Briarpatch articles from March 2006

Briarpatch archives from March 2006

Maclean's and the war on feminism.(From the Editorial Collective)
March 1, 2006... AN OLD BUTTON HAS reappeared recently among young feminists at the University of Saskatchewan. "This is what a feminist looks like," it reads. This button illustrates at least two concepts that are key to understanding the current state of...

Men, masculinity, and feminism.(Gender Mending)
March 1, 2006... "You can see in the very movements of their bodies, forced painfully into the narrow space of permitted masculinity, moving inside an invisible cage, how the supposed winners of the gender game suffer just as much as the others from their...

From welfare to workfare: women and the erosion of social policy in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
March 1, 2006... THE PRAIRIE WOMEN'S Health Centre of Excellence recently released a report entitled "Women and Social Assistance Policy in Saskatchewan and Manitoba," which looks at the impact that changes in Canadian social assistance policies over the last...

Stolen Sisters & the legacy of colonization.
March 1, 2006... "There are intensely wound layers of sexism and racism that are at the root of countless acts of violence against Aboriginal women and at the root of inaction to protect and advocate for Aboriginal women." TANTOO CARDINAL Each year a...

Above and beyond: single mothers and the barriers to higher learning.
March 1, 2006... A university education is widely accepted as the "great equalizer," the means by which class mobility can be achieved. But un-partnered mothers in academia--including undergraduate and graduate students, contract academic staff, and, to a...

Reclaiming the gym.(Locker-Room Stories)(women in the weight room)
March 1, 2006... They have e-ve-ry-thing for you men to enjoy You can hang out with all the boys... THE VILLAGE PEOPLE I WANT TO TELL YOU A few stories about the struggle over social space--about bodies that are allowed to lay claim to a space and...

Latin American feminism's long march: the last Selknam and Las Tapadas.(LIBERTAD)
March 1, 2006... EVEN AFTER HER DEATH, Enriqueta Gastelumendi, the "last Selknam," continues to be manipulated--just another casualty of Latin America's pervasive apartheid system. She has been drafted into the role of that sentimental cliche, the "last...

An education in exile: profile of a Shan refugee.
March 1, 2006... "SOME PEOPLE SAY GOING TO THE toilet is political," laughs eighteen-year-old Ying Tzarm." "Most people think 'political' is only the government's work. Actually there is politics in every level of the nation: family level, community level,...

Ten Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution.
March 1, 2006... Ten Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution Judy Rebick Penguin Canada, 2005 Ten Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution is Judy Rebick's chronicle of the second wave of the mainstream feminist movement in Canada....

The Wimp Factor: Gender gaps, holy wars, and the politics of anxious masculinity.
March 1, 2006... The Wimp Factor: Gender gaps, holy wars, and the politics of anxious masculinity Stephen J. Ducat Beacon Press, 2005 OVER THE LAST DECADE the emerging field of study known as "masculinity studies" has begun to generate a great deal of...

Recovering the Sacred: The Power of Naming and Claiming.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2006... Recovering the Sacred: The Power of Naming and Claiming Winona LaDuke Between the Lines, 2005 WINONA LADUKE IS an Anishinaabeg (Ojibwe) woman and a leading ecological activist. In Recovering the Sacred, LaDuke brilliantly shows the...

Eve's Quest Shakin' the Tree Productions.(Product/service evaluation)
March 1, 2006... Just when you thought you knew everything about women... along comes Eve's Quest, a board game chock full of trivia about women's achievements, statistics, history, and everything else that gets left out of most trivia games. Similar to...

What catcalls mean.(QUOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... The Gaze is not about desire. It is about power. Men yell things at women on the street not because they are attracted to them and think this will get them into bed with them--even if it did, that would be immaterial--but to remind themselves...

If the silence were broken ...(QUOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND)(rape)(Quotation)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... If the occurrence of rape were audible, its decibel level equal to its frequency, it would overpower our days and nights, interrupt our meals, our bedtime stories, howl behind our love-making, an insistent jackhammer of distress. We would...

On fear and power.(QUOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND)(Quotation)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Fearing death, fearing life, fearing love, and fearing most of all the loss of control, we create social rules and institutions that mirror our fears and reinforce our destructive behaviours. Having surrounded ourselves with images of...

Help wanted.(QUOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND)(black woman seeks white enabler)(Quotation)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... After watching the movie 8 Mile, I have decided that I want a white enabler. Eminem has a good black friend (an enabler) who is obsessed with him. All this black guy does is help Eminem achieve his dream, give him advice, help him out when he's...

Rachel Corrie in memoriam.(QUOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND)(Obituary)
March 1, 2006... We were all cut down together by the knife of our own hope, for if there is any single thing that everyone hopes for most dearly, it must be this: that the youngest outline the oldest. BARBARA KINGSOLVER, POISONWOOD BIBLE

Voting, essentially: the limits of the identity lobby.(The Last Word)(feminist and queer movements should think beyond the notion that more women/gay people in power necessarily equals a more progressive government)
March 1, 2006... I COULDN'T HELP BUT CRINGE when Jack Layton suggested during one of the election debates that electing more NDP women to Parliament would somehow civilize the raucous atmosphere of Question Period. There is no doubt that having more women in...