Tag: feminism

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News

Humans of la Manifestation

I met Rhea Gurnagul while she was protesting against gender inequality with her mother.

An exploration of why people protest against gender inequality

On Saturday, Jan. 21, I attended the annual Women’s March in Montreal at Place des Arts, where many speakers gave a voice to issues of gender inequality through an array of critical lenses. I asked several people why they thought these protests are important and how it felt to be part of a public gathering with so many people fighting for different forms of equality. This is what they had to say.

“I think it’s important because we need to raise public awareness on issues that have the tendency to be silenced. I think it’s the perfect moment, now, to be a woman, because I recognize the shift, and I’m just so happy to be a part of it,” she said, smiling at her mother. I asked Gurnagul what she personally drew from being at the protest. She replied: “Just complete empowerment. Just pure ecstasy. Like, I’m so ready to march. We’re all here with similar values, and it feels great. It feels like I’m part of a movement.”

Erin Strumpf was sporting a hot pink feather boa, a shiny gold cape, a fairy wand and a “pussyhat.”

“[The march is] a reminder that those of us who are fighting to make change and a better world are still here, and we’re not going anywhere. I think it’s an important opportunity, as a community, to come together and feel the power of being together and to be sort of reinvigorated and re-energized,” she said. “It’s empowering at an individual level, and I think you feel that exchange with other people, and it sort of builds into something bigger than just yourself.”

Dalia Robidoux proudly displays her hand-made sign while protesting in favour of feminism and gender equality.

“I feel like it’s really empowering for you and for other people because […] when you see your neighbours coming out and protesting, it makes you see the whole movement and you see the community, because this is a community,” she said. Robidoux told me what she personally took away from the protest. “I feel so much more powerful,” she said with a smile. “[Coming] to this protest, I don’t know, I feel like I can do anything, like I can say anything and I’ll be listened to.”

Fatou Ndiaye was supporting Democrats Abroad Montreal, an organization that allows American citizens living abroad to mobilize and participate in electoral processes, according to their website.

“This is important because it is a symbol of the fight and the continuation of the resistance, and being able to say that this is more than just a one-time thing. We’re not swayed by what […] seems to be most important in the general stream of popular culture. It’s about a genuine passion for equality. It’s honestly beautiful,” she said.

I asked Ndiaye how she felt people could be more politically active beyond gathering in physical spaces. She answered, “I think this comes in two-folds; the first being on just the individual level, to reach out to your [community] to try to get more people mobilized on a regular basis.” She said the second fold is about organizations continuously engaging with more communities, even if only briefly. “I think it’s just about making that awareness known and being more proactive in diffusing that awareness.”

A previous version of this article used the headline “Women of la Manifestation.” The headline has been changed to more accurately represent the diversity of people who attended the event. The Concordian regrets the error.

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Opinions

The place of privilege and diversity in feminism

Graphic by Alexa Hawksworth.

Understanding the concept of intersectional feminism and its significance in today’s society

In 2017, the word “feminist” is no stranger in our society. Intersectional feminism, however, may be a term you haven’t heard before.

According to Merriam-Webster, intersectionality is defined as “the complex, cumulative manner in which the effects of different forms of discrimination combine, overlap or intersect.” This term relates back to intersectional feminism because it emphasizes that some women in society—women of colour, women from the LGBTQ+ community and disabled women, among others—experience an interplay of discrimination, not just because they’re women but because of an overlap of identities.

It’s no secret women have been and continue to be oppressed within our society, but intersectionality highlights other characteristics that affect the equal acceptance of women in society—be it their race, ethnicity or even socioeconomic status. Personally, I think the fact that we have to qualify the term intersectional feminism as a category of feminism is an indication that we have a long way to go in terms of equality.

In my opinion, feminism is equality for all people. However, I think there is a lack of attention toward intersectionality in today’s society. This refers to equality between races, socio-economic status and abilities. The feminist movement is not truly equalizing to all, and it still lives in a place of ignorance, with massive blind spots and misunderstandings.

I am a white woman, and I grew up with parents who sheltered me from oppression. It is only in my young adult life that I have learned more about gender inequality. I am an example of someone who has benefited greatly from the previous waves of feminism.

According to the organization Progressive Women’s Leadership, the first wave of feminism occurred in the 19th century and focused on political rights, like a woman’s right to vote. The second wave was in the 60s and focused on women’s reproductive rights. The third wave of feminism started in 1990 and continues to push for workplace and financial equality, along with reproductive rights. It also works towards a more intersectional outlook on feminism. I benefitted from these past waves because they were specifically geared towards achieving equality for white women.

When it comes to intersectional feminism, however, I have so much to learn. I have to continue to ask questions, think critically and question my surroundings. I have to reach out, listen to diverse voices, believe their experiences and share their message. I also have to educate myself on identities that vary from my own. This is what people like myself can do to help foster the intersectional movement. In the same way, we need men to get involved. We need men to want to understand more about this movement. Bringing more people to the table, in terms of voices and power, is what helps create change.

It’s also important to note that you can hold different degrees of privilege within feminism. For example, if a woman is black and a member of the LGBTQ+ community, she could be subject to discrimination regarding her race and sexual orientation as well as the oppression she may feel as a woman. In comparison, a straight, white woman will likely not face discrimination for her sexual orientation, but could still feel oppressed for being a woman. The straight, white woman holds a position of privilege within the movement of feminism compared to the black, LGBTQ+ woman.

Feminism can’t resolve problems until all women are heard. People of colour and the LGBTQ+ community fight everyday to be heard, seen and respected in society. As a privileged woman, I need to understand that women from other communities have platforms where they can use their own voices, and I need to be open to listen and learn more about their issues. Feminism, to me, is as simple as being able to express yourself as you want to. It’s being able to get the job you want, dress the way you want and lead the life you want.

Part of the intersectional feminist movement is telling white women they are not doing enough. It’s clear feminism has a long way to go, but the only way to get there is by working together as a society. It’s important to be on the same page and learn about what is going on in your neighbour’s life, and to learn about experiences besides your own.

Graphic by Alexa Hawksworth

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Opinions

The complicated ‘F’ word

Graphic by Alexa Hawksworth.

The definitions of feminism and why it still needs to be applied in Canada today

I’m bringing up the “F” word again, and some of you may not like it. Some find it uncomfortable and are unable to situate where they stand on the matter. Some are passionate about it, while others are annoyed over how repetitive the topic is. However, seeing as we’re in the midst of Women’s History Month in Canada, I think it is fitting to once again open up the conversation about feminism.

Feminism is a difficult word to define. Google it and you get an endless amount of web pages trying to define it, outline the different types and argue whether or not we need to define it. After searching through more than 100 pages to find a worthy article, it seems Wikipedia provides the longest list of the different types of feminism, including mainstream feminism, intersectional feminism, ecofeminism and even Marxist feminism. It’s daunting to even try to define this complex term and it raises the question: can feminism really be defined?

Since I personally identify as a feminist, I believe feminism can be defined with a very simple explanation: feminism is the movement of equality for men and women—regardless of your ethnicity, religion, culture, age, profession, etc. I believe the need for feminism is due to society’s gender norms that continue to be applied today. Feminism is necessary because it breaks down these norms. However, this is my own interpretation and understanding. As mentioned before, there are several ways of interpreting feminism today, but it seems this multitude of ways leads some people to think there’s no way to simply define it.

Is it a movement that cannot be justified due to society’s indefinite perceptions, sexism and patriarchy? Throughout history, Canada has made great strides in applying laws to instill women’s rights, such as the 1883 Married Women’s Property Act that allowed women to have legal control over their earnings. Also, women’s right to vote was fully established nationally once Quebec jumped on the bandwagon in 1940. The Civil Rights Act later prohibited discrimination in the workplace. Equal pay was established in 1977, and abortion was made legal in 1969.
Back in 2015, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was elected, he made the bold move to form Canada’s first gender-balanced cabinet. Many applauded his act and saw it as something obvious that should have happened years ago. But little action has been done to improve the state of feminism in Canada since then, or at least that’s how some see it.

However, women are still not treated the same as men. One in four North American women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime, according to Sexual Assault Canada. And despite the equal pay law, women are still only making 72 cents to a man’s dollar, according to the Canadian Women’s Foundation. Furthermore, women of colour, women with disabilities, older women and women of specific religions and minorities face even more extensive oppression.

I personally believe the relation between what is considered “feminine” versus “masculine” has disrupted the freedom of choice to living independently. Why are women still struggling to find their voices in corporate, technological or political settings? Why are they worried about getting a job and starting a family?

This traditional understanding of gender norms must be rehashed since it’s one of the prime reasons feminism is still being fought for today. The application of human rights and respect is not being understood as rights for a “human,” regardless of gender. They are being applied as a division of rights: men’s rights and women’s rights. In order to combine this division into one issue, both women and men have to be more vocal about changing the way we view gender.

Parents must begin educating their children about the fact that the polarization between genders is wrong, and that it places unfair expectations on people. Society, as a whole, has to realize we are all entitled to make personal decisions, receive quality education and be respected. Until this is universally applied, the need for feminism will still exist.

Graphic by Alexa Hawksworth 

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Arts

Confronting trauma with humour

Professor Emer O’Toole, pictured here, is one of the founding members of Concordia’s Feminism and Controversial Humour Working Group. Photo by Alex Hutchins

Concordia hosted Rape is Real & Everywhere, a comedy show featuring survivors of sexual assault

“We have to engage. And what better way to engage with a discourse in which you are constantly being painted as the humourless snowflake […] than by getting up there and actually joking about the thing.” This was professor Emer O’Toole’s take on Rape is Real & Everywhere (RIR&E), a comedy show put on by survivors of sexual assault that was held at Concordia on Sept. 29.

O’Toole is a professor of performance studies at Concordia’s School of Irish Studies, as well as a founding member of the university’s Feminism and Controversial Humour Working Group. She formed the group alongside fellow professors Gada Mahrouse of the Simone de Beauvoir Institute and Danielle Bobker from the English department.

“I think we had shared interests in those intersections in feminism and comedy where the subjects are controversial—where stuff like sexual assault and race and gender and all of those things that, if you joke about them, create some tension,” O’Toole said.

At the working group’s symposium last year, the three professors got the chance to converse with like minded-individuals, such as the comedians from the RIR&E show. “We just had the most mind-blowing discussions,” O’Toole said earnestly. “I thought, ‘Wow, I want my students to see this.’”

When comedians Heather Jordan Ross and Emma Cooper, the creators of RIR&E, suggested bringing the show to Concordia, O’Toole and Mahrouse were immediately on board.

Ross and Cooper are two standup comedians based out of Vancouver. In 2015, they came up with the idea of hosting a comedy show about rape and sexual assault because Ross wanted to find a way to talk about her experience of sexual assault. According to O’Toole, by only featuring survivors of sexual assault in their show, Ross and Cooper wanted to steer the conversation towards something more up front and less shameful.

“There’s so much power in using comedy,” O’Toole said. “Your activism can do a lot of work under a subterfuge of performance.”

O’Toole, Ross and Cooper have come to be very familiar with the argument that “there are just some things that shouldn’t be joked about”, especially while promoting the RIR&E show. Although she understands that some people will not agree with what they are doing, O’Toole said: “I’m skeptical of anyone who tries to tell someone else how they can deal with their trauma.”

She explained that, as comedians, Ross and Cooper began the comedy show as a way for Ross to cope with the pain caused by her assault. According to a promotional email describing the show, while some people cope in a solemn way, “other people need to laugh. Making jokes about life—sour parts, sweet parts—is, for some, the best mode of communicating what they’re going through.”

In addition to using comedy as a coping mechanism, O’Toole said the show is meant to “reclaim the narrative of rape” on a cultural level. Instead of believing “rape myths,” which define sexual assault within a rigid framework, telling real-life stories to a crowd of people “completely changes that narrative,” the professor said.

“It’s the chance to take control of one’s own story, but also to take back that narrative of what rape is from a dominant culture that wants to make it something that only evil men do, and [make it] something that is so real and everywhere.”

According to the show’s description, “RIR&E has played across Canada, made national and international news and even been the subject of a CBC radio documentary.” Following a run of sold-out shows, RIR&E is now touring university campuses across Canada in hopes of offering an alternative way for students to confront and learn about sexual assault and consent.

Concordia was the first stop on RIR&E’s university tour. The event was in collaboration with the Concordia Student Union, the Fine Arts Student Alliance, the Graduate Students’ Association and the Feminism and Controversial Humour Working Group. During the show, Cooper told the sold-out audience that it was the largest crowd they had ever performed for.

To learn more about the Feminism and Controversial Humour Working Group, visit the group’s page on Concordia’s website. For information about upcoming RIR&E shows and events, visit their website.

Photo by Alex Hutchins

Categories
Student Life

Attending my first feminist comedy event

Belly laughs and feminism came together at Concordia’s cozy and intimate Café X on Friday, March 31 for a night of feminist stand-up comedy.

The space was beautiful, with twinkly blue lights, potted plants and comfortable couches—as an artistic person, I felt at home, surrounded by other creative and beautiful women.

I sat down with Emily Karcz before the event to talk about her experience organizing the night of comedy. She said one of the challenges in setting up such an event is social media promotion—making sure people hear about it, and that they actually show up.

Café X is entirely student-run and open to collaboration with other people, organizations and groups for special events or exhibitions. It offers an alternative space for emerging artists.

The night started with a casual ice-breaker game where volunteers were invited up to the microphones to “verbally vomit” out any words that popped into their minds. This game made for some deep stories about hair colour, heavy drugs and annoying cats. I volunteered to participate and had a lot of difficulty forming a story with random words. This made me realize how difficult it is to build a chronological plotline on the spot. I could see how this game would help creative individuals build on their vocabulary.

Two hilarious women performed interesting comedic monologues. Menstruation, awkward first dates, ways of saving money on tampons… no topic was off-limits.

“I think feminist comedy is still something that people have to understand. Everyone who will present tonight will probably have a different view on feminism,” said Karcz. “There’s a healthy way to cope with things that are going on. Women are hilarious—I have great conversations with my girlfriends. People in oppressed positions often experience a lot and they rip on that,” she added.

“Yeah, that was my first time doing comedy. I felt great, definitely a very welcoming atmosphere,” said Emily Estelle Belanger, one of the stand-up comedians.

“Everyone is super supportive, no hecklers for sure. I spent the last week making all my friends listen to it. My speech is typed up in a draft email to myself. I would love to do more of these things in the future if the opportunities were there,” said Belanger.

Comedy helps women laugh about their stressful experiences and transform hardships into something positive and bright. I am incredibly happy I went to this event because it made me feel empowered as a woman and ready to take on the world without fear. I appreciate my female friends even more now and feel so thankful for their constant love and support.

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Arts

Intersectional feminist art exhibition puts spotlight on emerging artists

Area Codes art exhibition addresses multiculturalism, marginality, and identity

Right to Campus McGill hosted an intersectional feminist art exhibition at Studio XX on March 23. Area Codes was curated by Concordia students Madelyne Beckles and Leah Schulli.

The exhibition featured the work of Concordia and McGill students, as well as other up-and-coming artists. The contributors shared their personal experiences of marginality and social oppression, and boldly confronted the issues from a female-identifying perspective. Area Codes aimed to raise awareness about these emerging artists’ work, but also to publicly recognize International Women’s Day, Anti-Street Harassment Week and the Commission on the Status of Women, a UN intergovernmental body dedicated to empowering women and promoting gender equality.

Right to Campus McGill is a student-run organization that aims to promote social equality and facilitate the right to public space on the McGill campus. The organization is part of an initiative taken by Women in Cities International, a Montreal-based non-profit association that focuses on “the empowerment, safety and inclusion of women and girls in urban settings,” according to Right to Campus McGill’s Facebook page. Right to Campus McGill organizes a variety of events with this goal in mind, including documentary screenings, art exhibitions, discussions and panels. The curators collaborated with Women in Cities International for this exhibition.

The Area Codes exhibition featured 12 installations, one of which was a performance piece by Anika Ahuja. During her performance, which lasted about five minutes, everyone in the gallery gathered around the artist and watched attentively. It blended well with the other pieces, but also added another layer of intrigue and engagement with the audience.

The artist sat cross-legged in one corner of the room with a bowl of red dye, a bowl of water, a scrub brush and a towel. Ahuja applied the dye to the palms of her hands and the tips of her fingers. She repeated this motion a number of times before washing her hands, scrubbing the dye off and then beginning to apply the dye again.

According to the artist’s statement, the performance, titled In Attempt to be Definitive, “addresses the conflict of the intangible cross-cultural space, and considers ideas of inherent versus chosen identity, denial and shame.” It is described as a representation of the artist’s attempt to take ownership of her various cultural identities that conflict with one another. By repeatedly dying and washing her hands, Ahuja seemed to be torn between accepting and ridding herself of any cultural significance that could be attached to her identity.

Janina Anderson, a teaching assistant who works in the Fine Arts Department at Concordia, contributed her piece titled Cut Outs. The piece consisted of two large collage pieces that were mounted on Bristol board and hung from the ceiling of the studio. The collages commanded the attention of gallery viewers due to their size and conspicuous placement—they hung just above the heads of the crowd. One piece featured a photo of a young African-American girl sitting with what seemed to be an open box in her lap. The other  collage piece displayed a photo of an African-American man loosely floating in the fetal position with his arms tucked into his chest. The photos were taken from National Geographic magazines published in the mid-20th century. The artist explained that, by removing the surrounding environment from the photos, in other words, decontextualizing them, she wanted to highlight the “social, political and cultural values through which they are constructed and disseminated.” Her work provokes questions surrounding identity and multiculturalism through the medium of collage.

Liz Xu’s interactive piece was simply a tent emoji. Xu constructed a small tent out of synthetic material, and screen-printed grass, flowers, trees and mountains onto the inside of it. From the outside it appears to be a plain white tent, but upon entering, the viewer is encircled by mountains and a forest lit up by a lamp in the centre of the tent. In her artist statement, Xu explained that her piece “functions as a physical representation of the boundary between human and nature.” Though humans may attempt to break this boundary by immersing themselves in nature through activities like camping, the materials and supplies needed to do so are man-made and therefore maintain the division between man and nature. Xu’s piece may also be interpreted as a broader comment on Western society—the modern consumer and its relationship to the natural world—by presenting a blatant example of a man-made object combined with forms of the natural world. While sitting inside the tent, one feels relatively isolated from the everything outside the tent, which enforces a feeling of separation between oneself and the outdoors.

The exhibition also included the works of Sophia Borowska, Simone Blain, Molly Caldwell, Sara Graorac, Salina Ladha, Lindsey Lagemaat, Alicia Mersy, Hayley O’Byrne and Amery Sandford. Pieces ranged from sculptures and oil paintings to digital art and posters.

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Student Life

Battling both disease and oppression

Sharon Batt, author of Patient no more: the Politics of Breast Cancer, is a long-time feminist health activist. Photo by Ana Hernandez

Canadian scholar Sharon Batt sheds light on issues within the healthcare system and her experience with health activism

Award-winning journalist and women’s studies scholar Sharon Batt discussed feminist health activism and social justice on March 6, as part of the Simone de Beauvoir Institute’s Feminist Café event.

Batt discussed her experience with social activism, the health system, wage disparities and intersectionality. She talked about the importance of understanding the health system—specifically the pharmaceutical industry—and the issues within it.

Batt said neoliberalism hasn’t delivered on its promises of equality. Neoliberalism is an altered version of liberalism that focuses on free-market capitalism. “Instead, we have rising inequality, unsustainable drug prices, and pharma-funded patient advocacy not serving patient interests,” Batt said.

Batt first became an activist in the 1970s. In 1973, she and a friend founded Branching Out, Canada’s first national feminist magazine. The magazine, which was active until 1980, was initially only distributed in Edmonton before becoming available in other provinces.

“That’s when I got involved in the women’s movement and doing grass-roots community work,” Batt told The Concordian. “We wanted to have a high-quality magazine that focused on feminist contributors and political issues. It got me excited about journalism, feminism and working in a community,” she said.

In 1988, Batt was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was treated for breast cancer from 1988 to 1989. She was also diagnosed with colon cancer in 2005, and was treated successfully.

Batt was a feminist activist through her journalistic work long before her diagnosis and treatments. However, after being diagnosed, she increasingly focused on health activism.

In 1994, she wrote her first book, Patient No More: The Politics of Breast Cancer. In her book, Batt offers a critical look into the cancer treatment “industry.” In 1991, she co-founded Breast Cancer Action Montreal, a group to help women fighting the disease. “I was working in the community with women who were feminists,” she said.

After working at the national level for the breast cancer awareness movement, Batt moved to Halifax to teach women’s studies at Mount Saint Vincent University for two years, where she was the Nancy’s Chair in Women’s Studies. The Chair title was named after Nancy Ruth, a renowned feminist and activist.

Batt said her experience with community work and academia is what brought her to Concordia. “This is one of the reasons I got the position [at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute] as a scholar,” Batt told The Concordian.

Batt was part of the second wave of feminism through the work of her magazine in the late 1970s. During that period, she learned that women’s health issues were undervalued. “There was a lot of interest in money [during the second-wave women’s movement], including cut-backs, and it was a hard period,” Batt said. She emphasized that the government focused more on economic issues, rather than on human rights and equality. “There was a conservative agenda for the last 20 years,” Batt explained.

Batt said she’s interested in getting to the root of cancers that affect women. “We need to understand why so many women get these diseases. A lot of them are environmentally-related. This is one of the reasons why I co-founded Breast Cancer Action Montreal—to raise awareness on prevention and the need to reduce toxic chemicals that can lead to cancer,” Batt said.

Graphic by Thom Bell

Now, the focus of the organization is on younger women and prevention. “We’ve worked on a project called FemToxic, which looked at chemicals in makeup and how to educate young women. This is new for us, since, when we started out, the focus was more on older women,” Batt said. “Touching younger women helps to bring more prevention. There are many things that younger women can learn from my generation.”

Batt’s message to Concordia students, especially female students: “Be engaged in the women’s movement. We all come into feminist politics for different reasons, and the passion you have for your own issues is vital,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to bring your issues to the floor, even if they may not be the central issues right now. Listen to other women who have different issues. We need a lot more conversation and communication on the diversity of issues that affect women.”

As for the future, Batt hopes to see change in the pharmaceutical industry and a reduction in the cost of breast cancer treatments.

Through her upcoming book, Health Advocacy, Inc.: How Pharmaceutical Funding Changed the Breast Cancer Movement, Batt hopes to educate people on health policy and women’s healthcare. “Medications are overpriced. I think community groups that are involved [in activism] need to voice that [issue], even if they are afraid,” she said. The book will be released on June 1.

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Student Life

The fight against black gendered racism in Canada

Panelists Robyn Maynard (left), Marlihan Lopez (centre) and J. Elise Barbara (right). Photo by Danielle Gasher

Why this side of the border shouldn’t be patting itself on the back

Three prominent black Montreal-based activists came together on the evening of Feb. 28 to discuss the history of anti-black racism in Canada, contemporary issues for people of colour in the country, as well as issues faced by the black LGBTQ+ community.

The panel was organized by Concordia’s Centre for Gender Advocacy, and was part of the Centre’s Thick Skin speakers series—a series of curated discussions on race, gender and political resistance. The event was moderated by Jada Joseph, a peer support training and drop-in co-coordinator for the Centre.

“I will attempt to do a synopsis of anti-black racism in Canada in 10 minutes,” panelist Robin Maynard said with a small laugh. Maynard is a Montreal-based feminist activist and writer. She is currently working on her first book, Policing Black Bodies: State Violence and Black Lives, which will be released this year.

Maynard said the idea for her book came from her work with Stella, a Montreal non-profit organization that offers support and information for sex workers in the city. For almost 10 years, Maynard did street-based outreach with sex workers in the city—providing them with psychological and emotional support, as well as health services.  She said this work raised her awareness about deeply-rooted racism and violence against black women in Canada.

“The level of extremely vindictive racialized targeting… like calling people monkeys, pointing guns at their heads… extremely horrific violence that was [happening] almost daily, often including sexual assault, which was not being reported anywhere,” Maynard said about what she saw and heard about in her work. She wasn’t seeing these issues reflected in media outlets, so she took it upon herself to explore black women’s issues in a larger historical and socio-political context.

Maynard gave the audience some historical context on anti-black racism in Canada. She said many Canadians assume black slavery was only present in the United States. The first black slave was brought to Quebec in 1628. While Canada didn’t have plantation-based slavery, Maynard said people bought and exploited black people for various types of labour, reducing them, as slavery does, to mere commodities.

Maynard stressed that Canada was not transparent about its involvement in slavery. “In the 18th century, even as slavery is being practiced, you see the beginning of Canada’s self-representation as this benevolent state,” Maynard said. She said evidence of slavery in Canada was cast aside with its abolition in 1834. Following 1834, textbooks in Canadian schools made no mention of any black slavery in Canada’s history. In Canada, Maynard explained the history of black people being viewed and treated as criminal, as dangerous or as unwanted can actually be traced back to the 17th and 18th centuries.

Panelist Marlihan Lopez delved further into these deep-rooted stereotypes, and how they influence the way black people are treated today in Canada and abroad. Lopez has a master’s degree in international development and has over a decade of experience in community organizing, feminist activism and cultural education.

“We carry on these stereotypes of sexual deviancy. So when we report [sexual violence], there’s a tendency of not being believed because we’re not associated with the ‘perfect victim’ which is white, which is middle-class,” said Lopez about the phenomenon of hypersexualization of the black woman.

According to a 2009 report by the American Bureau of Justice Statistics, one in 15 black women report sexual violence. The same is true in Canada. According to the Canadian Women’s Foundation, “studies show that when women of colour report violence, their experiences are often taken less seriously within the criminal justice system and their perpetrators routinely receive less harsh punishments.”

Lopez linked this back to the expectations of strength and resilience from black women. “The matriarch stereotype, the strong black women, auto-sufficient, ‘we don’t need to ask for help.’”

Lopez said the fight against racism needs to be an intersectional fight—that is, a fight that considers gender identity, ability, sexual orientation, class in addition to race. Intersectionality is the idea that we cannot consider social action on race issues independent from other connected issues regarding gender and class, for example. “We have to fight for the liberation of all our peoples. It’s necessary for our movements to be intersectional because, if not, we are going to keep perpetuating the same oppressive systems that we’re trying to combat,” said Lopez.

“I’ve always felt that intersectionality multiplies itself exponentially,” said Montreal-based singer-songwriter and LGBTQ+ rights activist J. Elise Barbara. Barbara explained that there are so many different elements of one’s identity that need to be considered when fighting for race equality.

Barbara said while piercing the milieu wasn’t easy at first, they felt being a transgender black musician helped them thrive in the music industry in Montreal. “I initially felt a lot of resistance coming from people. And through the years, I’ve felt a shift in how open-minded people seem to be,” Barbara said.

They felt there has been a shift in recent years in Montreal for transgender acceptance—a kind of left-leaning trend, especially present in the city’s music industry. “I initially felt a lot of resistance, coming from people.  And through the years, I’ve felt a shift in how open-minded people seem to be,” said Barbara. However, they said they felt cynical about this acceptance, because “it might not last.”

The next Thick Skin speakers series event will take place on Thursday, March 9 at 11:30 a.m. in H-760. The discussion will explore Indigenous “feminisms and womanisms.”

Erratum: an earlier version of this piece mis-paraphrased panelist Marlihan Lopez on the link between the worldwide hypersexualization of the black woman to sex slavery in Cuba and Brazil.  We sincerely apologize for the mistake. O.E.

Categories
Student Life

Talking global feminism at Université de Montréal

Speakers included philosophy professor Ryoa Chung, and doctoral candidate in communications, Khaloua Zoghlami. Photo by Alex Hutchins

The French university hosts its first-ever conference on intersectional feminism

The Regroupement des étudiants de l’Université de Montréal en soutien de l’ONU Femme hosted its first-ever event on Feb. 6—a conference dedicated to international feminism called “Le féminisme autour du monde: orient et occident.”

The conference coincided with the Semaine interculturelle de l’UdeM, a week dedicated to promoting the plethora of cultures that exist in and outside the university through conferences and activities. The conference featured two speakers: Ryoa Chung, a professor of philosophy at UdeM, and Khaloua Zoghlami, a doctoral candidate in communications at UdeM.

The bulk of the conference focused on international feminism and the many problems that arise when trying to apply feminist theories to women in varying cultural situations. Chung, the first speaker to address the crowd in the lecture hall, outlined many of the theoretical problems associated with using liberal feminism as the ideal way for women to emancipate themselves in other countries. Liberal feminism is assumed to be the most objective feminist theory because it pulls from the Liberal political theory, but it can impose Western values onto different cultures.

The conference on international feminism was the first of its kind at the University. Photo by Alex Hutchins

Chung warned that, while laced with good intentions, liberal feminism easily veers into this type of imperialism when proponents of this type of feminism do not make themselves aware of the particular struggles women in underdeveloped countries face.

“When we want to speak in solidarity for another person, there are pitfalls that we need to avoid, and one of these pitfalls we need to avoid is positioning ourselves as the saviour who knows how to save the other woman from herself,” Chung said.

She cited many examples where the epistemology and the basic theoretical constructs of some branches of feminism already put specific groups at a disadvantage. For example, sometimes the perspective of a religious or racial group cannot even be recognized by the majority, therefore any specific challenges they face are not represented in any actions taken.

Zoghlami brought to light many of the theories presented by Chung during her discussion, using her own experiences as a Tunisian-born woman as a springboard into talking about intersectional feminism. She said the type of liberal feminism women ascribed to in Tunisia was very confining.

“You had to be a specific type of woman to truly benefit from the rights allocated to women, because if you were a women who wore a veil, was attached to your religious practice, came from an underprivileged area, were black or were a collection of all that, these privileges did not concern you or were not concretely applied to you,” Zoghlami said.

She said one of the oldest and most influential feminist associations in Tunisia, L’Association Tunisiennes des Femmes Démocrates, supported the government’s measures to dissuade women from wearing their veil. At that same time, the government was already enforcing bans that blocked women who wore a veil from getting a job or an education. The liberal feminism these women borrowed from their French counterparts, she said, was derived from an imperialistic mindset and left no room for some women to practice their religion if they so chose to.

Zoghlami added that this was not a type of feminism she could identify with, because, in her view, it only fought for a small portion of women. She said she struggled to consolidate her identities as a woman and as a Muslim.

Only recently was Zoghlami introduced to the idea of intersectional feminism. Intersectional feminism argues that there are specific challenges associated with women who associate to more than one group, such as religion, race or sexual orientation. It states these specific challenges should be fought in tandem with one another, not separately. For Zoghlami, this means being able to fight for her rights as a Muslim woman, not as a Muslim and a woman.

Lia Ferranti, the president of the Regroupement des étudiants de l’Université de Montréal en soutien de l’ONU Femme, said the group really wanted to host an event in relation to the very popular Semaine interculturelle de UdeM.

“We asked ourselves how we could talk about feminism and interculturality, and we told ourselves, well why not talk about feminism around the world?” Ferranti said.

With 600 people interested in their Facebook event, Ferranti was surprised by how easily the conference came together. She said both Chung and Zoghlami were extremely open to speaking at the conference. “We realized that their two subjects really corresponded to the Occident and the Orient, and we set it up in a way to try to touch on everything, and it all came together,” Ferranti said.

She said the university was there to help and support them along the way.

“We are the first feminist organization recognized by UdeM,” Ferranti said. “The executive committee is practically all the founding members.”

The group is currently awaiting official recognition from the UN headquarters in New York in order to be named UN Women UdeM, but Ferranti said it will still take a while.

Categories
Student Life

Enough with the self-censorship

Graphic by Florence Yee

Béatrice Media and Imago Theatre organize a panel on women and self-censorship

On the mild and rainy evening of Jan. 11, in Montreal’s Centre-Sud neighbourhood, some two or three dozens of people met to talk about women, self-censorship and change.

The event, titled “Women Talk About Self-Censorship,” was organized in partnership with Béatrice Media, an independent media production company, and Imago Theatre, a theatre company whose mandate is equal representation and feminist storytelling.

The conversation, which took place at Café Sfouf, welcomed three panelists and CJLO radio broadcaster Rebecca Munroe as the host. The event was recorded for Béatrice Media’s podcast, Béacast.

Host Rebecca Munroe (far left) and panelists Dominique Pirolo (left), Tracey Steer (center) and Christina Vroom (right).
Photo by Danielle Gasher.

“Helpless.” “Weak.” “Small.” “Unempowered.” The evening’s three strong and successful panelists were asked by the host to remember a time when they felt they censored their words. They had to recount how it made them feel in that moment. Luckily for these women, they now rarely feel helpless, weak, small or unempowered.

“10, 15 years ago, I don’t think you were taught to speak about your opinion, empower yourself,” said one panelist, Dominique Pirolo, about her childhood experiences with speaking up. Today, Pirolo is a talent acquisition specialist for a software company in Montreal. She explained her assertiveness developed over time.

The panelists talked about this self-censorship tendency among women, and where they felt it came from. Panelist Tracey Steer, a self-employed writer whose work has appeared in Today’s Parent and Reader’s Digest, believes a lot of it has to do with women’s need to be people-pleasers. “It’s not always a bad thing. But, it’s not always a good thing,” said Steer. “And it takes a while, I think, to undo—not just being pleasing, and not just trying to keep everyone else around you happy.”

For panelist Christina Vroom, the associate director of university advancement for McGill University’s faculty of dentistry, assertiveness came in her adult life.

“I grew up with two brothers and a mother who was very opinionated,” she said. “She was my hero. I wanted to be like her, but I often felt I couldn’t contribute on the same level. There was a feeling of, ‘I’m going to disappoint.’” Vroom explained she used to feel the need to keep the peace and balance out the big opinions and personalities already present in her household.  Today, Vroom says she has “no problem rocking the boat.”

The panelists addressed the double-standard they feel is present when women demonstrate assertiveness.  

“When I became much more assertive with myself and not shy, a friend of mine said to me, ‘You’ve become very aggressive.’ I said, ‘I think you mean assertive.’ And he said, ‘No, no, aggressive,’” Vroom recounted, as the crowd ooh-ed and ahh-ed in disbelief .  “He said to me, ‘I think that’s why you’re single.’ I said, ‘I think that’s why we’re not going to be friends anymore.’”

Steer addressed how people tie the identifier “bitch” to women who are simply demonstrating confidence.  “That’s the thing, you know, because you don’t want to be seen as a bitch. Men are assertive and women are bitchy,” said Steer.

Béatrice Media co-founder, Adriana Palanca.
Photo by Danielle Gasher.

In the “talk-back” period of the discussion, the period when the podcast stopped recording and the discussion opened to the audience, a larger conversation about action and change took place. Audience members brought into question larger societal problems, such as the patriarchy organization in North America and gender inequality in the workplace. Together, the audience, panelists, host and Béatrice Media co-founder, Adriana Palanca, brainstormed ideas for promoting change and being the change. “It can start with education and really teaching younger people about it. And empowering young girls. And teaching men that it’s okay that women have a voice,” said Munroe.

Pirolo, who hires people as a large part of her job, had some advice for women seeking employment. “I noticed that when I’m hiring and interviewing individuals, and I interview men and I interview women, the women are not selling themselves the way they should,” said Pirolo.

According to a 2012 study conducted by Brigham Young University and Princeton University researchers, men dominate conversations during business meetings. The study found women only spoke 25 per cent of the time in meetings, with men speaking 75 per cent of the time. According to research conducted in 2013 by a data tool called Twee-Q, women make up 62 per cent of Twitter users.  However, Twee-Q’s stats found that men are retweeted almost twice as often as women, with almost 63 per cent of all retweets belonging to men.

Palanca said she and Mireille St-Pierre founded Béatrice Media to reinforce feminism in media organizations and to start conversations about women, equality, social progress and empowerment.

“[Béatrice Media’s] version of feminism, at its most basic, is: ‘I want to be able to do what a dude does and not get judged for it.’ That’s it, right? And, for us, we weren’t seeing that reflected in a lot of the media that we saw around us. And we said, ‘This is what we feel, this is what we want to see reflected,’” Palanca told The Concordian.

Palanca said she was happy with how the evening unfolded and looks forward to doing similar events in the future. She described the talk as a test-run. For Palanca, good, progressive conversation is about “cutting through the judgement, cutting through the habitual behaviour, cutting through the bullshit.”

Categories
News

Survivors unite and shed light

Graphic by Charlotte Bracho.

Québec Contre les Violences Sexuelles is a social movement created to provide a voice for sexual assault survivors

The social movement Québec Contre les Violences Sexuelles was created a few weeks ago, with the goal denouncing rape culture and discussing the lack of funding for organizations addressing sexual assault issues.

Ariane Litalien, who is currently a student at McGill University, helped create the social movement. She shared her experience with sexual assault while she studied at Harvard University with The Concordian.

“I was an undergraduate student and was seeing a student who was also living in my residence house,” she said. “After a party, I went back to his room where he started kissing me super aggressively and biting me. I asked him to stop, and he told me I should wear a scarf to hide the marks.” Litalien ended up feeling pressured to do things she wasn’t comfortable with, and left the room in tears, she said.

Although she told a few friends what had happened that week, she couldn’t admit to herself that it was sexual assault—until she attended an event where he won a community award.

“I started crying and realized something was really wrong,” she said. That’s when she went to discuss the issue with the residence and Harvard administrators, who made her feel like she was doing all of this in vain, she said. “The only sexual assault policy was 20-years-old, and the administration told me that, under that policy, I couldn’t file any complaints for sexual violence,” she said.

Although there was little she could do at that point, Litalien at least knew the assault wasn’t her fault and she decided not to leave the residence. However, later on, her perpetrator was hired to work at the front desk of the residence. “He had access to my mail, and personal information,” she said.

Litalien was eventually diagnosed with depression, and she realized she needed to speak out, so she detailed her experience in an article for her school’s daily student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson. “Strangers would share it on social media, which made me feel the validation that the administrators didn’t really give me,” she said.

The article was a turning point in Litalien’s life. She was interviewed for a documentary about sexual assaults called The Hunting Ground. She shared the stage with Lady Gaga and other sexual assault survivors at the 2016 Oscars, where the singer performed “Till It Happens to You.”

Upon returning in Montreal last year to pursue her studies at McGill University in medicine, Litalien said she realized Quebec did not have a law mandating that universities report on sexual violence or have a policy on sexual violence. This is why Litalien created Québec Contre les Violences Sexuelles, with the help of Kimberley Marin and Melanie Lemay who are also sexual assaults survivors.

“It’s really meant to be a social organization for anyone fed up of the way sexual violence is handled in our society, with rape cultures and with universities not answering well to the complaints of sexual assaults,” said Litalien.

Concordia University implemented its policy on sexual violence on May 20, 2016, outlining its commitment to creating and maintaining a sexual violence-free campus.

The Sexual Assault Resource Centre (SARC) coordinator acts as a point of contact for first response in the case of sexual violence, according to Concordia’s website. With the consent of the survivor, the coordinator then provides support and manages the case both internally and externally.

Graphic by Charlotte Bracho

Categories
Arts

Feminist comedians take over Reggie’s

Funny women took to the stage Friday night  to talk life, love and get some laughs

Concordia students crowded into Reggie’s as the second annual Feminist Stand-Up Comedy Night kicked off on Sept. 16. Put on by the Centre for Gender Advocacy, the evening’s lineup of comedians featured some newbies as well as a few veterans. The event began with an open mic session and was followed by sets from two renowned feminist comedians, Kalyani Pandya and Ify Chiwetelu.

The packed event kicked off with local comedian Nicole, who is relatively new to the comedy circuit. Last year’s Feminist Stand-Up Comedy Night was one of her first forays into the stand-up world. Originally from Saskatchewan, she started off by welcoming everyone to group therapy, and followed up with some poignant jokes about the cost of therapy and women’s haircuts. “When I do my finances every month, I’m like okay, do I want to be a functioning member of society or do I want to look good,” she said amidst applause. “We can all tell by my hair which one I chose this month.”

Right before the headlining act, Pandya took the stage and treated everyone to her hilarious stand-up, which focused on the fact she is queer and South Asian. She kept the room laughing during her entire set with jokes about her parents and their trip back to India. However, while she impersonated her parents for the skit, she also made it clear that cultural appropriation would not be tolerated.  “Now when I say these stories, I am going to use [my parents] accents, because it is their voices and I couldn’t hear it any other way,” she said. “But it is not okay for you to go and make those accents unless you are related to them or know them.” Branded “Ottawa’s funniest dyke” by Ottawa Xtra!, Pandya was part of the CBC’s Human Library series. She has performed at various venues across Canada, including Yuk Yuk’s, the Palais des congrés, and the Vancouver Queer International Film Festival.

Following Pandya was the night’s headliner, Toronto-based comedian Ify Chiwetelu. Winner of the 2015 Bad Dog Theatre Breakout Performer award, she joked about growing up black in Calgary and modern-day dating and using Tinder. Walking back and forth across the stage, she described what it was like to use the popular hook-up app after a weird or uncomfortable interaction: “You delete the app for like an hour, then look beside you like, oh my bed’s still empty, time to re-download that shit.” Featuring jokes about boobs, boys and life with parents who had escaped a civil war in Nigeria, Chiwetelu provided a set that was also relevant to all kids who grew up in Canadian cities and loved rap music way too much.

This event was part of the Centre for Gender Advocacy’s annual fall event series, Another Word for Gender: An Intro to Feminist Organizing and Action. The fall series runs until Oct. 4. The next event, an ask-and-answer with multi-disciplinary artists Vivek Shraya and Chase Joynt, will take place on Sept. 22.

For a full schedule of the events check out the fall events series page on Facebook.

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