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Are you a young woman interested in a career in the theatre? If so, then this is an opportunity you don’t want to miss!
Nightwood Theatre, Canada’s National Women’s Theatre, is now accepting applications for apprenticeships in the 2009/2010 Season.
Learn the intricacies of your craft from some of the best in the business, like Nightwood’s Artistic Director Kelly Thornton who I had the chance to interview for Shameless Women.
Here is the info from Nightwood…
(more inside…)
I am not usually one to write on politics, but this headline, “Scandal sidelines ‘high-maintenance’ Liberal MP’” isn’t so much about politics either.
Ruby Dhalla is the first female Sikh MP in Canada, a high profile member of the Liberal Party, and the critic for youth and multiculturalism. At least the article mentions that.
There have been other women and other Sikhs in parliament, just never one who might describe herself in an online personal as “SSF,” because guess what? She’s not married either. Amazingly, the article doesn’t mention Ms Dhalla’s age. Amazing because pretty much every other aspect of her personality, looks, and behavior is put under the microscope.
Check out this illustrated comparison from traditional women’s magazine Woman’s Day charting the increase in women’s incomes over the last 50 years.
In the 1950s, the average woman earned 14k a year, had a 983 square foot house and craftsman or labourer spouse. Now, the average is 29k, with a post-high school education and a 2349 square foot house. 15k is not actually a huge improvement.
Photo-collage produced by Women's Day magazine. (Staff (WD))
All these numbers are adjusted for inflation, so in 1950 eggs did not actually cost $5, but by today’s standards that’s what we would be paying for them. It’s a bit confusing, but the idea is that while median incomes appear to have gone up, the cost of goods, services and a bunch of other stuff has gone way down. Welcome to the free market, my friends.
A recent hot topic out here on the West Coast is a woman who experienced a successful outcome from the human rights tribunal. Hailey de Lessier was awarded $26,000 in compensation for being let go from her job because she told her employers she was pregnant (CBC story here).
“I just [want] to tell other people that this does happen and you can fight it. It’s a long process but you can fight it and you can win your rights,” said de Lisser
What’s most interesting, for me, are the comments on the CBC story. Commentators’ opinions range from placing importance on either the plaintiff or the business, Lessier’s (in)ability to get Employment Insurance (EI), and a woman’s right to work. My favourites are after the jump.
From our lovely friends over at Power Camp (now Girls Action Foundation!):
Bloggers Wanted!
Kickaction.ca is looking for guest bloggers for our annual Blogging Carnival!
What’s a Blogging Carnival, you ask?
A blogging carnival is when a bunch of bloggers are brought together on one site to write about a given topic, allowing readers to read a variety of outlooks on that issue.
To celebrate the Girls Action Foundation National Day of Action on February 14th, kickaction.ca will be hosting a blogging carnival! The carnival will be four weeks long, between the Day of Action and International Women’s Day, with a theme each week. The themes, based on discussions that came out of the National Retreat in October, will be:
Feb 9-14: Let’s Talk About Sex(ual health)
Feb 16-20: We need to talk!: Race & Gender
Feb 23-27: Indigenous Feminism: Remembering the past, reclaiming the present & celebrating the future
March 2-8: ‘Hypersexualization’, Pop Culture & Media: Who do they think we are?
We would like to have 2-3 guest bloggers each in French & English.
UNITE HERE, a union that represents workers in the apparel, textile, hotel, and restaurant industries, has just launched a campaign against clothing chain Zara. Zara workers in a downtown Montreal store joined UNITE HERE in 2007 to fight bad working conditions at their store, including unpredictable schedules, short staffing, favouritism by bosses, and disregard for seniority.
According to UNITE HERE, however, Zara has fought back, using tactics that may have violated the Quebec labour code: four workers who supported the union at Zara’s Rockland Mall store were fired in April and May 2008; two workers who led a union drive at Zara’s downtown Montreal store were demoted in August 2007; and management held anti-union meetings at three of their Montreal stores, telling workers that joining a union would be “treason” – in fact, it’s their legal right.
These are old, dirty, anti-labour tricks that need to be stopped, especially in the retail sector, which employs a disproportionate number of young women in low-wage work (see graph below). It takes a lot of guts to fight back against an employer that’s being a bully (I should know, I’ve been on strike against York University for the past six weeks), and these workers need our support.
You can read about the situation here, and take action here. For insight into the retail industry and why unions can make a difference, read this.
(UNITE HERE)
Wow.
That’s all I have to say about a youth friend of mine from a community I work with in northwestern British Columbia. Sonya Tamara May Patrick, 16, from Burns Lake, along with 5 other young people, won a contest the Carrier First Nation of Lake Babine hosted for their youth to write about what their language, neduten, means to them and the entire nation.
The prize? Attending the World Indigenous People’s Conference on Education in Australia! And to top off that life-changing opportunity, touring with the Maori for their educational tour the following week in New Zealand.
The conference will be held on the traditional lands of the Kulin Nation, in Melbourne, from December 7th to 11th. It will be a celebration of our diverse cultures, traditions and knowledge.
So why did she decide to write?
“I wrote the essay because our language itself is symbolic to our nation, and that knowing our language and speaking it in another country would show that we still have our pride. We are really so proud of it, residential schools tried to ban our language, but they failed, and knowing that we survived through it keeps it and us alive, and it is still very strong. I would like to learn our language while we have our Elders, because we as youth need to realize we are losing our elders fast and need to take advantage of learning our language when we can. It’s so important.”
The World Indigenous Peoples Conference: Education (WIPC:E) is a triennial conference of international significance that attracts peoples from around the globe to celebrate and share diverse cultures, traditions and knowledge with a focus on world Indigenous education. The purpose of WIPC:E is to provide a forum to come together, share and learn and promote best practice in Indigenous education policies, programs and practice.
Oh, and she found out that she won while she was assisting to run another important conference in her community this past summer, Healing Our Spirits, that promoted health and wellness intersecting the importance of culture.
Wow.
Go Sonya go!
Proud and strong Carrier youth leader, Sonya Tamara May Patrick, standing ground on her traditional territory of Lake Babine.
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.
It’s Sacred Sex Week at Good For Her!
Discover the multiple ways you can integrate your spiritual side with your sexy self to maximize your erotic potential.
All workshops are for everyone regardless of gender, sex, sexual orientation or partner status, unless otherwise specified.
I’m kicking it off tonight with Aboriginal Pleasure, Power, and Sex Positivity, beginning at 7pm.
Pre-registration is required for all events except Reclaiming Eros book launch on Thursday, September 25. Visit the website to sign up or call 416-588-0900.
I was on CTV’s Canada AM this morning talking about the racist comments made by an aide to Conservative Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon, against Norman Matchewan, a member of the Algonquins of Barriere Lake, who is also a teacher and part-time police officer.
In a conversation recorded by the Aboriginal People’s Television Network outside Cannon’s Maniwaki campaign office during its opening Tuesday, Matchewan asked the aide, Darlene Lanningan, whether he will be arrested if he visits Cannon’s campaign office. She responded:
“If you behave and you’re sober and there’s no problem and if you sit down and whatever, I don’t care.”
The Barriere Lake reserve is about 300 kilometres northwest of Ottawa in Cannon’s riding of Pontiac, and a group including Norman Matchewan had visited the office for a rally.
She went on to say that, “One of them showed up the other day and was drinking.” There were several allegations she made that were much worse after that.
In 1991 the Algonquins of Barriere Lake signed a Trilateral Agreement with the governments of Canada and Quebec, establishing a landmark sustainable development, conservation, and resource co-management process. Not surpisingly, the Government of Canada has regularly tried to ignore their obligations under the agreement. On March 10th, 2008, for the third time in 12 years, the government of Canada interfered in their internal governance, ousting the Customary Chief Benjamin Nottaway and his Council and recognizing a Chief and Council whom the Barriere Lake Elder’s Council say were not selected in accordance with the community’s customs and whom the majority of the community does not support.
Lannigan basically said what I know for a fact: a lot of people, especially near reserve communities who are non-Native, already make stereotypical assumptions of us. This is the environment the youth in our communities are growing up in, but we’re doing such an awesome job of kicking ass in so many things that it’s only a reminder of what we need to resist and stand up against.
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