Hello Tuesday, what did you bring me?

A new Micachu & The Shapes album? Really? With the London Sinfonietta? You don't say. Well, Tuesday, you're starting to look pretty damn good...

Keep Your friends Close

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SlutWalk 2011

On April 2, 2011, the first annual SlutWalk was held in Toronto. The walk was a direct response to Constable Michael Sanguinetti's comments earlier this year at York University that to prevent being raped "women should avoid dressing like sluts." Toronto Police Services has a long history of mishandling rape cases and inadequate understanding of rape culture and working with survivors. Sanguinetti's victim-blaming comment was the final straw. The organizers of the SlutWalk state in their press release:

"As the city’s major protective service, the Toronto Police have perpetuated the myth and stereotype of ‘the slut’, and in doing so have failed us. With sexual assault already a significantly under-reported crime, survivors have now been given even less of a reason to go to the Police, for fear that they could be blamed. Being assaulted isn’t about what you wear; it’s not even about sex; but using a pejorative term to rationalize inexcusable behaviour creates an environment in which it’s okay to blame the victim."

Starting out at Queen's Park, up to 3000 supporters walked east on College towards their destination. It was in front of Toronto Police Headquarters where speakers such as Jane Doe, and Michael Kaufmann addressed the crowd, speaking out against the misogynistic and racist attitudes about rape that run rampant within the Toronto police force and society at large. It seems to have been a successful start to a global movement, with satellite SlutWalks now planned in cities as far away as Adelaide, Australia.

Photos: Rebekah Hakkenberg

On Being a Girl Athlete

Over the past few weeks I've been helping my aunt coach her elementary school's badminton team, rather I've more been consulting on the rules and serves because, and I don't want to brag or anything, I've watched my brother win many a tournament including the Nationals in January. And, I played for about ten years and coached a bit, too -- but, shit yo, that don't matter when my little bro is traveling all around the world playing the sport he loves!

The other day when I was at the school, my aunt put a couple teams together to play mixed doubles and one of the girls was not a very strong player but really, none of the kids are. The boy she was paired with, right off the bat started getting frustrated with her every time she made a mistake. He wasn't vocal about it but his body language made it clear he thought she sucked, that she was losing for them. It didn't matter how many shots she made or how many points he cost them, she was the let down. And, man oh man, did that ever take me back to playing sports when I was a kid.

I was a good athlete and as a little kid, even as a teenager I could hold my own with any boy. I started playing badminton when I was seven and entered in my first tournament shortly after, playing competitively for the next ten years. I also swam, did triathlons, skated (only one season of lessons when I was four which is incidentally when my extreme competitiveness first shone through; I would fly into a rage when I stated that I was the best skater in the world and my parents would point to Katarina Witt's recent olympic gold), played volleyball, soccer, squash and baseball, golfed (oh man, there was nothing I hated more than golf lessons -- the highlight was when there was a new hot assistant pro but then I accidently threw my club not once but twice, sweaty palms), ran cross country and water-skied. Fuck, I loved sports and I was good at them; there are many a medal, trophy and ribbon stuck in storage back in Winnipeg.

The thing was, even though, I was an exceptional athlete (for a kid), I still got the same treatment from boys that I saw that little girl get from her partner at badminton practice. There were eyes rolled, deep sighs, giggles, exasperated shrugs every time I screwed up. The worst of it was when I was playing badminton because at that level, kids usually played singles, doubles and mixed. And, fuck, did the boys hate playing mixed doubles. It was no secret as the boys would disparage the game, bully their partners into just standing at the front, encouraged not to go for any shots, sometimes even purposefully setting the bird up so that the opposition would smash it in her face. It didn't matter how good the girl was, she may have been better than the boy but the very thought of having to play with a girl was just too much for those stupid fucking boys. There were boys who were really happy to be playing mixed, who respected their partners but unfortunately it was the boys who were the top players who had such a problem with mixed so if the top girl player had to play with the top boy player, there was a lot of anxiety about not fucking up. I remember going from winning singles and doubles to playing the mixed finals and being so scared of making my partner angry.

Those attitudes were in no way unique to badminton, they were the attitudes I saw in school any given day in gym class. Girls getting picked last, girls getting ignored by the male gym teachers, mocked by the boys. It didn't even have to be directed at a specific girl, it could be comments like "throws like a girl" or jokes about boys being as bad as a girl or girls being as good as a boy. I hated the sexism I saw, I experienced. Whether it was personal attacks or systemic issues like how women's singles only went to eleven points while men's was to fifteen or the attention disparity between girls events and boys. The boy athletes were heroes; the girls were ignored.

(I use my example of myself as a good athlete to draw attention to the level of sexism that exists in school  and extracurricular sports; that it is expectable to treat girls badly purely on the basis of their being girls. No child deserves to be scorned for any reason and the attitudes that I experienced were legitimized by adults.)

The thing was that, despite railing against the sexism to my mum and furiously scribbling in my diary the injustice of the day, I was more angry at the other girls. The girls who weren't athletic, who hated gym class; those girls let me down. I felt that I was trying to make a change, to prove that girls could like sports and be as good as any boy and these girls were actively sabotaging me.

But that's the problem with the patriarchy. It's designed to pit girl against girl, woman against woman. Every woman is supposed to be representative of all other women, especially when she embodies certain feminist ideals. That's why some women are disappointed when Liz Lemon wants a baby; that's why women like Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin are so infuriating -- they've got this platform, they have reached higher than many women can and they fucking squander their opportunity to raise other women up by waging war on them instead.

Women are held up as examples to and of all women when they mess up or somehow don't live up to ideals but when they succeed they are anomalies. A man, particularly a privileged man, is never held up as a shining beacon for all mankind. When Rush Limbaugh says something racist/sexist/ableist/ageist/homophobic no lefty dudes are sitting there cringing and thinking that Rush has really made them look bad. Likewise, when a man accomplishes something, no one is thinking "that's pretty good for a man". Fuck, it must be nice.

My brother, David, is in the red. The whole video is pretty amazing but at about 

6:10 he wins and does a standing back flip. Yep. He can do that. He's awesome.

Sunday Songs: Stevie Effing Nicks

This woman is a boss

For the last 6 days, I've had to be up and out of bed at 4:45am in order to work a 13 hour day. This was also the week that Alex and I decided to rent Season 1 of The Wire. Now, you don't just "watch" The Wire, it's not something you can have on in the background while you're making dinner and catching up on your correspondence, no. You have to play constant, vigilant attention in order to keep track of who's who, what's happening, and what the heck they're saying. So yeah, you could say that I haven't had a chance to turn my brain "off" all week, add that to 5 hours of sleep per night, and you might have an idea of how much I was looking forward to going home and crashing last night.

Then, my awesome friend Geoff called me on my break at around 4:30, said he had 2 tickets for Rod Stewart and Stevie Nicks, and he couldn't go. They just happened to be performing just 5 minutes away from where I've been working, and were going on at 7:30, which was exactly when I was done for the week! I may or may not have jumped out of my seat when he said Stevie Nicks. So I convinced my amazing mother (a huge Rod Stewart fan) to drop what she was doing and come with me.

Postponing the end of my week was sooooo worth it, Stevie isn't just the Queen of Rock, she's it's Sorceress. And I'll admit, Rod Stewart is a great performer and showman. His portion of the night was very much a tribute to Motown, with a trio of back-up singers behind him who blew me away. It was a strange, anachronistic combination, but it somehow worked. I'll probably write more about the actual concert when I've caught up on a bit of sleep, but in the meantime I'm just going to play me some Stevie Nicks while I get ready to go to Slut Walk, and reminisce about last night. Enjoy.

Studying, Schmudying

I should be writing a paper comparing Paul Simon's Graceland to Beirut's Gulag Orkestar, studying for a final on Monday and another final the following Wednesday and trying to come up with a thesis for a paper on Pale Fire, but I am going to write a list of things that I am doing instead.

Dishes. So many dishes. And then I cook or eat something and, aha, more dishes!

Obsessively trying to listen to all the music in my iTunes. I recently imported my music nerd uncle's library and feel shame at the amount of songs that have blank Plays and Last Plays. Only another eight and a half days to go!

Starting and scrapping numerous blog posts.

Watching the greatest show of our time, Peep Show. Only just realized the Super Hans is not named Super Hands.

Cutting my hair. Not just the bangs, the whole shebang.

Making list upon list of things that I have to do.

Reorganizing the living room to fit my desk because I thought if nothing else, that would help me focus.

Well, back to not studying and dreaming of a deadline free land...

The Survey that Cathy Wrote by Alex Snider

Given that I have no money, so little that I can't afford groceries right now and was reduced to eating a package of Poka Sticks from my stocking (yep, my Christmas stocking) for lunch, I don't regularly (i.e. ever) read the financial or business section of any paper. My eye was caught, however, by this article today in the Toronto Star, Why won't women give up their cell phones. Curiosity was peaked and, like a frat boy in a library, I decided to try something new and clicked the link to the Moneyville section (their tag of Welcome to Financial Freedom made me feel like I was somehow trespassing, not at all like the Debt is Manageable ads for a bankruptcy company I see on the subway which always fill me with a youthful optimism). 

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Friday Fiction: That Would be a Great Band Name by Alex Snider

Ever string together a few words into a statement and someone suggests that would be a great band name? Like if I said, "wow, the sound of that child screaming really pains my uterus," and then you would say, "hey, Painful Uterus would be a great band name!" And then we'd both laugh at the dumb hipsters and their ridiculous band names and then lament for the days when a band's name meant something and then we'd shake our fists and tell the damn kids to get off the lawn. Ah, what a fun time we will have had! 

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Go Make It Happen

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Sunday Songs: In the Mood

A friend recently asked his Twitter followers what albums got them feeling hot'n'heavy. That's where the idea for this week's Sunday Songs came from. These are the songs that, ummm, (close your ears, Mom!) do it for me... yeah. I realize they may not have the same effect on everyone, so this list is purely subjective and for entertainment purposes only... enjoy (responsibly).

Get Up- Chk Chk Chk!!!

Rock'n'Roll Fantasy, Pink Mountaintops

Do Me Baby, Prince

Ambulance, TV on the Radio

Emancipation, Moving Units

Feel Like Makin' Love, D'Angelo

I Do What I Want, When I Want, Xiu Xiu

Soon I'll Be Loving You Again, Marvin Gaye

First Breath After A Coma, Explosions in the Sky

Stuff to look at in my room.

Friday Fiction: Better Here Than There by Alex Snider

Another day, another spring blizzard! Winter doesn't seem to be going anywhere and for those of us who long for the days of summer so we can switch up complaining about the cold to complaining about the heat  I've come up with a lil' list of books about vacations gone horribly horribly wrong that will sate your desire for mojitoes on the beach (mostly).

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We Need to Talk About "Lolita" by Alex Snider

Lolita is a book you read twice, three times, four times but never once. Reading Lolita once will leave you feeling sorry for Humbert Humbert, blaming Dolores, resenting Nabokov for making you a little hot under the collar (only for the first half, the 'tease' leaves you wanting the rest of the novel), in other words: you will miss the whole point.

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Snow What?!

I took a walk after dinner this evening with my camera in tow, and I only slipped and fell in a snow bank once! My lens, thankfully, survived the fall, and so did I. The cold, wet consequences of my trek were well worth it, though. I got a few good pics of what I hope is the last snowfall of the season. Although, it is so pretty, I almost wouldn't mind if this weather stuck around a bit longer...

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10 Fundamentals

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