Gender Across Borders

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Toronto has a traditional association of being known as one of the safer cities to live in. For one week, however, we were shown what life would be like if we lived in George Orwell’s famous dystopia. Security in this city was so tight that giant fences were erected around the proverbial meeting spot in the Metro Centre. Police were lining the streets and IDing pretty much everyone they thought needed to be IDed and the protesters who were hanging around the sidelines were starting to get anxious.

The most surreal experience that I had was when one citizen who was commanded to show identification by a small group of police officers, got so offended and rowdy that he whipped out a video camera and actually started live video blogging the whole experience, with gaping police officers and all. Thank you Youtube generation.

Now I have to admit, I wasn’t sure at first how to cover these two conferences. I had picked up my press pass but security was so tight that they were only letting certain circles of the media into the actual convention centre where the talks were taking place. Instead, we were placed into what is known as the Allstream centre to attend various press conferences and watch whatever discussions were taking place on a big screen in the press room. It was also an event with no clear schedule—it really did seem like it was going to be a free-for-all as far as the issues on the table were concerned. Considering that I was primarily focused on gathering information on maternal health (and we all know about Canada’s controversy here), I wasn’t exactly sure where/when to follow in what was shaping up to be a 20+ hour conversation among the top eight world leaders. I was also interested in attending the various protests that were taking place—one in particular called the All Out for Gender Justice! march seemed very intriguing.

In the end, I decided to just go with the flow and see to what my journey surmounted; with that said, I’ll mostly be writing short summaries or snippets of the different activities (as opposed to GAB’s more in depth coverage from the Women Deliver conference). So with some good advice from my buddy Russ to leave the vuvuzela at home, I took off to cover the most important summit in the world (theoretically anyways).

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Across the world, girls face the double discrimination of their gender and age, leaving them at the bottom of the social ladder. They are denied access to basic health services, education, and face extremely high levels of violence, abuse, and harassment.

Because I Am A Girl Report, Plan International

Because I Am A Girl is the name of an education program currently touring schools across Western Canada. A joint project between Plan Canada and the 411 Initiative For Change, the program delivers the message that all girls deserve the opportunity to be educated, healthy and successful. Using music, videos and interactive theatre, girls from around the world share their struggles and successes in effecting change in their communities. They discuss issues like gender equity, access to education, self-esteem, early marriage, child labour, and violence against girls.

The program hopes to inspire students to become leaders in their communities, and to help improve the lives of girls around the world. It also introduces students to successful and empowered role models, including a live performance by Masia One, a female rapper from Vancouver. Read the rest of this entry →

This post is part of a series leading up to the Women Deliver conference (www.womendeliver.org), a global meeting on maternal and reproductive health and the advancement of women and girls. Women Deliver 2010 will push for an additional $12 billion in increased investment from G8 for programs to improve maternal health.

Backroom abortion ad photo via The Globe and Mail

This past April, a story emerged of a ten-year-old girl in Mexico who was raped and impregnated by her stepfather and then later denied an abortion. While abortion is restricted or banned in most of Mexico’s states, it is legal in the girl’s home state. However, the legal limit to have an abortion was during the first 90 days of the pregnancy and she was already pregnant a month over the limit. So why wasn’t she able to have the abortion while she had the chance?

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This post is part of a series leading up to the Women Deliver conference (www.womendeliver.org), a global meeting on maternal and reproductive health and the advancement of women and girls.

Reproductive health, therefore, implies that people are able to have a responsible, satisfying and safe sex life and that they have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so.- World Health Organization

Photo via Marie Stopes International

Like most universities, mine is always touting ways to remind students of the free pills and condoms available whether in the sexual health office or the open-all-night help cabin. The local pharmacies are giving them away for free (in addition to selling them) as long as you can show that you’re a student. Heck, you can even pick up condoms in any pub around here for cheaper than anything. But as with the majority of perks that come with living in the Western world, it’s easy to take for granted the things that occasionally seem over-the-top, that are absolutely life-breaking elsewhere.

About 215 million women need effective contraceptive methods but can’t access it. Every year, about 536, 000 girls and women die from pregnancy related causes. Every year, about 20 million unsafe abortions take place. Though there are many organizations that exist for the sole purpose of distributing these contraceptives, it is not as straightforward as one would hope to ensure that this goal is met. One of the recurring problems is that contraceptives are delivered to the country’s capital city—not the developing parts that really need them. In fact, the Women Deliver conference is gathering voices in hopes of addressing issues like these.

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I grew up in Maine and Massachusetts, and I was told that I couldn’t be Indian because all the Indians were gone. – Buffy Sainte-Marie

Photo via David Gahr

When I first went to the Hillside Festival on Guelph Island last year, I have to admit, I hadn’t heard of Buffy Sainte-Marie. As it turned out, I had heard one of the songs she had co-written without actually knowing she had written it and you’ve probably heard it too; it’s called “Up Where We Belong.”

But I was at Hillside for the headlining acts of Tokyo Police Club and Owen Pallett. Who was this down-to-earth performer who had managed to score a headlining act among indie favorites known for creating noise inducing chaos? As I made my way to the front of the stage (in hopes of reserving a spot for the Tokyo Police Club set that would follow) I wished that somebody could have told me to remove my socks. Because little did I know they were about to be blown off.

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Welcome to the Gender Across Borders series Singing for Survival. This series is about speech, singing and noise; it is about using voices, musical instruments, and other forms of auditory expression to make an impact. The posts included in this series stretch the boundaries of the term “singing,” and range from a description of noises heard in the streets of Haiti after the earthquake to posts about Aretha Franklin, M.I.A., Buffy Sainte-Marie, and other artists and activists who sing for the survival of others.

This series ran on May 13-14, 2010. Click on the links below to see the posts featured in the series!

• Buffy Sainte-Marie and the Universal Soldier, by Kyle Bachan
• Addressing U.S. Immigration Policies in M.I.A.’s ‘Born Free,’ by Maria Guzman
• Glee: Confronting Adversity with Hyperbole and High Notes, by Roxanne Samer
• Ode to Aretha, or Reconnecting Women and Singing, by Clara Fischer
• The Sound of a City Shattered: Haiti, January 2010, by Daniel Patterson
• Singing, Survival and San Juan Copala: Murdered for their voices, by Amy Littlefield

Image via Wikipedia

American Apparel sells clothes by selling the sexuality of the “girl next door“. The company has claimed that the models in its ads are regular employees or friends, and while that story has been shown to be false, it still reveals the sort of aesthetic message for which their ads strive. They try to sell a concept of beauty that is at once everyday and hypersexual. You too can be objectified. Just buy our clothes.

As you might imagine, I don’t entirely understand the appeal. But the need to be seen as sexual, even at the price of being hypersexualized, in a society saturated with depictions of sexuality is something I can understand: often, the alternative is invisibility. Women with disabilities are one of the groups typically covered by this invisibility, though it does not protect us from sexual assault and abuse.

And this is the starting point for a powerful project from photographer Holly Norris working with Jes Sachse.

American Able in the TTC (source: http://forestfirecity.wordpress.com/2010/05/09/american-able/)

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Olympic Rings, Image via Wikipedia

Every other year, the Olympics bring inspirational stories and a good deal of spectacle to the living rooms of just about everyone who has a TV or Internet access. Even though the coverage often reinforces gender roles, it at least gives women athletes an opportunity to have the cameras focus on their abilities and thus provides role models for girls and young women. Behind the pageantry, however, lies quite another kind of story.

The latest example of this is that the UN Environment Program is criticising construction in Sochi for its impact on local wildlife and other aspects of the ecosystem. Remember, it isn’t just wild animals who will face the consequences of heavy metal pollution; the local people will have to deal with it too.

Of course, the Olympics are rarely good for the places they are held; they bring a certain amount of pride for the privileged, and income for certain kinds of businesses but too often they end up perpetuating oppression. Read the rest of this entry →

Photo via Toronto Children's Chorus

O Canada! You won both Olympic hockey events and walked away with the most gold medals, all amidst a sea of misbelievers. The time for moving forward is now, you say? With a triumphant spotlight on our wintry homeland, our nation has once more been inspired to step up to the plate and lead, rather than lingering in the back corner. Surely, there hasn’t been a better time to make some long overdue changes.

Well…

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While worldwide manufacturing jobs are dwindling to record lows, the female population in these sectors is being hit exceptionally hard. The last decade had seen a substantial increase of women joining the trades, yet the last year of layoffs has displaced the majority of these relatively new workers.

Unionized seniority protection has kept the mostly older male populations employed, while leaving the younger newly recruited employees to be thrown back into the jobless pool. Unfortunately this is the demographic most of our women are clumped into. While job prospects are not ideal for anyone in manufacturing industries, women also have the battle of breaking down the “old boys club” barriers once again. Read the rest of this entry →