Kudos are going to the organizers of this protest against transphobia and sex worker oppression.

Residents of a downtown Toronto neighbourhood have apparently bestowed themselves with the moral duty of “kicking out prostitutes” who they say have “disturbed the peace” in their otherwise magically perfect neighbourhood.

Instead of lobbying for anti-prostitution laws, worker safety, or advocating for the rights of sex trade workers so that we can all live more peacefully together, for the last three months these residents have been harassing sex workers, specifically transwomen, to the point of assault.

This Friday August 15th, supporters of human rights and dignity FOR ALL will be gathering at the corner of Homewood and Maitland at 11pm to demand an end to this injustice.

Check out the Facebook event and hopefully we’ll see you there!

Christie Blatchford has an interesting piece in today’s Globe and Mail about the tendency for female athletes to appear in magazines, and sometimes on the cover, nekked. Or at least, naked but for a carefully placed volleyball.

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From time to time here we discuss the less savoury videogames, and as an avid recreational casual sometime gamer, I think it’s important to also share some of the good stuff.

Like… PixelJunk Eden!

Or, as it is known in our house, “Jump jump!”

As in —
Husband gets home. Shoes still on, bag still packed.
Me: “Hi! Jump jump?”
Him: “Sure sweetie we can play Eden, just let me…”
Me: “Jump jump!”
Him: “Yeah, of course, I just want to…”
Me: “JUMP. JUMP.”

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A friend alterted me to this.

Turns out ECKO thinks it can throw a bunch of bikini-clad women into a factory in hopes we stop asking questions about where their clothes are made. Because obviously hot girls in bikinis make your jeans!

But if you’re not beautiful, stay away! In their faux news release, “Unattractive Girl Sues ECKO“, ECKO make their line and their brand inaccessible and embarrassing for over half of their market(America).

“It isn’t fair! It isn’t right!” she screamed.

Emotions were running high outside the Ecko Manufacturing factory yesterday as a disgruntled job-seeker vented her frustration at the company’s hiring standards.

Janet Oner had previously applied for an entry-level position at Ecko Manufacturing.

The only problem, according to company officials, was that she looked like a farm animal.

“So what if people mistake me for a pot-bellied pig,” snorted Ms. Oner. “I’m a damn good worker.”

(Independent research confirmed that Oner does bear an uncanny resemblance to the domesticated breed.)

In response to her denial of employment, Oner filed a lawsuit claiming unreasonably high standards and discrimination against the morbidly unattractive.

While declining to comment on the pending case, company officials noted that manual ability is only one element of a successful Manufacturing employee.

“Everyone in our factory can do their job,” explained the head of human resources. “But the difference is that our jeans are made with love by hot girls.”

To boot, the pictures in the photo gallery are not mildly pornographic. In one of the photos it looks like she’s being given something in the face, and a response from a warm hearted reader to a different photo brings: “LET ME NUT IN YOUR PRETTY FACE”. In the words of Cher Horowitz, “Uh, as if!”

If today were Friday, I’d do a Feminist Friday F-you to ECKO, but since it’s not I’ll leave with this pearl of wisdom: make your own clothes and thrift for clothes! I know it’s more work, but the pay-off in the end is not torturing ourselves to be their “target market” or feeling like we’ve got to take it in the face every time we wear denim. Grrrrr.

As some of you may know, a week from now I’ll be a married woman. Since my partner and I decided on Valentine’s day earlier this year that we wanted to be wed, I’ve navigated the strange world of the “wedding industrial complex” and tried to figure out, on my own terms, what it means to me to be a married feminist. That meant dissecting the tradition bit by bit and disposing of things that didn’t feel right for me (changing my name, my Dad giving me away, legal paperwork, a white dress), but it also meant having to justify a lot of the things that did (bridesmaids, a limo, an expensive pair of shoes, and a hair and makeup appointment.)

Here at Shameless we’ve talked about how it can sometimes be difficult for feminist writers to talk about their healthy relationships, and we’ve also talked about wedding pressures on women that seem to supercede love, and one’s feminist beliefs. (And then there’s marriage traditions that supercede sanity, but that’s another post entirely.) In the end, I feel like both of us have been true to the things we love and hate about declaring your lifelong partnership to your community, and although at times it’s been hard to negotiate satisfying our own needs and the needs of those we care about (okay Mom, we can have flowers), I think overall we’ve done a pretty good job. Getting married and planning an event to celebrate that transition has been a wonderful way to solidify not only my feminist beliefs in the context of my relationship and my community, but to understand the value of compromise and understanding. I’ve always been very anti-marriage for a variety of reasons, but I realized that it is possible to make a public promise to the person you love without sacrificing who you are or what you believe.

Sure, there will still be people who will be disappointed because they didn’t get a monogrammed wedding favour or a chicken or beef option, and there will be folks who don’t think we’re “really married” because we didn’t go the legal route, but what really matters is how we view our (personally defined) committment to each other.

So in honour of the planning being close to over, I thought I’d post a video of one of my favourite married couples singing about exactly what I think marriage should be.

Extra special wedding-related bonus from our beloved Joss Whedon (which will likely make it into a wedding speech) after the jump.

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I love exercising.

Well, okay, I don’t love it. I like it. Except for the times when I’ve hated it.

While I was on the treadmill this morning I was thinking about the complexities of my relationship with exercise. Informal surveys make me think I’m definitely not the only one, so I thought I’d say what it’s been like for me, and throw it out to the Shameless folk.

I was not an athletic kid. Not that I didn’t like being physical, but I was definitely in the group that didn’t play sports on the side, and so was pretty fux0red when it came to gym class (why, why call it a class if there’s no instruction?).

I will forever remember my grade 4 teacher fondly for coming over in volleyball (one of my most feared activities), and showing me how to serve. It took 2 minutes, and it changed every volleyball class that followed. Because it wasn’t that I couldn’t. It was that I didn’t have the first clue how. It turned out that I actually had a pretty decent serve now that I knew what I was doing. I was still ass at every other position, but it was the first taste of enjoyment in a long dry spell of suck.

Fast forward past the rest of the not-so-sweet torment that was elementary school gym, through high school where I injured my back (permanently) doing some sort of flip over a pommel horse during our gymnastics component(?!). Again with no instruction. Who thought it was a good idea to make gymnastics part of a general amateur curriculum? “Okay, uneven bars, aaaaand… go!” ACK!

So I was 18 before I realized that I actually like exercise.
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I’m a huge fan of rap and like many other things in this world, some of it has become commercialized, misogynized, and otherwise distorted from where it started.

Lest we forget that rap was born out of an activist movement. Grandfathers from the early days of its creation include politikin’ movers and shakers like Public Enemy, Grand Master Flash, and KRS-One who courageously spoke out about the grave injustices in oppressed communities of colour.

I get fed up of hearing that rap is only about hating on women or just talks about cash money and cars.

I’m not saying there isn’t a lot of that out there, but I definitely don’t see the same type of subject matter criticism towards various bubble-gum pop stars like Hilary Duff or Miley Cyrus who confuse me every time they sing about not conforming (but maybe they get left alone more with how they present it since they are nice, pretty, light-skinned girls?)

In comes Eekwol, who is an incredibly gifted Native rapper from Saskatoon, giving it to you straight up to let the truth be known. A Cree from the Muskoday First Nation, she not only makes me brim with pride from a cultural and musical perspective, but also as a woman. As you’ll see very quickly from any of her songs or listening to her talk, she clearly owns all of who she is.

Watch her shine in this interview about the role of gender in rap:

And do yourself a favour and stop by her Myspace page to listen on in to some deep tunes that really get to the heart of the issues so many of our communities are facing (the “Respect Your History” song gives me chills every time I hear it).

Think anything… (Adbusters: Tony de Marco)

This news is a year old but its new to me. Sao Paolo, the world’s 4th biggest city, banned most forms of outdoor advertising in January of 2007. After a little research I found out that four US states (Vermont, Alaska, Hawaii, and Maine) also have bans on billboards.

Shameless has been doing a lot of writing about about the advertising world’s negative portrayals of women (here, here, and here).

Is this kind of ban a possibility in Canadian cities? Is it a form of censorship? Anyone been to Sao Paolo since the ban went into effect?

Personally, I would love to walk and bike around my city without feeling like my brain is being invaded by every bus shelter, garbage bin, highway-side lawn ad, and billboard I see.

My life is way too busy to remember when I’m going to get my period. And at this time of the year, when I’m jetting off to the woods for a few days of camping or going on long road trips, it is a mega pain when I forget that I’m going to bleed and I have to bunch my socks into my underwear to catch the flow.

Never again! Check out Mon.thly.Info, a handy online tool to help you keep track. It even sends you an email reminder when blood is on its way!