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February 11, 2009

Textured feminism

Posted by Anna Bowen at 11:59 AM ET | Comments (0)

TEXTILE MUSEUM OF CANADA
Cat Mazza Nike Blanket Petition 2003 - ongoing, crocheted wool and synthetic yarn 183 x 427 cm.

Today feminists who thread a mean warp -- or admire those who do -- will be gathering for the opening of She Will Always be Younger than Us. The show is a celebration of contemporary fabric arts and is curated by textiles guru Allyson Mitchell. The Textile Museum of Canada write-up explains that the pieces at the gallery are by "young artists whose work is explicitly engaged with feminist politics through the use of textile, thread and fibre." Artists showing at the exhibit include Orly Cogan, Wednesday Lupypciw, Cat Mazza, Gillian Strong and Ginger Brooks Takahashi.

The work exhibited is also a tribute in some ways to Judy Chicago and is influenced by her bold interweaving of feminism and art. Chicago is most famous for her work "The Dinner Party," which opened in the 70s but has a place at the table at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in NY. The Toronto event includes a panel discussion with Judy Chicago on February 12. The opening marks a recognition of the inspiration, dialogue, and diversion between second wave feminist artists and contemporary queer expressions along with contemporary feminism.

More entries on: Gender

September 04, 2008

Election 2008: Gender balance set to improve; still pretty bad

Posted by Graham F. Scott at 11:05 AM ET | Comments (1)

This yet-to-be-called election that everyone's atwitter about is a chance to correct the longstanding gender imbalance in the House of Commons.

As the Ottawa Citizen's Glen McGregor writes today, the parties' prospective candidate lineups include more women than ever before, something that will hopefully lead to a slightly more representative gender balance in the House of Commons, currently wallowing at around 20 percent. That's a smaller proportion of women than can be found in the legislatures of Pakistan, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates, just for comparison. (The Citizen is going by numbers collected by punditsguide.ca, so they're not definitive, and the parties haven't finished nominating their candidates.)

While the numbers of female candidates look to be up, they're still not very high, frankly. The NDP has a 40 percent female slate at this point, and the Liberals are following them with 38 percent. The Conservatives are bringing up the rear with less than 18 percent. Ouch. It's long past time for all the parties to run a demographically representative slate of candidates. Breaking above one-third is a nice milestone, but judging by these numbers, there's a long way to go.

(Thanks to Maisonneuve's MediaScout for pointing out the Citizen article.)

More entries on: Gender

May 11, 2007

"Man, you're gonna want in on this..."

Posted by shawnsyms at 08:34 AM ET | Comments (1)

On my walk into work this morning through Toronto's Entertaintainment District, I was barraged by a slew of posters promising the ultimate Man's Night Out:

An exclusive evening out just for men—celebrating all the things us guys love most.

The latest gadgets. The hottest wheels. The best sports moments. The finest cigars, beers and scotches... and a handful of lovely ladies, of course! All this and more, including the ultimate in steak dinners! There's no denying... It's A Guy Thing.

On the event's website, they target men of colour as well as white guys—all you need to feel welcome is an appreciation of fine cigars, and lovely ladies, of course!

The point of this hackneyed retread of the most predictable identifiers of gender and class? It's an club night promoting the use of a new deodorant! Funny thing is, in the circles I run in, the light scent of fresh clean body odor is considered way more "manly" than any perfume used to mask it.

What gives me hope for the world is the fact most straight guys I know would probably feel just as alienated as I did by the weird "Boys' Club" universe of this ad.

More entries on: Gender

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