Feminists Who Totally Rock 4: Crystal Gartside

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Crystal Gartside, Feminists Who Totally Rock

This week’s Feminist Who Totally Rocks is Crystal Gartside. Crystal works a policy analyst for the Manitoba Women’s Advisory Council. The Manitoba Women’s Advisory Council, “works within the Manitoba Status of Women Division to represent the issues and concerns of Manitoba women. The council focuses on issues that have a social, legal or economic impact on the lives of women and their families”. Crystal has been working hard towards an inclusive environment wherein women from all walks of life are made a priority in policy formation.

1.What was it that inspired you to become a feminist?

I had always had a strong emotional reaction to injustice and inequality. My family and our histories opened me to the oppression and marginalization of women and Indigenous people, but also affirmed my strength and ability to make a difference. When I went to university and discovered feminism through women’s studies courses, I felt an instant affinity; here was a way to really understand injustice – how it works, who benefits and how to make change! It was a framework for understanding all kinds of oppression – gendered, colonial, class – that worked for me, gave me a path to walk, and a way to funnel my strong emotional reactions into something useful, while working with others who felt the same way.

Antigone Launches Feminist Social Networking Site on International Women’s Day!

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Blog for IWD, canadian, change., feminist, movement, social networking, women

This post is part of Blog for International Women’s Day

Hi Friends!

Happy International Women’s Day!
My name is Amanda Reaume and I am the Executive Director of The Antigone Foundation. We believe it’s time for Canada’s feminists and women’s organizations to work together to leverage the power of social networking to connect around common causes and concerns across the country, both online and in person.

That is why we are launching Antigone Connect , an online site working to engage women’s organizations and feminists across the country to work collaboratively for women’s rights and equality in Canada and around the world.

Our Goal:

We are hoping to create a powerful online network that will be able to help lead the Canadian women’s movement forward in the coming years. As we approach Canada’s 150th Anniversary, we are all aware that there is a great deal more to be done in Canada to ensure women’s equality. More women in politics and managerial positions, accessible child care, changes to the Indian Act, equal pay, and equal pensions are just a few of the things that the Royal Commission on the Status of Women identified as necessary for equality nearly fifty years ago. They have still not been fully realized and this is going to take cooperation and coordination to accomplish.

Canadian Women’s History

This past fall, Antigone Magazine put together an issue about Canadian Women’s History and we spoke to Marilou McPhedran. She talked about how women organized around constitutional issues in the 1980s to ensure that women were included within the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As McPhedran mentions, they did this without even a fax machine. With phone trees, letters to MPs and a lot of conviction, these women changed our country. We can too. Many of us now have access to e-mail, the internet, social networking, maybe even Blackberries and Smartphones. Some also have well paying jobs and contacts with women and men in power who support work for women’s equality. We owe it to our foremothers to leverage all the technologies and privileges that we have to connect and make sure that their legacies are not forgotten.

Your Help

But this network is not going to happen overnight. We need your help in the days and weeks ahead to expand it and bring to the table the voices of women from all backgrounds, from groups that might not readily identify as feminists, or those who might have difficulties accessing the internet, and the voices of women and men that are allies to the work that we do. We need you to tell people about it. To e-mail your contacts about it. To post it on Facebook or Twitter. To contact your friends who might have worked for feminist causes in the past but who have gone off in other directions. To help the technically unsavvy negotiate the technology! We need to come together to create this network across Canada.

Canadian Women’s Future!

Inspired by the next issue of our magazine (to be released in March 2010) entitled The Future of Feminism, we will be offering individuals and organizations opportunities to write about their visions for Canadian feminism. In blog entries, on Antigone Connect forums, on Dreams for Women postcards, and by leading online chats, we invite people to contribute to imagining the future of feminism. Email us at antigonemagazine at hotmail.com if you are interested in helping out.

Join Us

We launched this campaign this week and we are moved and excited by the response so far. It would be great to see you at Antigone Connect.

Thanks in advance for giving this a few minutes of your time, and for sharing this message with anyone you know who would like the women of Canada to unite together to transform our country.

Thank you!

Amanda Reaume and the Antigone Team

Executive Director, The Antigone Foundation
www.antigonefoundation.wordpress.com
Author and blogger, Some Leaders Are Born Women
www.someleadersarebornwomen.wordpress.com

photo credit: wikimedia commons

Feminists Who Totally Rock, Part 1

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Feminists Who Totally Rock

Welcome to the first post of Feminists Who Totally Rock!

Today I am pleased to present two interviews, one with Rebeca Monzo and one with Terrie Chan. Read on and enjoy!

Rebeca Monzo is one of the head co-ordinators of the Beautiful One Conference as well as an ordained minister!

What was it that inspired you to become a feminist?

To be honest I have never really thought of myself as a feminist.  That being said I have always had a strong desire to work with teen girls.  That desire was inspired by the obvious need to shine a light on the unrealistic standards and expectations that are placed on girls by pop culture. I want to encourage, empower and equip teenage girls to live their life to its potential.

What kind of work do you do?

I work with youth both in the church setting as well as in the community where I mentor teen girls and help coach a Sr. Girl’s volleyball team.  I also work with girls through the Beautiful One Conference which is a faith based yearly event designed to empower, equip and encourage teen girls.

What feminist issue is particularly important to you?

I believe that every girl should be afforded the opportunity to pursue education allowing them to achieve their goals and live out their dreams no matter where they live.

What is your dream for Women?

My dream for women is that they would be confident in who they are and live out that confidence in every area of their life.

Which unknown or young feminist would you like the world to know about?

This is a tough one.  I know a lot of strong women who are actively making a difference in the lives of girls and women.

Terrie Chan is a student at UBC Vancouver. This summer she worked for a non-governmental organization in Hong Kong called The Women’s Foundation.

1) What was it that inspired you to become a feminist?

I was inspired to become a feminist for many reasons. The most prominent reason being that women are not, no matter how many people say that we have, won our equal standing in society- or at least in Canada. There are [still] many [areas] in life that women can[not] participate fully [in], or be treated as an equal. There are also many things to be done in order to protect the safety of girls and women, or simply  to be viewed just as valuable as a male counterpart.

2) What kind of work do you do?

I try to fit in feminism in my life and to reflect this to my friends and family. Whenever I get the chance, I talk about the situation of women and girls around the world, which I think is an issue needing attention. In terms of work with credentials, I spent one month in Hong Kong this summer with an NGO named The Women’s Foundation for an internship. That was my first experience with a NGO with a focus on women and girls.

3) Which feminist issue is particularly important to you?

I am most interested in sex trafficking, domestic violence, and women within law.

4) What is your Dream for Women:

My dream for women is for all women to understand their self-worth and that it is not okay when a man treats you as his possession or simply in a bad way, and for all women to understand they deserve respect. It is my hope that all women will have that self-confidence, and that they will stop blaming themselves when a man does them harm. I also hope that women can finally see that they can be just as successful as any man or woman on the planet. Finally, I think we need to accept a norm wherein women do not feel pressured to be sexy or possess a certain ‘male trait’ to be successful. Hopefully this will allow men who have this attitude to discover something other than their present normative thinking-that women are somehow of lesser value compared to men.

Introducing: New Columns at Antigone Magazine

This fall, we are launching a number of exciting blog features and  columns! They are designed to engage in important conversations and to introduce you to amazing women. Over the years, we have met a lot of fabulous female politicians and feminists and we have unfortunately not been able to include them all in our print magazine.

And then we realized that we had a blog and could features whomever we wanted!

So, please welcome our new columns and columnists! They will be posting bi-weekly so look out for their content!

Political Mavens
By Megan Ryland
This column will feature interviews with awesome female politicians and candidates!

Feminists Who Totally Rock
By Emily Yakashiro
This column will feature interviews with awesome feminists who totally rock!

The Feminist Scholar
By Kaitlin Blanchard
This column will feature discussion of ongoing issues in feminist academia!

The Cultural Critic
By Raquel Baldwinson
This column will feature criticism of culture!

We will also be offering other blogs the opportunity to syndicate these columns on their blogs for free! To learn more about how you can publish one of these great columns on your blog (or Dreams for Women!) e-mail us at antigonemagazine@hotmail.com!

If you are interested in starting your own weekly or bi-weekly column we would LOVE to have you! E-mail us at antigonemagazine@hotmail.com