femilicious.com

Best diet I’ve ever heard of. It worked well, steady weight loss over time, kept it off well too. The secret? Not having enough money to buy food. Pay the shelter bills first – hopefully you’ve enough for those. Next: feed the kids – peanut butter, pasta, tomato sauce, and dried beans from the food bank. The parenting centre would let me scan their shelves for foods my kids liked. Other places I’d be handed a pre-packed brown bag. Grow a garden for vegetables. In the winter grow sprouts.

No food = no eating = get skinny. No exercise required, though since I didn’t have a car or bus money walking everywhere probably speeded up the process.

This method worked for me and my friend, another single mom. Of course there are side effects: no energy, depression, and hopelessness. And clothes get droopy. But isn’t it worth it to be thin?

Ahhhh those were the days.

Prompted by a discussion with my daughter’s sensei I felt a need to review some violence against women stats. All images in this post are by fotografer.ru.

Check this out:

in Canada, from WAVAW:

• One half of all Canadian women have experienced at least one incident of sexual or physical violence. Almost 60% of these women were the targets of more than one of these incidents. (Statistics Canada, “The Violence Against Women Survey,” The Daily, November 18, 1993.)
• One in four Canadian women will be sexually assaulted during her lifetime. In BC this number is almost double(47%). ( J. Brickman and J. Briere, “Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault in an Urban Canadian Population,” The International Journal of Women’s Studies, Vol. 7, no. 3, 1984.)
  
• Sexual assault is not most often committed by strangers who jump out of bushes or wait in alleys for their victims. Over 80% of sexual assaults are committed by someone known to the victim.

  

• Most assaults occur in a private home (60%) and the largest percentage of these occur in the victim’s home(38%). (D. Kinnon, “Report on Sexual Assault in Canada,” Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, Ottawa, 1981.)
• Studies of rapists show that rapists are “ordinary” or “normal” men. The majority of convicted rapists assaulted for the emotion gratification they received from the violent act, not out of sexual frustration. (Helen Lenskyj, “An Analysis of Violence Against Women: A Manual for Educators and Administrators,” Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 1992.)
• Men who commit sexual assault come from every economic, ethnic, racial, age, and social group. As well, women who are sexually assaulted are from every economic, ethnic, racial, age, and social group.
• Legally, women have the right to say ‘no,’ to any form of sex with anyone, including their spouse or the person they are dating. Sexual assault within relationships has been illegal in Canada since 1983, however many people still do not recognize it as a crime. Even within a relationship, each partner must give consent each time sexual relations occur.
• Legally, a woman has the right to change her mind about having sex at any point of sexual contact. If her partner does not stop at the time she changes her mind and says ‘no,’ this is sexual assault. As well, just because a woman is in a relationship with someone or has sex with a person before, does not mean that person cannot assault her. Consent must be given every time two people engage in sexual contact.
• According to Statistics Canada, in the year 2000, sexual assault came in third for the highest number of violent crimes committed in Canada. The number of assaults committed accounted for the highest number of violent crimes.
• Anyone can be sexually assaulted. However, most sexual assaults that occur are against women and are perpetrated by men.

and in the United States, from the Kansas District Attorney’s office website:

• Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women between the ages of 15 and 44 in the United States; more then car accidents, muggings and rapes combined.
  “Violence Against Women, A Majority Staff Report,” Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 102nd Congress, October 1992, p. 3
• About 1 out of 4 women are likely to be abused by a partner in her lifetime.
  Sara Glazer, “Violence Against Women” CQ Researcher, Congressional Quarterly, Inc., Volume 3, Number 8, February, 1993, p. 171
• One women is beaten by her husband or partner every 15 seconds in the United States
  Uniform Crime Reports, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1991.

• Three to four million women in the United States are beaten in their homes each year by their husbands, ex-husbands or male lovers.
  “Women and Violence,” Hearings before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, August 29 and December 11, 1990, Senate Hearing 101-939, pt. 1, p. 12.

• Women of all cultures, races, occupations, income levels and ages are battered by husbands, boyfriends, lovers and partners.
  For Shelter and Beyond, Massachusetts Coalition of Battered Women Service Groups, Boston, MA 1990.

I’ve seen these state before. And I figured someone who teaches defense classes would be familiar with them too. But sometimes, just when you think someone is all enlightened and that there’s hope for the planet you talk to them and you find out that enlightenment is categorical. They may be great at meditating and teaching traditional techniques but when it comes to applying it to the contemporary world maybe it’s more abstract and theoretical than useful in a practical way. I’ve discovered that there’s a divide between the theory and practice of aikido…

My daughter has been doing aikido for about a year and a half now. She loves it. There are lots of girls in her class of age 10-13 kids and although most of the adults are male there are 2 adult-late teens women with black or brown belts who assist and make good role models along with the men who are also great at what they do. I’ve talked to the sensei on several occasions and he’s got a great philosophy of teaching and the kids love him. I think the classes are valuable for her. It’s just really unfortunate that sensei’s knowledge about the type of violence women face isn’t all that current.

Actiongirls has been talking about the various self-defense courses available around campus and nothing has really caught our fancy yet. I knew that sensei had started teaching some self-defense classes for women for the parks and rec department and approached him about maybe doing an one day workshop for our club. We specifically want strategies for dealing with the most common type of attacks that women face – not the ones that are perpetuated in myths. So I told sensei that the members of the club want to learn to protect ourselves for real life situations, for example, in a car or in bed — to which he replied “woooahh what are you doing in bed with someone then?” Uh duh?? most women do not planned to be raped. I mean, if we did, maybe we could just change our plans and stay home and bake.

So sensei told me about purse snatching strategies and parking garages and walking down the street defense techniques, saying women need to use their brains and not put themselves in dangerous situations, this being the best way to not get attacked. Good grief. Blame the victim and disregard that the majority of attacks take place in the home with someone the woman knows.

So no, sensei wasn’t arguing with me but just telling me what he teaches. Too bad it’s not going to be useful to the majority of women and ignores the violence against women stats. The problem is that a sensei is an authority figure. People listen to him – especially his students. If a woman takes his self-defense class and he tells her to avoid walking down the sidewalk, going to parking garages, and other “dangerous places” she might do this. But it tells her it’s her own fault for being a woman, perpetuates stereotypes of women needing protection, and gives her a false sense of security that now that she can escape a purse snatcher she is “safe”. It’s not going to help her at all for the types of attacks she is most likely to face. In this regard, sensei is misleading.

We’re still looking for a useful self-defense class. One that doesn’t blame women and prepares them for the type of violence they are actually likely to face. If anyone has a recommendation I’d be happy to have it. Maybe there are materials so we could do our own?

Thanks again to fotografer.ru for the great CC-licensed photos.

I am in such a wonderfully good place right now. There are still enough days between now and due dates that I’m not yet in full freakout, and I am surrounded by the most wonderful and caring people anyone could know. It began yesterday with some sweet things my kids said, then I was surprised late at night with warm sticky rice in coconut milk topped with cashews and a glass of good wine. Today this was followed up with kids who are excited to be learning to write secret codes in binary/ascii, who laugh, joke around and tell me they love me, and finally an end of semester party with Actiongirls and the Women’s Studies Student Association. These men and women are fun, intelligent, committed to social justice, the environment, feminism, and friendship. It feels so good to be a part of the group. Thank you Carol, Aubrey, Tina, Mike, Edith, David, Allison, Catherine, and Korinne. As for the party: good food, soooo much garlic, and a great theme picked out for next semester’s art-performance-extravaganza: Cliterature! Call for submissions coming out supersoon… stay tuned.

I seem to be in a perpetual struggle for a secular education for my kids at the local public school. This past week my daughter brought home a spelling worksheet with the sentence “Insects are one of the many creatures God created. The word insects was underlined to be replaced with one of the list words. The sentence was also used on the test at the end of the week.

I complained (again) about religion in public schools and about the school teaching creationism, the teacher responded that I was surely exaggerating — that this was hardly creationism. I think “God created” is very clear creationism. Next he said that I can hardly hope to expunge god from everthing — but in a public school I certainly can and do expect a secular education for my children. Next there was something about him being a geologist… and he grudgingly apologized.

My friend in Toronto ran into another religion-in-the-public-school incident when she attended the Remembrance Day assembly with her son at his school where she is a volunteer. The school choir sang a United Church hymn filled with references to god as a male figure.

Later, she talked to the teacher about why they chose this song given all the songs written about creating peace in the world. The school is diverse and is part of the Toronto public board. Religion is not a part of the curriculum, including teaching god as a male deity. She learned that the original choice of songs for the kids was “If I had a Hammer” but the principal had vetoed it because it was too socialist. Full lyrics to If I had a Hammer here. I cannot believe that promoting Chrisitianity over socialism (if the song can even be labeled that) is happening, here, in 2006. What’s wrong with socialism?? And the only answer for choosing the hymn was that the kids knew it already.

The choir also sang an edited version of John Lennon’s Imagine with the line about “And no religion too” removed (full lyrics to Imagine here.) I cannot imagine why they’d edit it out — it’s a great song about peace and I think it’s a good point that religion divides people. It certainly happens in the schools here with there being two separate systems of publicly funded education: one Catholic and one for everyone else. It’s very divisive – ask the kids who go or went to one of the split schools where the two boards share a building.

What is so wrong about If I had a Hammer? And will we ever secure secular public education for our children?

Background: Canada funds two school systems: the public and the separate (Catholic) in both official languages, French and English. Incidentally, there are private Fundamentalist Christian schools, a Mennonite school, and an Islamic school in the local community that receive no government support. Parents whose children attend these schools are still required to pay taxes to support either the public or the separate school system.

A friend’s (former) employer revealed to her that he sends his kids to separate school (Catholic) because the students there are all white children. He doesn’t want his kids around people of colour and so even though they are not Catholic they’ll go to Catholic school to get away from “those people”.

This should be reason enough to cease funding to separate schools – something I’ve never supported. The last thing the school systems should be doing is facilitating racism! Because there are multiple choices, parents can choose to segregate their kids. On the surface we can say that Canada is diverse and multi-cultural but the reality is that we are pockets of isolated communities. Individuals do not have to encounter, accept, understand or empathize with anyone who is not the same as them.

I have heard all kinds of reasons for why people send their kids to Catholic school: to be taught immersed in their religion (if they are Catholic), to learn morals and values (if the family is not Catholic), because the special needs programs are superior, because the school is closer than the public, because we want to access insert special program offered at the separate school nearby – French immersion for example. I’d argue that none of these are enough to warrant public spending either but I digress.

I hate that this man is filling his children with these ideas of hate. No matter what teaching happens in the classroom, these kids are growing up with a racist father. I would hope that nothing in the school or the teaching would further the seeds that the father is planting, but I know back when I was a kid in small town Ontario, the only people of colour I ever saw were on the collection boxes for Unicef. I certainly needed my brain stretched to realize the racism surrounding me and that I was complicit in as I grew up. This happened when I left small town Ontario and entered the larger world and even more so when I entered the Women’s Studies program. I hope the teaching in elementary school is better these days. Given my kids’ experiences so far I really really doubt it.

Sue Richards of The Calendar Girl Blog, My Menopause Blog, and The Breast of Canada Calendar is an amazing woman. I met her at BlogHer 2006 in San Jose but I’ve known of her for years. I have (somewhere in my house) the very first Breast of Canada calendar and framed on my bedroom wall, is the photo for November 2002 of a woman with a baby on her shoulders. I love her asymmetrical breasts, as though one is full of milk and the other just emptied.

What I love about the calendars is that at last women’s breasts are positioned in a way that is realistic, non-sexualized, and beautiful. I love the diversity: skin tones, sizes, colours, ages, shapes, settings. This is how women’s bodies look and they are beautiful.

Here are three great reasons to own a calendar, from www.breastofcanada.com:

One. The Breast of Canada calendar is educational. Being proactive and self educated about your health is an important step to take. The 2007 calendar helps you take that step.

Two. The Breast of Canada calendar is about health. Maintaining and improving your health and cultivating a positive body image stimulates a higher quality of life.

Three. The Breast of Canada calendar raises profile and funds. Net proceeds for the 2007 edition will be directed to the Canadian Breast Cancer Network.

An egalitarian believes in equality for all people: equal opportunity, equal access to resources, regardless of their gender, age, skin colour, language, culture, sexual orientation, religion, ability, etc.

A feminist shares this belief but takes it further and says that women’s oppression must be acknowledged and eliminated before an egalitarian society can exist. We cannot discuss ‘equality’ without discussing women’s lack of equality. Thus, a feminist is a specific type of egalitarian (thought ‘feminist’ can be broken down further, into different ‘types’ of feminists), and feminism is a branch of egalitarianism. Of course there will be overlap: many feminists will also be LGBTQ activists, many LGBTQ activists will also be animal rights activists, many animal rights activists will also be feminists and so on go the circles.

I’ve written about lists before and now Rob is writing about lists too.

After reading Rob’s post (based on a conversation with Jeff) there’s an advantage to making a list that I think he hasn’t realized. I know that when I see another person’s list, I know how I can best help them. I’m a helper. This is where my passion for social justice originates. I like to work for causes, and whether the cause be sexism or a cluttered basement I come at them with passion. Sometimes I do better with the basements because I know I can really make a difference there. I also take pride in results. When I can see my efforts have made a difference I know I am valuable. So you see, it’s all about me. Your list has the potential to raise my self-esteem.

I come from a family of list-makers. My parents kept a (very short and ever completed) list on the fridge. My dad worked a lot and so it was my mother’s eyes that identified a lot of the things that needed attention. Since she worked part-time and was and is a thorough (very thorough) housekeeper, she noticed things in need of maintenance and repair before the damage was ever too serious. The list allowed them to prioritze jobs and because they worked together they motivated each other. It also helped that they had the same goals: to keep their house in shape.

I have had lists on my fridge, in between the artwork, receipts, and event notices, and somehow friends notice them from time to time. Several times this sharing of lists has turned into offers of help with tasks that were too big for me to do on my own. Once it turned into a referral to someone who replaces windows well and for cheap. It can serve as an indirect way for people who are uncomfortable asking for help to let their needs be known. If a helper comes along, they’ll have an opportunity to offer. Other people won’t even notice the list.

Personally though, I’m changing my way of tackling list-type jobs. Instead of itemizing things that need to be done in lists that are beyond my time and energy, I’m trying to add routines to my life. I’m already decent at keeping up the laundry (washing and folding anyway). But wiping down the bathroom daily is becoming instinctive. It’s not the same as a thorough cleaning, but it’s manageable and keeps it tidy. For now I sweep the centre of the room which makes the kitchen look much cleaner and I hope to add the edges one day soon, as soon as I get the ‘important stuff’ picked up from where it lines the walls. The more times I sweep the more I want to deal with the clutter so that my kitchen is returned. It does look better. It’s not as good as sweeping and washing and scrubbing down the cupboards might be, but I don’t have time for that right now. Sweeping is acceptable – and much better than doing nothing. Vaccuuming will be added one day when I get a decent vaccuum that can handle the hair 3 people with long hair shed plus the hair of my cats. I figure that once I get used to doing these little things on a regular basis I’ll have more energy to tackle the big things. Becuase the things that used to seem like big tasks will be ordinary routines I won’t notice them anymore.

Hello Kitty has something to say – I’m sure she does – we all do. She’s a busy kitty, getting around, all over back packs, pencil cases, running shoes, t-shirts, pajamas, carpets, toothbrushes… I know lots of little girls (and one professor) who think Hello Kitty is great and own HK gear, but what message are they picking up from this quiet puss with no mouth?

Where is Hello Kitty’s mouth?

The message here is loud and clear (unlike HK’s voice): don’t just be quiet and passive, be Silent. You have nothing to say – you are forbidden from speaking. Stop thinking and feeling too.

I propose an artistic endeavour where people who are tired of women being told to stay out of the way and keep quiet put the mouth back on Hello Kitty. I invite you to “Take Back the Mouth”. Leave a comment with a link to where we can find your creations.

I am kitty cat – hear me roar!

I added the feed from Heroine Content to my collection recently. This is from the site’s first post and welcome:

Heroine Content is a feminist and anti-racist blog about women kicking ass. More specifically, we write about women kicking ass in action films, with a side order of television and video game commentary as things catch our eye.

I’m not a frequent watcher of action films or tv (though I do play video games). I’m reading this site in preparation for a new course I’m taking this fall called “Tough Chicks” which is supposed to be about women, media representations, anger, power, etc – but I’m not really sure I have the background for it. I blunder through anything remotely referencing pop culture, haven’t seen much television or many films since the 80s. Generally I gravitate towards books about history – not shows about super heroes or assassins. I think I’m going to be at a supreme disadvantage. Last semester I ended up renting a season’s worth of Buffy the Vampire Slayer so I could participate in the Third Wave Feminisms class discussion about whether or not BVS is a feminist character/show. Many people found it shocking that I had made it this far without ever having seen Buffy or Xena (or anything much since Green Acres– definitely not a feminist show).

I appreciate that Heroine Content’s rating system include a category for pieces that are “setting us back 20 years”. ooooh yeah. I’m going to find this site very very helpful when I’m trying to sort through which (if any) films are worth watching and which ones I can just skip right over. Thank you so very much.

I don’t know if I agree with the quote from Amira Sa’id on today’s entry that the Princess Leia costume from Return of the Jedi could be empowering to women. I did some surfing around looking for more info about the costume and found (but have since lost) a convention that encouraged female attendees to wear the “slave costume” to increase their chances of photo opps. The conference was hoping to snag some photos to put on their website, not likely for a gallery of empowered women – methinks they wanted a flesh gallery of unpaid models. Note that the request wasn’t to wear a “Princess Leia Bikini of Power” – I doubt the person who posted this was thinking there main audience would be a whole lot of empowered female attendees. I think that what they were hoping for was a whole lotta flesh. Something like E3’s booth babes, only the scantilly clad women are paying to be there. How is this empowering????

I don’t know a whole lot about Star Wars but I’m pretty sure that Princess Leia was the main female character and that there weren’t a whole lot of other female characters in the series. It’s not surprising then that Amira Sa’id was thrilled by her! Given the choice of robots, blobs, monsters, and Darth Vader, I’m sure that it was a joy to identify with Leia! That alone doesn’t make her an empowering or empowered female character, but I’m not eager to sit through the hours and hours and hours of Star Wars movies that have been made since 1977 to find out (unless I have to for this course.)
This comment at the end of the Leia post:

the costume designer who created the bikini was a woman!

has me confused. What are they saying? I just keep thinking that women have created and perpetuated all sorts of cruel tortures for each other (genital cutting and foot binding are two examples). Just because the costume was designed by a woman doesn’t change what it is: objectifying. That the designer was a woman seems a betrayal even! This is a slave costume, intended to represent women as submissive and as property. The women dressed in the costume for ‘fun’, with lengths of chain around their neck makes me sad that this is the best we have for role models and female representation in film.
I really hope Heroine Content helps me learn more about action films and television. So far I’m happy just to read the feed.  I have no desire to see any movies yet but my interest is definitely piqued. It’s great to have a feminist reviewer going ahead of me.