Monday, October 31, 2011

Discussion Forum: Discrimination

Feminist Action Discussion Forum!
Come out and chat at Feminist Action's Discussion Forum.  This week we will be talking about the small ways people both resist and reinforce discrimination in everyday life.
When: Thurs, Nov 3rd @ 12:00pm - 1:30pm
Where: Ross South 101

Monday, October 17, 2011

Discussion Forum: Dominance and Submission

Feminist Action Discussion Forum!

This Feminist Action discussion forum will revolve around "Passive & Dominant Roles in Sex & Relationships".  Come chat about how these roles have an impact on our social landscape, heterosexual or LGBTQ2!  This is a positive space.  Hope to see you there!


When:
Thurs, Oct 20th @ 12:00pm - 1:30pm
Where:
Ross South 101

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

How Chalk Saved Me from the Belly of the Political Machine

By the end of this summer I was unemployed, but flush with OSAP cash. Eager to mark an item off my bucket list I volunteered for an NDP campaign in the provincial elections. I really dove into this head first, and so most of my waking hours in August and September were spent standing on the front porches of North York voters. Yesterday we finished picking up 15 thousand dollars worth of campaign signs, and today as I sit at my computer, eating an ungodly amount of cold pizza scavenged in the waning hours of the campaign party, I feel disoriented by both the lack of daily linear goals, and the sudden inpouring of free time. I guess I feel the need to reflect on this experience

Above all, I will miss the sense of community which was fostered on the campaign. Every night the core team would gather around a cheap plastic table piled with wrinkled maps, and swap election battle stories. Someone would suggest that the Liberals had stolen an NDP campaign sign, and we would unanimously agree that the only appropriate response would be to slash their tires (for the record, we never did!). We coalesced around a shared affinity to the NDP banner, and strengthened the bond by painting the Liberals into boogeymen. When we sat around telling these stories I felt a deep sense of belonging. This is what kept me coming back.   

Most voters with whom I spoke to fell into the broad categories of the staunch traditionalists, who always vote for the same party, or the apolitical apathetic, who have given up on politics altogether. While knocking on doors I shocked myself with how quickly I was able to throw away my youthful idealism and simply say anything to lock up a vote. When I was standing in front of a Conservative I would deliver my rehearsed spiel on strategically voting NDP to block a Liberal seat. If a Social Conservative launched into a creepy racist tirade filled with code words like, “the immigrant problem” or “the moral decay of the country”, I would frantically mask my discomfort by shifting the conversation to fiscal policy, or garbage removal (even though garbage is a city issue). Ultimately, the experience became a numbers game with layers of strategy.  I was constantly dancing from one side of the aisle to the other, hoping to appease whomever was listening.



Honestly, I got really burnt out near the end. The first signs of frustration surfaced while I was helping out with the creation of a piece of artwork. The piece was a large scale chalk drawing, and I vividly remember colouring in a portion and feeling really excited because I was free to choose any colour I wanted. It felt as if the NDP was some controlling mistress who was letting me watch the hockey game because I behaved myself at a party! I guess I was very accustomed to calibrating my actions relative to the singular goal of winning the election, and somehow the creativity of the chalk drawing tapped into an expressive freedom which I had suppressed. From that point on, instead of reading Huffington-post election clippings, I would spend my mornings scanning web comics. In the evenings, rather than volunteering to stay late and enter voter data, I would sneak off to read comics, re-watch old movies, and toss around ideas for short stories. It was pretty clear that the thrill of the campaign was fading.



I think these reflections connect in interesting ways. For one thing, my feelings towards both the party fundamentalist and the apathetic shifted from frustration to understanding. Over the last two months I definitely took a few sips of the NDP Kool-Aid, and so I can understand how holding a party so close to your sense of identity can develop into irrational, unconditional supportIt is pretty easy to start thinking of politics in terms of “we are the righteous, and they are from the depths of hell! On the other hand, by the end of the campaign I felt a certain kinship with the apathetic constituent (I mean screw it, I’m in my early twenties, if there’s ever a time to go through a nihilistic punk rock phase it's now!). The time I spent saying almost anything to get votes probably shows that there is a kernel of truth to the argument that “politicians are all the same”. The representatives on our ballet have each been processed and packaged through a massive machine designed to produce the person who will appeal to the most voters and generate the most campaign dollars.

 I understand the appeal of the apathetic position, but please do not understand this as an endorsement to not vote. Young people today have incredible challenges ahead of them, facing down a collapsing economic system as capitalism takes its last, wheezing gasps of life. If we ever hope to achieve true change and start the healing process, it won’t be through apathy or blind partisanship, it will be through people. People with different viewpoints, ideas and dreams, gathering and doing things both inside and outside the political machine. I will continue to support the NDP, because for the time being their platform correlates the closest with my personal ideals and convictions. However, I will now seek to balance my involvement with action outside of formal politics – in this sense I am very thankful to be a part of Feminist Action.

    Oh, I should probably mention that we lost the election, but I feel ok with this. I met inspiring people, and had some great experiences! When McGuinty’s minority falls you will probably see me helping the NDP again, but my activism will no longer begin and end on the front porch of North York voters.       

-Michael

Monday, October 10, 2011

Well. What Did You Expect?

A comic Kate Beaton posted to her twitter account recently really caught my attention. Beaton is a cartoonist hailing from Nova Scotia, Canada, and is the author of the hilarious web comic Hark! A Vagrant. The comic she posted is called What Did You Expect, and is a revealing autobiographical cartoon depicting a situation that arose during her time working in the Alberta Tar Sands.

Click here to see the full length comic.

Beaton’s experience is teeth-grindingly familiar. As she tries to nervously laugh off her humiliation I found myself twitching and grimacing just as I’m sure she did in the moment.

There are so many different layers of sexism at work in this one comic: the kind Kate laughs off (“you shoulda worn those pants that make your arse look good”), the kind she unhappily swallows (“I can’t be giving anyone special treatment”), or just plain ignores (“you in trouble doll?”). Tellingly, the only other woman depicted in the comic is a voiceless receptionist.


Her boss’s attitude is classically dismissive. He assumes that if she isn’t being directly threatened by the men then it isn’t anything serious. She is the one not being a team player and it is she who is causing problems (by merely breaching the subject). Beaton is the one who ends up apologising for herself, in a plea to keep her job. The boss claims he can’t give her any special treatment… because not getting judged like a country fair hog by her male co-workers would be special treatment right? He ends up sending her back to the U+O box, and Beaton helplessly thanks him. Uaghagh.

The comment Beaton writes below the comic is: “been a while since I made a comic about working in the Tar Sands no? But I feel like I hear ‘what did you expect’ all the time, all the same.” This kind of treatment is not exclusive to women working in the tar sands, or in any male-dominated trade. This kind of attitude is everywhere. When a queer person is bullied, it’s because they were in the wrong place with the wrong people. What did you expect? When a woman is raped it’s because she was wearing the wrong clothes and out too late. What did she expect? Whenever someone is belittled because of their skin colour, well, they just should have been born whiter. What did they expect?? Why should the perpetrators ever have to change? The victims should stop putting themselves into situations where they can be victims.

I wish I could provide some sort of profound solution or answer to this problem here. But I can’t. All I can do is stand, up to, and against, these inequalities as I face them, just like you can. I think that ongoing education, activism, and awareness is key for these kind of attitudes and limits to be destroyed. One thing I really desire is the teaching feminism in Canadian public schools, which I really feel would help. How come they don’t do that yet btw?...never mind though, that's another tangent.

On a happy note, Kate Beaton is pretty hot shit right now, one of the most in-demand cartoonists in the world; her book Hark! a Vagrant has just hit the top of The New York Time’s graphic novels best sellers list. This is a pretty BIG deal for lady cartoonists, who have always had a rough go of it in the male dominated cartoon industry. I am really looking forward to seeing her feminist-lens-filtered comics infiltrate mainstream publications, and more postings of personal, thought provoking pieces such as this.

Beaton will be in Toronto October 29th and 30th for IFOA, BTW. I highly recommend checking that out.
 


-Steph