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November 14, 2008

Listen to This podcast: Toronto Life's Aqsa Parvez cover story, "Girl, Interrupted"

Posted by Graham F. Scott at 02:38 PM ET | Comments (1)

If the audio player doesn't display, click here to download the mp3 file.

The current issue of Toronto Life magazine features a cover story on the murder of Aqsa Parvez, the Mississauga teen who was killed last year, allegedly by members of her own family, over a dispute about — well, it's tough to say what it was about. Toronto Life's cover calls the murder an "honour killing" because Parvez decided not to wear a hijab, the head covering that some Muslim women wear to observe their religion. As writer Mary Rogan says in her story, there were plenty of other disputes between Aqsa Parvez and her family over all kinds of things, and what truly happened is still frustratingly unclear. But the hijab became the focal point in media reports about the murder last year, because it was an easy-to-grasp symbol that resonated with those Canadians who still feel ambivalent, or outright hostile, to immigrant groups, particularly Muslim immigrants from South Asia.

Last week, a coalition of groups representing women, immigrants, and social service agencies called a press conference in Toronto to formally condemn Toronto Life's story, calling it racist and Islamophobic. There is also a Facebook group that goes into further on the problems that these readers had with the article.

This podcast features excerpts from my interviews with one of the participants in the press conference, Sumayya Kassamali of the group Our Collective Dreams: Muslim Women Speak Out Against Violence, and with Sarah Fulford, Editor of Toronto Life.

More entries on: Listen to This

November 06, 2008

Listen to This podcast: Myrna Kostash on "Pornography: A Feminist View"

Posted by Graham F. Scott at 12:50 PM ET | Comments (0)

If the audio player doesn't display, click here to download the mp3 file.

The November/December issue of This Magazine features a cover story about the collision of feminism and pornography, an idea the magazine has explored before. In the July/August 1978 issue, Myrna Kostash wrote a cover story titled "Pornography: A Feminist View," an essay that strongly criticized the pornography then entering the mainstream as being harmful to women, and to the feminist cause.

I spoke with Myrna in September to discuss how the original article came about, how her views have changed since then, and whether the term "feminist pornography" is a contradiction in terms. Myrna Kostash is an Edmonton-based writer, teacher, and translator, and the author of
Long Way From Home: The Story of the Sixties Generation in Canada and The Doomed Bridegroom: A Memoir.

Tomorrow we'll be reproducing Myrna's original essay here on the blog in its entirety, so check back then to read it.

This is the first in what we hope will become a semi-regular podcast on the website. As always, I'm happy to hear your feedback. Contact me at editor at thismagazine dot ca.

This podcast is published under a Creative Commons licence. The music you hear is also CC-licensed:

Intro: "Lemmings in Love" by Pornophonique
Outro: "Ender" by WhiteRoom

More entries on: Listen to This

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