By saying this and other cleverness and truths about the abhorrent Genocide Awareness Project, reposted at RH Reality Check:

The sexism in their viewpoints is mind-boggling. To them, Black women are the poor dupes of the abortion rights movement, lacking agency and decision-making of our own. In fact, this is a reassertion of Black male supremacy over the self-determination of women. It doesn’t matter whether it is from the lips of a man or a woman. It is about re-enslaving Black women by making us breeders for someone else’s cause.

I am reminded of the comments of Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman in Congress, who dismissed the genocide argument when asked to discuss her views on abortion and birth control:

“To label family planning and legal abortion programs “genocide” is male rhetoric, for male ears. It falls flat to female listeners and to thoughtful male ones. Women know, and so do many men, that two or three children who are wanted, prepared for, reared amid love and stability, and educated to the limit of their ability will mean more for the future of the Black and brown races from which they come than any number of neglected, hungry, ill-housed and ill-clothed youngsters.”

For the record, SisterSong rocks my socks.

Rutu Modan is a magnificent Isreali graphic novelist whose book, Exit Wounds, was one of my favourites last year. Modan’s new book, Jamilti, is a collection of her older short stories, published by Drawn and Quarterly.

Jamilti has a gothic feel, with Alice Munro-style haunting and grotesque stories about human relationships. Modan’s comics remind me of folk tales, or urban legends—stories that you’d read in a tabloid, or would be told to you by a co-worker who swears it’s true. Modan’s art style of deceptively simple line drawings with warm colours, evokes folk art. And the images are like words—off-putting, but darkly funny.

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During memorial periods for the Montreal Massacre, the concept of feminism seems to receive a little bit more mainstream media airtime than usual. Well, maybe not if you count happenings such as the whole Sarah Palin debacle, but generally speaking, feminism takes a back seat if it’s not being dragged under the car itself.

This weekend, two particular yet absolutely polarized columns questioning the future of feminism caught my attention. One was authored by anti-feminist apologist Barbara Kay of the National Post and the second by Sarah Ghabrial, a co-founder of The Miss G__ Project for Equity in Education.

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It’s been 19 years since a man walked into École Polytechnique and killed fourteen women, making a statement of hatred against women and against feminists. It’s easy to remember the name of someone who commits such an act, but not as easy always to remember the names of those who died.

It’s also easy to forget that the attack was not just some crazy individual losing control, but a man acting in a context of institutionalized sexism. In his note, the gunman blamed feminists for ruining his life, and vowed to take them down with him. In the near twenty years that has passed since the Montreal Massacre, have Canadian society’s attitudes towards feminism and feminists changed for the better? Or the worse?

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Just when the holidays start to roll in and en masse we begin to feel like we’re rushing too much or “falling behind” the holiday bonanza (3 knitted hats down, 2 to go!!) , Embloggery has a way of saying “slow down”.

Blogger Nicole started Embloggery as a way to “to examine the implications of the fact that we now have the ability to disseminate widely something written very quickly, to a potentially very large audience”. Her blog is made of embroidered “posts” she completed throughout her day. These posts, she says, force her to think about what to include, how long they should/can be, and what the shortest words to use might be.

I love Embloggery because it implicates the role of craft, an older-school technology, with the zip-zip-zip of the interweb. The internet is the best marketing and promotional tool for independent crafters who want to share their work with the world. But the instantaneous “uploading” to blogs and crafster, as well as the seamless store-fronts of Etsy, can sometimes be a little-too all consuming and often a distraction from the physical action of crafting. I’m excited to see the evolution of Nicole’s embroidered posts as they allow us, for just one second, to remember the power of handmade.

This has been my hardest film review so far. I think it had something to do with my newfound addiction to the very unhealthy, yet very sexy, Twilight book series.

What started as research became something so much more….

Ide Cyan’s post is available here.
Nabil’s post is available here.

* I apologize in advance for any incorrect name pronunciations or sex/gender assignments

Just a quick note to our faithful readers that Shameless Mag is feeding posts to Twitter now, so you can follow us along with all your other fave feeds. Be the first to catch new posts, special offers, and general shamelessness! Tweet! Tweet!

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I’m super pumped to check out Agitate! Community dinner tonight in Ottawa.

More information about this amazing grassroots collective after the jump.
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