Remembering Violence Against Women

I just wanted to take a moment out to add to Medea's post, especially since today also marks a national day of rememberance on violence against women.

Violence against women happens under various conditions but what we know of it and how we know of it gets mediated by the fact that we live in a racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, able-ist society--so only certian kinds of violence against certain women gets acknowledged, and paints a particular, limited picture of the issues, when the reality is that there are an abundant. So many histories and conceptions of what we think is a 'liberal'* (read: our) society drastically change when we bother to look under the rug.

So while we remember importantly the Montreal Massacre, let's also remember to read Andrea Smith,Sherene Razack,Angela Davis,Melissa Wright. Let's remember to watch Finding Dawn and The Sterilization of Leilani Muir. Drop by The Centre for Women and Trans People (University of Toronto) and have an important conversation.

There's so much more out there.

Note how many of those few sources I listed point to a Canadian history--including the Massacre. Let's look under our own rug.


*a big problem is understanding just what exactly we mean and politically support when we say 'liberal' in the first place...

International Women's Day

This upcoming March 8th is International Women's Day. I, of course, will be ass-deep in homework, but it's mostly all feminist-based research and cultural production type stuff, as well as being involved in an upcoming feminist art show on campus, so I won't be totally off-topic that day. For those not mired by academic commitments, York will be hosting a series of talks during the week.

www.yorku.ca/ombuds

Celebrating International Women’s Day
12:30-4pm

Welcoming Remarks:
Selwyn McSween, Acting Ombudsperson and Director of Human Rights

Keynote Speaker: Adelaida Ortega (SASSL) “Violence Against Women at York University”

Presenter: Ruth Kambali, nursing student: Overcoming Violence in Rwanda

Entertainment: African Dance

Panel Discussion: Discrimination and Violence Directed Against Women:
Denise Taylor: student activist
Yudum Yonak: graduate student
Margaret Alexander: Springtide Resources
Representative from the high school group, SWING
Question & Answer Period

Presentation: WEN-DO (Women's Self Defense) Denise Handlarski

Entertainment: Middle Eastern Dance

Refreshments will be served

Hey wait! I just remembered that despite a day heavier with schoolwork, that a group of print friends and I will be indeed heading down to the Ryerson Lecture Series Guerrilla Girls event on March 6th! It's at the Metropolitan Convention Centre (near Union Station). Tickets to the event are free, though all filled up, but I believe you can to get in on standby. I'm pretty excited to hear this collective speak about their work that I've read about so often...will most definitely report back...

Have a thoughtful Women's day!

From the Inbox: Upcoming Rally

This is being circulated in my Gender and Development class:

STOP THE IMPUNITY SURROUNDING THE MURDER AND DISAPPEARANCE OF INDIGENOUS WOMEN IN CANADA!!

3rd Annual Rally To Honour Our Missing Sisters Thursday, February 14, 2008, 12 noon, Outside Police Headquarters at Bay and College
Strawberry Ceremony in Honor of our Missing Sisters - Speakers and drumming Gathering with food immediately to follow at U of T's Centre for Women and Trans People (563 Spadina Ave).

Hundreds of Indigenous women have been murdered or have gone missing over the last 30years.
Today we join women in Vancouver, Edmonton, Sudbury and Winnipeg coming together in defense of our lives and to demonstrate the complicity of the colonizer state and its institutions - police, RCMP,coroner's offices and the courts, in the on going genocide against First Nations people. Indigenous communities are over policed and Indigenous girls make up the fastest growing prison population yet their deaths go uninvestigated and their killers unpunished. We call on all people in this country to take a stand - NO MORE SILENCE!! Bring your drums!

No More Silence aims to develop a national network of local coalitions comprised of Indigenous women and allies working together to support the initiatives of independent Indigenous women working to stop the disappearances and end impunity.

Endorsed by: CUPE-SCFP; METRAC; Brampton Coalition for Peace and Justice;Parkdale Community Legal Services; The Humanist Centre of Cultures; Not In Our Name; Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP); The Centre for Women and Trans People at the University of Toronto; Canadian Chiapanecas Justice for Women; Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid; Canadian Arab Federation; No One Is Illegal Toronto; The Ontario Women's Health Network; CAW-Sam Gindin Chairin Social Justice and Democracy at Ryerson; Toronto Haiti Action Committee,Students Against Israeli Apartheid.

Sounds like the way to be spending my Valentine's Day this year.

Upcoming Events: Montreal Massacre Remembrance Day

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Montreal Massacre that occurred December 6th, 1989. I attended an all-girl high school in downtown Toronto, and every year we spent a week remembering the victims of this brutal femicide, as well as other murdered victims of domestic violence. For a few years after I left high school, that week of awareness started to fade into my memory, something that is dangerous to let happen, especially as so many women are already forgotten because of racism and classism. Fortunately,York and its Women's Studies program, as well as other universities and organizations continue to commerate this day to raise awareness on violence against women.

The Female Eye Film festival remembers women killed in Montreal Massacre
In partnership with York's Winters College, the Female Eye Film Festival will commemorate the Dec. 6 Montreal Massacre with seven films by national and international female directors, along with a panel discussion, to be held this Thursday, Dec. 6.

The program, In Memoriam of the Montreal Massacre, is designed to remember the 14 women killed there 18 years ago. All of the films look at issues of violence against women. A question and answer period with the directors will follow the screenings. The program will take place at the Nat Taylor Cinema, North 102 Ross Building, on the Keele campus

On Dec. 6, 1989, Marc Lepine walked into l'École Polytechnique, a Montreal engineering school, separated the men from the women and opened fire. He shot 27 women, 14 of whom died. In 1991, Canada's Parliament declared Dec. 6 a National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in Canada.

The program runs from four to ten p.m.

In some of the old articles covering the massacre, it was noted how some students were sobbing that they weren't even feminists.

I've made this comment before, but I think it bears repeating. Marc Lepine, despite what he may have stated, did NOT really kill these women because they were feminists; he killed them BECAUSE they were women, and he felt entitled to violently take from them what he couldn't get for himself. Even if every woman he killed was a feminist, that is certainly no justification for murder.

We need to stop thinking that feminism(s)is(are) no longer relevant.