Tag: Gender Equality

Categories
Sports

I love a sport that doesn’t love me back

Formula One is starting its season with a driver who inappropriately touched a woman in its line-up

Content warning: Sexual harassment

I need to get it off my chest: my favourite sport is going in a direction that I cannot ignore anymore.

As Formula One’s (F1) 2021 season began this past weekend, I am now, more than ever, realizing how it is basically the white, straight man’s sport of honour.

As a woman, being an F1 fan is hard.

Back in 2013, my 16-year-old self was ecstatic when I saw a woman would be in charge of an F1 team for the first time; Claire Williams.

Williams’ Formula One team, however, has not been performing as it once was for the past few years.

Now, many would be quick to associate this downfall with Claire Williams’ promotion; however, the team was doomed to fail since the 1998 Concorde Agreement; a contract which dictates how F1’s television revenues and prize money are distributed, changing the money distribution drastically.

Williams was not even given a fair chance as she was the victim of the glass cliff.

This phenomenon occurs when women in leadership roles, such as company executives or even political candidates, are more likely than men to achieve these positions when the organization is facing crisis or the chance of failure is high.

Williams addressed her struggles linked to sexism and even mentioned how it got worse once she became a mother.

“I have actually had someone say to me that a lot of people in the Formula One paddock think that the team started doing badly when I fell pregnant and had a baby,” she said. “How dare they? There are nine other team principals in F1 and I am sure the majority of them have children. Would you ever level that criticism at them?”

As I grew up trying to find my place as a woman in the sport, I had to endure seeing my only representation in the sport being critiqued all these years for supposedly leading the team to failure.

As a young girl, the only image I had of women in the sport was of its “Grid Girls,” and how conventionally beautiful and useless, for a lack of better word, they were.

Despite their absence today, the image of the paddock remains a playground of sexual advantage that catters to a heterosexual male audience.

As Hazel Southwell, a motorsport journalist, wrote: “Women who work in motor sport warn each other about the predators because they don’t face consequences. I know more women who’ve left the sport after harassment, by far, than men who’ve got even a stern email about doing it.”

This toxic climate was always something I knew of from hearsay, but never actually something I wanted to believe, until Dec. 9, 2020.

Only eight days after Nikita Mazepin was announced as a Haas 2021 driver, he posted a video on his Instagram story where he can be seen groping a woman’s breast.

Mazepin’s list of controversies already included punching another driver in the Formula 3 paddock in 2016, demanding nude pictures from a woman in exchange for paddock tickets, endorsing racist comments, and record-breaking violent driving on the track.

The incident was met with outrage amongst fans, as the hashtag #WeSayNoToMazepin was circulating on social media, and a Change.org petition was created demanding the driver face proper correctional measures.

What is frustrating as a woman who enjoys the sport, who has given money to the sport and who would eventually like to work in it, is that the only thing I got was a statement from the Haas Team condemning his actions, but keeping him on board for the ride and saying that “No further comments shall be made.”

The son of a billionaire who will most likely help the sole American team to get out of its financial struggles, Mazepin’s controversy was quite frankly not the groping, but the broadcast of it.

He made an embarrassment of the sport and the Haas team, upset the sponsors and, most intriguingly, opened up the curtain behind the sexism still present in the paddock.

Although I believe that punishing Mazepin for his actions should not be too much to ask for in 2021, I do believe the F1 group and the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) should address Mazepin’s case as what it truly is: not an isolated incident.

I am writing this article as McLaren driver and Twitch streamer Lando Norris’ sexist comments during a recent stream have just come out.

Norris can be heard objectifying women as he refers to them as “yours,” “mine,” “that one” and “the nationality one.”

In times dominated by seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton, where every driver wants to be as fast as him on track and every fan admires him for his performance, maybe the men of F1 should start taking notes on his off-track activism as well.

After years of watching the sport demonize my gender, at the start of the 2021 season, I am left feeling as though I am going back into a toxic relationship. Because the part of me that loves the sport believes it can change for the better.

But will the sport I love ever love me back?

 

Graphic by Taylor Reddam

Categories
News

Spotlight: Women in Engineering

“It’s important for every girl to know that there is support,” said president of Women in Engineering (WIE), Riya Dutta. “I think it’s important to be able to encourage and empower women.”

WIE is a Concordia-based student association that aims to give female engineering and computer science students academic, social and professional support. They promote inclusivity, as their association and activities are open to men, and aim to provide students with the tools to foster growth.

As Dutta explained, this inclusivity is intentional – exclusivity would not help the cause of closing the gender disparity gap seen in engineering programs.

“When everyone notices there is an issue, that’s when things will get resolved,” said Dutta.

According to WIE’s website, only 20 per cent of students enrolled in engineering programs across Canada are women, and only 12.8 per cent of those students become professional engineers.

“The gender disparity within engineering is huge,” said Dutta. “It’s important for women to know there’s a place for them in engineering, and it’s important to show young girls it’s possible.”

There are two levels to WIE’s activities. The association does in-house work, where opportunities are brought directly to the students by social and networking events. For example, on Feb. 6, WIE will be hosting a Power Networking event where attendees will have the opportunity to have several short one-on-one chats with female industry representatives. Dutta described the event as “speed dating, but with companies.”

The second tier is an outreach program dedicated to reaching women and girls of all ages through educational activities at primary and secondary schools and CEGEPs in Montreal. For example, on March 7, WIE will be hosting an event called “WIE Inspire WIE Empower,” which is a day of hands-on STEM workshops at a highschool for students between secondary one to five. The day is hosted by industry leaders such as Google, which will touch on several engineering fields. There will also be female guest speakers from the STEM field who have made impactful contributions, such as Gina Cody.

WIE also hosts coding workshops in elementary schools.

“We try to inspire them to learn science and to get into engineering,” said Dutta. “It’s such a great feeling when young kids learn.”

Through workshops and other activities, Dutta noticed some young women in CEGEP are worried about the gender disparity in Concordia’s engineering programs.

“We always tell them that getting more women in the field, and in these programs is how we are going to (close to disparity gap),” said Dutta.

Dina Khalesi, a software engineering student, sees the value of having a student association that offers support to female engineering students.

“WIE certainly affected me at the beginning of my journey,” said Khalesi. “They gave me the initial push to join Software Engineering through one of their conferences.”

“I think it is important to have these types of associations in a field mainly dominated by men,” continued Khalesi. “Knowing there’s a group of women going through the same struggles as you and knowing that they are there to support you inspires more confidence to stay and perform well in engineering.”

 

Graphic by @sundaeghost

 

 

 

Categories
Opinions

Why we need more women in late-night

There’s nothing like kicking my feet up after a long day, turning on my TV and hanging out with one of my dear friends: John Oliver, Seth Myers, Trevor Noah, or Samantha Bee.

Late-night comedy plays an important role in my life and over the last half-decade, its place in society has shifted. Due to an information overload and the aggravating political climate, this outlet has become a more digestible way to get news.

According to a study in the Global Media Journal, comedians are aware of this shift. The journal states “Despite the fact that Late-Night TV show comedians are not necessarily considered as professional journalists, they identify themselves with the market model of professional journalism.” Since late-night comedians are often seen as journalists in at least some facet, it’s important to examine how this affects our world view.

These late-night shows often highlight and criticize the lack of diversity and inclusivity within the system, but, ironically, the demographics of late-night comedians is still quite homogeneous. According to The Los Angeles Times, there is a lack of women writers in leading late-night shows. Patriot Act with Hasan Minaj consists of only 20 per cent female writers, 22 per cent on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah, 25 per cent on Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, 28 per cent on Late Night with Seth Meyers, 17 per cent with Conan, and even Full Frontal with Samantha Bee has only 45 per cent women writers.

Women have been fighting for a voice in comedy for a long time, and it’s important to address how their voice has the ability to influence our perception of the world. Since the role of late-night comedians has become to articulate and digest world events in a humorous manner, it is crucial to widen the way that this is done.

Tina Fey recounted to David Letterman in an interview that her experience with a more diverse writing room has lead to social change.

“As the chemistry of the room slowly became more diverse, other things played better,” she said. She continued by explaining that women just simply laugh at different things than men. For a long time, people have thought that what is funny for men is universal and what is funny for women is strictly for women. This is another way that the patriarchy dominates society.

Although it does look bare for women in late-night, there has been a push for more representation. According to Elle.com, Lilly Singh, an Indian-Canadian YouTuber, will be hosting a late-night show on NBC, which will air after Seth Meyers’ at 1:35 a.m. Other late-night hosts, like Seth Meyers, have added segments to push a more diverse agenda. The segment “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell” allows writers for the show, Amber Ruffin and Jenny Hagel, to take the floor and tell jokes that would not be politically correct for straight white men to say.

On a podcast called Late Night with Joy Reid, Jenny Hagel explains that different stories and jokes emerge when people connect to the news in different ways.

“When you are a member of a sub-community you just have a different angle,” Hagel said. “You might think, ‘awh man that sucks’ from a distance but if it hits you directly you might find a different way into that joke, or have a different idea for a sketch about it.”

Even the most progressive comedians, like John Oliver and Trevor Noah, are limiting themselves by having less diversity in their writing rooms. Although they may have a very balanced and well-informed perspective, they will not receive the same intellectual, psychological, and emotional reaction to news from the other less represented members of society.

 

Graphic by @sundaeghost

Categories
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.

Categories
News

Aiding 60 million lives one class at a time

Foundation’s founder talks about empowering women through education

Wanda Bedard, founder of the girl’s educational charity 60 Million Girls Foundation, will be featured at a talk on the Oct. 15 on a pilot self-learning project focusing on young girls in rural Sierra Leone.

Bedard, a Montreal local, started the charity group in the late ‘90s after repeatedly hearing and reading about the plight of Afghan women under the harshly and repressive rule of the theocratic Taliban regime.

Shocked by their narrow existence and enraged by such squandered potential, Bedard decided to get involved herself. One Sunday morning, disgusted after reading a story of an Afghani girl sold by her father to a much older warlord for a pittance, she decided to change directions and work towards the betterment of the millions of disenfranchised women the world over.

“I can be upset after reading these things, but if I don’t take action and participate, I’m not helping improve things or change things,” said Bedard on her motivation.

Falling back on her professional experience as a businesswoman, she spent the next severak years trying to understand, in her words, why women were so little valued. She self-researched and attended workshops, volunteered for organizations like UNICEF, and sought out anybody who could better inform her on the workings of international aid organizations. She also realized only education could fundamentally elevate the conditions of the women in the world’s most unstable and poor countries.

The 60 Million Girls Foundation’s mandate is to fundraise and aid two to three projects a year completely though volunteers — as Bedard says, pretty much their entire staff has day jobs on the side, but this allows for “99 percent” of money raised to go to the sources that need them These projects are realized by established and registered Canadian charities who pitch their proposals and budgets to scrutiny and feasibility studies by Bedard’s foundation.

“Because we’re a public foundation we have no capital so we start pretty well at zero dollars every January and then we do the fundraising throughout the year,” she explained of the efforts that have seen the foundation give grants totaling $300,000 at a time for a grand total of $1.9 million over the years, spread over 16 projects.

“We take an awful lot of care in choosing our partners,” said Bedard of the risks and difficulties in carrying out operations in states where corruption and violence may be endemic. Only groups with a proven track record of strong connections to these communities and visions beyond the short-term are considered. Detailed budgets require reasonable administrative costs, and the foundation sometimes sends its own members (at their own expense) to check up on them. Every six months a status update is performed, which Bedard says is necessary in regions where volatile politics and instability can drastically alter the landscape they are working in.

“It’s important to us to have really close communication with our partners. It didn’t make a lot of sense of us to reinvent the organizations in the field or projects in the field when there’s already so many amazing projects going on and what they often lack is funding and partnerships,” said Bedard.

Despite some difficult instances — Bedard particularly remembers one project for post-secondary aboriginal education in Honduras marred by political instability brought on by a coup — no initiative has been abandoned or cancelled, though modifications have often occurred in response to changes in situation.

“You have to take [the instability] into account if you want to help these communities,” said Bedard.

“Any organization without strong community links and engagement won’t be successful. We constantly ask for feedback.”

With eight years of experience, 60 Million Girls has begun taking a more active role in suggesting and planning initiatives it thinks will best serve girls’ education. This, and their personal experience from travelling in Africas, is from whence springs the pilot project on self-directed computer-based learning in Sierra Leone.

“I remember being in very rural areas, hours and hours away from the nearest city, and then you’d be there and see a cell phone kiosk selling cell phone cards or telephones in the middle of nowhere. I said to myself ‘This is crazy, how could these people, who live in absolute poverty, think of buying a luxury like a cell phone? [Then I] realized this isn’t a luxury — this is a lifesaving tool. These communities did not have access to information beforehand and there is no electricity, but there are small entrepreneurs who have charging stations with generators. What I found amazing at the time was that the country actually skipped a whole generation of technology because they never had landlines for telephones and went right to cell phones.”

The challenge was figuring out a way to harness the innovation.

Rural African schools lack the resources to provide a strong education. There is a dearth of qualified teachers (Bedard estimated there are around 3.5 million missing teachers across the world) and government funding, though coming from a good place, is insufficient. Add to it the burden posed on the parents in providing for their children and making up for lost manpower back at their homesteads, and there are strong factors holding education back. 60 Million Girls therefore came up with a way to instead let the children learn on their own with the help of computers, which Bedard considers as “containers in which can be put vast amounts of information.” These computers lack certain basics like word processing, which depend on expensive add-ons like printers, and are instead outfitted with tutorial software, offline Wikipedia, and various encyclopedias. The choice of software originally focused on literacy,  but was found to be problematic as literature was culturally specific and particular to each host community. Mathematics, by contrast, was more universal in its applicability.

“We wanted to see if they worked and if the girls showed any interest. It was absolutely stunning. The girls loved it. They went through all the math videos at their level of high school, and they were clamouring for more. They were doing it on their own; there was no teacher overseeing things.” A second phase of some two-and-a-half months followed in April. It is these findings and the methodology behind it that form part of the discussion on Wednesday.

Bedard herself is already convinced.

“The research clearly shows that for every additional year of primary school that a girl gets, infant mortality rates decrease by 10 to 15 per cent. For every additional level of high school, potential revenue increases by about 25 per cent. So at the very core of it is to give the girls, and the boys depending on the projects, the tools to look after themselves, to be able to understand [the label] if they are given medicine, to understand the importance of prenatal care if pregnant, to understand the importance of nutrition or vaccination for their kids. To be able to read and write and understand basic numeracy, [the benefits] are clearly demonstrated.”

Empowering Girls: Using Educational Technology to save lives will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. at  the York Amphitheatre  (room 1.615) of the Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Integrated Complex, at 1515 Ste. Catherine St. W.

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