Spirit is Canada’s leading Aboriginal magazine, featuring cutting edge material from the Native community across the country.

This current publication is their very first SEX issue and I am so darn excited and happy that it exists. The beautiful young woman you see on the cover is none other than Métis burlesque extraordinaire Veronika Swartz, photographed by the Über talented Ojibwe photographer Nadya Kwandibens.

Within these pages you will read some of the most progressive and provocative literary masterpieces as they pertain to sex and sexuality. The sweet essence of breaking down social taboos will linger in your mind as you are drawn into the demystifying truths of how beautiful and sacred sex really is in the Indigenous world. What remains is pride and ownership over our own bodies (a concept we actually started!)

It moves me to tears to know that we are taking back what has been exploited so harshly from us and letting it out now on our own terms. And it’s a pretty powerful thing.

Exposed and in control? I want to be too!

I’m a rejuvenated, revitalized, and renewed young feminist having just attended the planning session for the TOUJOURS REBELLES/WAVES OF RESISTANCE! Pan Canadian Young Feminist Gathering.

So if you haven’t heard of the next big FEMINIST thing in Canada, get yourself to the REBELLES website and fill up with some information on how to get involved and make sure YOU are a part of what will be the greatest woman-power event these parts have seen in a long time.

I was holed up in rural Outaouais with some of the most amazing and inspiring young women’s advocates this country has to offer. These movers and shakers came from all across Canada in solidarity, ready to mobilize on all forms of oppression against women.

Ideas, frustrations, passions, differences, and tears were shared this weekend in the hopes of creating a conference that will truly speak and include as many issues as possible that are eminently affecting young women. We want to redefine what it means to be a feminist and ensure that what it HASN’T been will be what it NEEDS to become to encompass everyone.

I want to thank all of the participants for sharing their authenticity and originality, nowadays getting that in true feminist form is hard to come by. Be proud of giving it to the world just as you are, every day.

This is going to be one heluva kick-ass conference this coming October if these ladies have anything to do with it!

Your 2008 REBELLES! Feminist Action Team

Not tied to any particular event or anniversary, but because I’m feeling a bit nostalgic, and I’m a sucker for emotionally compelling Canadian history. And I find us Canadians so darn cheek-pinching, moose-hugging, maple candy cute when we tap into our nationalism.

So start your week off right with a Canadian Heritage Minute (it’s like oatmeal for the mind):

Emily Murphy: Women as persons under the law.

And then (related?) the bonus round — on the success of the beaver in Canada:
(more inside…)

Yesterday marked the end of the first National Reproductive Justice Week in the United States.

Reproductive justice is not a term we use too often here in Canada, but on my travels to the U.S. I have learned about it and am trying to bring that school of thought over here since I truly believe it speaks more to what’s realistically going on in the actual world of reproductive rights. It will enhance the pro-choice movement, and not only leave it for the select few who feel like they can join or has anything to do with them.

The pro-choice, like many “feminist” movements in the Western world, has had its fair share of white, colonial influence and over-representation. It’s more than time to addres, include, and advocate for our bodily rights and the way we understand them across diverse social, economic, racial, and sexual backgrounds.

So what is reproductive justice you say? Take a look at the video here:

What does reproductive justice mean to you?

Want to be part of the next big FEMINIST thing in Canada???

REBELLES Waves of Resistance

On our way towards our Pan-Canadian Young Feminist Gathering!

11th, 12th and 13th of October 2008 – Montreal

Mobilize, network, energize, and deepen the roots of the young feminist movement across Canada!

For all you Torontonians to learn more about the gathering and how you can get involved, come out to our INFO SESSION:
Monday, April 21st, 6:30-7:30PM
563 Spadina Avenue, Rm. 100 (Centre for Women and Trans People at UofT)

This is a call to all young feminists, students, workers, un(der)employed women, artists, researchers, mothers, feminists of all tendencies and of all types, and of course emerging feminists…

Organizing meetings are happening across the country, so if you are not in Toronto contact info is as follows:
info@rebelles2008.org - www.rebelles2008.org - 514-876-0166 ext. 253.

(more inside…)

Hello out there all you Shameless people! I am excited to be blogging on this brazen space and giving it to you straight up.

I am writing in the Vancouver airport on my way back to Toronto from being part of ’Nał’namwiyut: We Are All One, Transforming Understanding Into Action. It was the First National Aboriginal Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Transgendered, Queer, Questioning, and Two-Spirited Summit!

It was a phenomenal opportunity to get together in solidarity with folks from around the country to discuss, strategize, and action plan what we need to do for some of our most marginalized brothers and sisters. It was hosted by the BC Assembly of First Nations, the Urban Native Youth Association and a committee of incredible, passionate community partners. I strongly encourage all of you to check them out and support the amazing work that is going on.

WE NEED ALLIES!

I saw so much power in the strength of family and community united for acceptance and acknowledgement these past three days, with the beautiful profusion of tradition and culture. Sometimes we get too wrapped up in the mindset of the place we live in and miss out on the chance to look across the country and see how we can really connect and make great things happen!

So this is how I’m going to be dishing it out; notes from the field, rants on racialized issues, notions of Indigenous feminism, recognition of the incredible youth out there, and operations of anti-oppressive activism. I encourage you to think outside the box with me and challenge what you think you already know.

I want to hear your voices and I look forward to rocking each other’s worlds!

Me and the beautiful new generation of activists!

Feminists on the Money

It’s not every day I see a $50 bill. But last week an ATM spat one out at me. I was extremely surprised to see the following three things…

1. A representation of the statue of the Famous Five that can be seen on the Olympic Plaza in Calgary, Alberta, and on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. The Famous Five are Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, Irene Parlby, Henrietta Muir Edwards, and Louise McKinney. These women triumphed in the ‘Persons’ Case, one of the most famous cases in Canadian legal history.

2. In the bottom left corner of the back of the $50 note is a depiction of a newspaper headline that reads: “Women are Persons, Les femmes sont des personnes.” This journal tablet represents the newspaper headlines as they appeared on 18 October 1929, and is an enlargement of the newspaper held by Nellie McClung in the statue.

3. A picture of a medallion with the face of Thérèse Casgrain (1896-1981). Thérèse Casgrain from Montréal, is best known as the force behind various social reforms in Canada promoting justice and equality, and as the first woman to head a political party in Quebec (1951). In 1970, she was appointed to the Senate.

Has anybody noticed this before? It seems like a bit of a cheesy “Canadian Heritage” moment but at least its promoting awareness of the feminist struggles in Canadian history. Too bad its on such an inaccessible note.

Check out the Bank of Canada website to get a closer look.

We’re a little late on this, but we were thrilled to learn from Jessica Yee blogging over at Feministing that the Spring Equinox (which falls on the 20th or 21st of March every year) in Canada is now officially Indigenous Women’s Empowerment Day.

Gatherings to commemorate Indigenous Women’s Empowerment Day started in 2006 in BC, and have been organised every year by the Kookum Educating Traditional Acceptance Society.

As Jessica says:

I often reflect on the power of our traditions and the great culture of Native peoples that have been rejected through colonization, Christianization, and extreme genocide. We have so much in our ancestral teachings that supports respect for women, caring for the community, and love for Mother Earth. Yet today Indigenous women face the highest rates of domestic violence and poverty in the world. It is essential to recognize these injustices, but be proud of who and where we come from in the present world.

Via Boing Boing:

Oh, kids these days.

Canadian high schooler’s Arman Noory’s “The War on Terror” is a short film that includes safe-for-work scenes of a 1980s porn video.

Noory had this to say abut the project:

…for the record, for anybody curious, my teacher knew I had edited an early 80s porn for the video, though the students generally had no idea…

I chose to make a video for my culminating task for senior-year (Canadian) Politics class was regarding the war on terror and whether or not it’s effective/justified. I wanted to incite a variety of emotions in the viewer while still being educational and entertaining…

You can watch the safe for work video here.