You may or may not be familiar with MORE Magazine - it's a Canadian women's magazine that is (supposedly) geared toward women in the age 40+ demographic.
Initially the mag seemed to offer a fresh outlook - reader models that looked like regular gals, practical fashion and health tips, and interesting topics that weren't covered by the run-of-the-mill women's fashion mags.
In recent months, MORE has shifted to celebrity cover girls, reader models that look suspiciously like real models, high end fashion spreads with "available upon request" pricing, (OMG), and a fixation on the topic of sex. Sound more like Cosmopolitan in the 80s? Well, it sounds and looks more like that to this writer also.
At least the most recent issue (December/January Holiday issue) had a Canadian celebrity (Alanis
Morissette
) on the cover - lately the mag has been enamored with American celebrities. And what of celebrity? Do women who work as lawyers, diplomats, educators, doctors, nurses etc. - any other profession other than music, TV or film - are these women's contributions not worthy of cover status? At what point to we begin to honour and value the everyday contributions of regular women?
The kicker for me was an article called Faded Blooms - it was about caring for your breast implants as you age. Just the title was offensive, perpetuating negative stereotypes about women and aging - what makes the age 40+ breast so repugnant? And why the ink devoted to surgical breast enhancement - are we human beings or cars? Do we really need the after-market parts? If tiny feet were to become the new Hollywood standard, would all North American women jump on the bandwagon to reincarnate Japanese foot binding? Now, we aren't too far off with that suggestion, btw, because wealthy women are getting fat injected into the balls of their feet so that they can where higher heels "pain-free"!
As if to rub salt in the wound, the dippy author of "Faded Blooms" can't seem to face her own breasts with any degree of grace: "my rack." She refers to breasts as "boobs," "knockers," and "bazookas," throughout the piece - everything but the term "breasts." It's always such a disappointment when women who have a public voice don't support other women - this terrible article is gender betrayal served up as something "hip" we should all chuckle and coo over. I, for one, am not laughing - it's an embarrassment, an outrage and a disservice to women.
The point is not to judge women who have chosen - for whatever reason - to alter their bodies with surgery. But shouldn't we as women consider that wide-spread body alterations like these are symptomatic of something? As I grow older, I am more finely attuned to the different kinds of oppression and prejudice we face as women, but I'll be damned if I will call my magnificent mid-life breasts anything but "breasts." And I encourage you, regardless of your age or background to insist that your body is afforded the same respect.
Funny world we live in.
Some are downsizing -
Homes and love handles.
Others have no homes,
Struggling
To keep
Meat on their
Bones.
If you
Can't
See it
You
Aren't
Looking
Hard
Enough.
Inequities are all around us - while the majority struggle to say afloat, the powerful accumulate more and more, and then pay for high tech alarm companies to defend their golden kingdoms. I live and work in Winnipeg, Canada, and in our city, new construction is booming and real estate sales are breaking records. Multi-billions are being spent on infrastructure - there are few large buildings in the business districts that have not been refurbished in some manner, if not totally rebuilt. There is money around, and lots of it - old money and new money - and those who have are spending it freely!
If you ask average Winnipeggers how they are doing, most will tell a sanitized story, because the reality is uncomfortable to face. If you are working, you are told you should be grateful to have a job. It's rare not to see pan handlers and homeless people in our city centre, and
Winnipeg has been dubbed the "child poverty capital of Canada."
You can't deny that distribution of wealth is an issue in this country, but many folks don't realize that Canada (yes, our Canada - the country the world sees as this Eden of opportunity and refuge) is in the World Vision giving catalogue, under providing school supplies and meals for needy children. Of course, the catalogue cover shows brown-skinned children from some faraway, so-called "third-world" place. So, it appears that times are very tough and times are exceptionally fine - it really depends on who is telling their story and how close you look, whether you are a woman, a man, or a child, and what colour your skin is.
We have lots of brown skinned people in Canada too - everyone knows that Canada is
culturally diverse. Nationally, Canada's Indigenous peoples are struggling for our government to honour land treaties, and in Manitoba we have the highest Indigenous persons birth rate. We see a lot of poverty and social issues in our urban aboriginal populations. These are complex issues, the root of which are colonial systems of control. The oppression has compounded over generations, and those of us who see the inequities need to speak up, speak out and be part of moving toward fairness.
Music icon, Janis Joplin, once said, "Being an intellectual creates a lot of questions and no answers." An interesting observation, as we consider transnational feminist praxis -how TFPX encourages active witness, and resists definition as it grows, changes and overlaps within and beyond itself.
Through our current lens of feminist activism, Joplin's remark is both an accurate commentary on academic-activist dichotomy, and is also a wonderful summary of what it is to be active and engaged as a socially conscious, self-and-world-aware woman. Joplin's words were consistently profound, honest and distinctly Janis. Joplin's unmatched sound, unique viewpoint and full-frontal passion for life made an indelible impact on the music scene, and in a broader sense, on popular culture. Her intensity and style were so well-matched for the time in which her star rose - it was as if she had a premonition that her window of opportunity would be small - and oh how she filled that too-brief vista with her mega-watt energy and talent!
The music industry was (and is still is) a very male-dominated space to make a living. It was intensely "more-so" in the 60s and 70s when Ms. Joplin was working her magic. When asked about settling down (the patriarchal societal model vs. free love and no wedding ring), Joplin quipped, "I won't quit to be become someone's old lady."
Some say Janis was inspired by great American singers such as Bessie Smith, Aretha Franklin, Billie Holiday and Big Mama Thornton. Similar to Elvis Presley, people weren't accustomed to hearing those sounds come out of a white person. Janis' response was a wake up call for cultural stereotypes: "You know why we're stuck with the myth that only black people have soul? Because white people don't let themselves feel things."
So, was her contribution to our life, our world, our music, our time - was it activism? She definitely shaped our view through her sharing of her talent and take on race, sex, music, politics, life, and everything in between. Very few will match Joplin's impact on music, and no one will ever duplicate this person we know as Janis, but her life reinforces that activism is much more than lobbying government, writing reports and protest marches.
"When I sing, I feel like when you're first in love. It's more than sex. It's that point two people can get to they call love, when you really touch someone for the first time, but it's gigantic, multiplied by the whole audience. I feel chills." - Janis Joplin
As part of our coursework in Feminist Community Organizing at the University of Manitoba we experienced two campus tours. The first tour was created by all members of our class - we each supplied a suggestion of a space to visit on campus that was significant to us, whether for good or bad!
The second tour was the official tour that new students would get, and many of us found that we did not relate too closely to the spaces shared on the official tour.
The outcome of these tours was a better understanding of how important our environment is, and how many spaces are gendered. An obvious one, is washrooms - you might be thinking, "Duh! Of course - there's men's and women's". Well, it's not that simple - what about men who express themselves in a "feminine" way and women who identify as "masculine"? And what about trans people? A couple of our class members who self-identify as queer have encountered bullying, rude remarks, whispering and staring when they use women's washrooms.
It's even more disturbing that these women trek thousands of yards out of their way to use gender-neutral facilities - there's one on the fifth floor of Tier and one on the third floor of the Frank Kennedy Rec Centre, we've learned as part of our tour assignment. For those of you that know the U of M - it's a big campus with thousands of students, so you can imagine how hard this is for these students. If you know of any other gender-neutral washrooms at the University of Manitoba, please share with us - thank you :)
To add some more perspective on this topic, here's a link to a great article by Ivan Coyote - an update to an earlier article she wrote about her "interesting" experiences in female washrooms:
http://www.xtra.ca/public/Vancouver/Bathroom_bullshit_redux-11107.aspx
By Pam Hadder
So here we are, sitting on a sandy beach and sharing one of my sunsets - that may seem more like an ending than a beginning. However, I am aware that as the sun sets for me this evening, it is rising for millions of others thousands of miles away.
And so our beginnings and our endings are really one continuum - we are inseparable, vitally connected: as day moves into night, and as one hand touches another, and as one thought is given wings by new ideas. All this activity occurs with increasing speed and frequency, thanks to virtual platforms such as this blog - which is wonderful, but can also be a hindrance when one considers the vulnerabilities of sharing our personal thoughts and information on the Internet - like everything else we inherit both sides of the coin, the positive and the negative, the sunlight and the nightfall. And connection is the core of it all - let me briefly explain.
Beginnings
I have been blogging for a number of years on different subjects and both personally and professionally - so why have I chosen to share this sun-up/sundown,beginning/ending eternal connection with you? TFPX arose out of coursework at the University of Manitoba, Canada - specifically Feminist Community Organizing: Theories and Practices, with Dr. Jocelyn Thorpe, Women's and Gender Studies Department.
Throughout our learning experience, our class sought to define the currently accepted ideas surrounding feminist activism, and strove to understand how and why recent changes in approach have gathered acceptance. At the onset, several dichotomies emerged: academic versus activism, theory versus method, and individual versus collaborative, for example. As we explored the vast and mysterious new frontier - a place of complexity and contradiction, which was at the same time intricately entwined with all of the familiar and humble things of daily life - the term transnational feminist praxis became our focus.
Imagine the idea of active witnessing, of creating spaces where we can come together in harmony and strength, of accepting that making a mess is part of learning, of accepting that theory needs to be balanced by meaningful action, and of knowing that as much as we are different and perhaps oppositional, we also share many concerns - and strengths - in areas of vital importance.
Initially, I will be sharing items of relevance in my experience as a mother, a partner, a daughter, a sister, an entrepreneur, an artist, a musician, a writer, a friend - and all of the other roles that have woven their way into my life as this female person, we call WOMAN. But the ultimate goal is to use this blog as a platform to share OUR story - our collective story; all of the touch points that define US and connect US and frustrate US.
And so, welcome to TFPX - a work in progress! Please visit often, and send your feedback and suggestions for areas of focus. Coming soon... Facebook, Twitter, and buttons - yes, lapel buttons are in the works, to wear and share.
I am excited to know and share your view - thank you for taking time to connect.
- Pam
