to do with the success of recent teen drama hits The O.C. and Gossip Girl.

Which means, as the trailer for the new show suggests, that the new version of 90210 will have to be way more sexy than the original to keep up with our current lust for consumerist, celebrity-crazed, sex-saturated culture.

Shayla Thiel-Stern has an interesting article up at FlowTV, a site that takes a critical look at television. She argues that comparing the bodies of the women in the first 90210 to the bodies of the woman in the show’s current incarnation reveals a great deal about shifting cultural ideas about adolescent female bodies.

As she writes,

“…the women from both shows demonstrate how in a very short but increasingly mediated point in history, women’s and girls’ bodies are shaped and inscribed by the culture surrounding them. Through pilates, cosmetic surgery, low-carb diets, hair straightening, skin lightening, Botox, and so many other means, women have mirrored media representations of “perfect” women and shaped their bodies to fit the representation. While Photoshop almost certainly plays a role in the perfection process of promotional photos, however, it does not stop women and girls in reality from attempting to alter their bodies and faces to conform to this fantasy portrayal. The old and new versions of 90210 exemplify this idea perfectly.”

Here’s the rest of the article.

A few years ago I wrote a piece for This Magazine on the important role campus/community radio stations have played in the lives and activism of feminists. The piece isn’t available online, so I’ll just cut and paste my general point.

Campus/community radio has long been welcoming to women and their views, especially considering the limited access feminists have historically had to mainstream media. Campus/community radio has been an important platform for feminists to engage in discussions rarely heard on mainstream airwaves, tackle important women’s issues and give underrepresented female musicians a presence. It’s a vital outlet in the face of mass media that is becoming increasingly hostile to feminist ideas and generally perpetuates narrow, stereotypical ideas about gender.

That said, I’d like to draw your attention to the horrible situation over at CKLN, the campus/community based at Ryerson University in Toronto. Over the past few months, many programmers and hosts that have been at the station for years have been shut out by illegitimate station management in an effort to make the station commercial.

Among the lists of cancelled shows is Radio Cliteracy, an important and bold feminist talk show, as well as Frequency Feminisms and Honour The Earth, which have been removed from the Sunday grid. So far, over 30 volunteers have been dismissed from CLKN without warning and without cause, including many LGTB, First Nations, psychiatric survivor programmers, women of colour and a trans person.

Luckily, people have been fighting to get back into the station and onto the airwaves with pickets, and by organizing meetings and a website. They need our support, so please do what you can to spread the word about keeping campus/community radio open for all.