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

UNCSW 54 March 3rd

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Commission on the Status of Women, United Nations

This post is part of a series on the 54th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Click on a link to read further.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 8 , Part 9 , Part 10

March 3rd was the day that the United Nations Celebrated International Women’s Day. The occasion is celebrated a few days before the actual event to allow Delegates to the UN the chance to get home in time to celebrate with their communities.

I started the Day at the NGO general briefing at the Salvation Army. A South East Asian delegate asked if we could lobby for a resolution specific to women in extreme poverty and women with disability with our respective government meetings and regional caucuses. The Women’s Labour Congress also asked us to join them in their lobby for a resolution on women’s economic empowerment, and women from Arabic women’s caucus would like to see a resolution on women in occupied territories, and the general women’s labour group finished and released a draft of their open letter to the Secretary General about the long lines and poor state of the UNCSW.

After the NGO debrief I moved back to the main building and made my way to the overflow room (Conference Room 2) to watch the UN celebration of International Womens Day.

It was very nice, the Secretary General made a wonderful and engaging address. He spoke about the way that he honors women because he is a husband and a father and a grandfather. He talked about how important he felt it was for men throughout the world to recognize that violence against women is a direct violation of their inalienable human rights.

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

Mira Hall Reports from the UNCSW! Part 2

2nd Day at the UN!

As someone who is the end product of being “the eldest sibling” in my family, combined with a long time in restaurant management who has done facilitation in groups, I find it very hard to refrain from intervening when something obviously needs help. This brings me to the poor male who was designated to facilitate a working group to come up with a recommendation for government action.

First of all, a major bone of contention throughout the workshops was the number of men who were designated as facilitators. In any other circumstance, I wouldn’t have notice, and perhaps thought that the more hard-line feminists were being petty. *HOWEVER* the status of women, internationally, is dedicated to achieving women’s equality in a male dominated world. The whole thing is an act of women’s empowerment, to encourage women to achieve equality in all aspects of life, particularly in full economic participation and in political leadership. Facilitation is a very good way for a woman to practice empowerment. At any rate, I’m getting off track, so back to the story, there was this poor man facing a room full of UNCSW delegates who clearly felt that he had no business being there to facilitate a conversation about violence against women.

Beyond the obvious challenges, the man was fairly good natured and wanted to direct the conversation in productive ways, but he unfortunately didn’t guide the conversation in a way that made it clear to the participants what we were supposed to be doing, or what aspects we were supposed to be talking about, or what end result we were looking for.

Dangerously late into the workshop, we finally got to the point of democratically trying to construct the language of the recommendation. The guy was just repeating our suggestions back to us and pointing out when he thought we were being irrelevant. So I threw up my hand and suggested (innocently enough) that he should maybe write the draft phrase on the gigantic blackboard behind him, at which point he invited me to come up and do just that, and then the former facilitator/manager/big sister came out and *I CO-FACILITATED FOR THE UN NGO ORIENTATION WORKSHOP!!!!*

I totally commandeered the facilitation. It was innocent enough in its formation, however I just couldn’t help myself and I’m so happy that I couldn’t. A lot of participants came up to me after and thanked me, and praised the job that I did. The other FAFIA delegates even heard positive buzz about the incident. So what happened to the poor guy set up for failure? We sat together during the group presentations of the recommendations, and he also thanked me for my help.

So my second day has been elating. Beyond my shining moment in the workshops, the orientation for NGOs was full of great speakers with incredible observations about the roles of academia, governments, and people embroiled on the battle grounds. There has also been great discussions surrounding the role of education in ensuring that children grow up embracing the charter of human rights. (that subject could spin me off onto a long and probably boring ramble about my favorite philosopher, Antonio Gramsci) and to finish off the day I had a final orientation meeting with FAFIA to talk about my obligations beyond being here.

All the delegates have to have submitted a draft community action plan to be reported in final form by June 20th, and at that point we can submit the action plans to apply for funding of full implementation of the plans. I’m hoping to base my action plan on addressing the structural barriers that prevent women from full integration and participation in economic life. The Status of Women is already doing a great practical job of this in their Women’s training in Oil and Gas program. I will make a 2nd draft version after I return to Yellowknife and have time to consult with the wonderful people who have acted in a mentorship capacity for me (whether they be aware of it or not.) but in essence I would like to model a micro/macro basic understanding of economics workshops for women and girls based on the Health children, Healthy Communities manual developed by the United Nations Association of Canada.

A woman that is also with the FAFIA delegation has already done such a thing and has tools that I can use. She has already used a version in Northern Manitoba with the aboriginal populations there, and has had tremendous success.

I’m very excited because I believe that the structure of work in the Territories is a large component of our exceptionally high rates of violence against women. I know that I myself have had to seriously weigh the pros of being homeless with two children, against the cons of remaining in an abusive relationship. Thankfully I had great support to come out of that situation and am thriving now, however, for many women in the north (especially if they have children) are economically dependant on romantic partners. Our income support really does not provide enough to recipients in order to maintain their basic needs.

Again, my head is spinning with information and personal stories from well established activists from all over the world, so I’m sure that my writing is going off in a million directions with every train of thought that is currently cruising through my synapses!

Thank you to everyone who has read and commented on my previous note. I am hoping to update daily, and when I return there will be pictures available. I am hoping to meet with anyone who is interested to talk about what I’ve learned here and how I envision the economic awareness workshops with full and welcoming hopes that anyone who is interested helps me to shape how these workshops will play out.

In closing, I have been actively networking and talking about the socio-economic impacts of the Diamond Mines on the population that I work with, I have spoken about the lack of infrastructure in the Territory, and how it prevents our own mobility, as well as other peoples investments. I’ve talked about our challenges around University participation of residents from outlying communities. And I have talked a lot about my view of the barriers to the participation of women in meaningful employment at livable wages. I’ve also gotten into heated debates about the importance of “cultural relevance” being included in recommendations (ie: We believe that governments, national and local, should teach people in a culturally relevant way, from the earliest stages in life onward, that violence against women is unacceptable.) The debate mainly happened between me, CANADAIAN! And a woman from Jordan, and another woman from Halifax against an American woman and an English woman. They argued that some governments could use “cultural relevance” to excuse violence, while we were arguing that as the statement was written it couldn’t, that cultural relevance was in the way that the unacceptability was taught.

In the end it was a great exercise in how difficult it is for government to come to agreements on legislation, let alone draft them in a democratic and inclusive way.

Good Night!

Conservatives Sneak ‘Equality’ Back into Status of Women Mandate… or at least pretend to…

It seems like the Conservative government is waffling on ‘equality’. First, they take the word out of the Status of Women Canada’s mandate and now they’ve quietly put it back in. Of course, they didn’t change any of their altered funding requirements for their women’s programs. Here are excerpts from the press release from the Liberal Party about the incident:

“Ms. Verner had the word ‘equality’ quietly added to the overarching goals of the Women’s Program and tried to suggest at committee that it applied across the board. When Liberal members asked the Minister to clarify why the so-called change is not in the funding guidelines section on the department’s website, she dodged questions. Later departmental officials confirmed that adding the word ‘equality’ was only symbolic and that ‘nothing had changed’.”

In September 2006, the Conservative government changed the terms and conditions of the Women’s Program at Status of Women Canada. The changes included removing “equality” from its mandate, which meant that women’s groups and organizations that do advocacy work were no longer eligible for federal funding as they had been in the past. The Women’s Program at Status of Women is the main vehicle to fund projects to promote equality for all women.

[…]

“This is insulting to Canadian women, but it’s more proof that the Conservative government is only prepared to pay lip service to the importance of equality and what it means to the Women’s Program and women’s groups,” said Ms. Minna.

Conservatives Sneak ‘Equality’ Back into Status of Women Mandate… or at least pretend to…

It seems like the Conservative government is waffling on ‘equality’. First, they take the word out of the Status of Women Canada’s mandate and now they’ve quietly put it back in. Of course, they didn’t change any of their altered funding requirements for their women’s programs. Here are excerpts from the press release from the Liberal Party about the incident:

“Ms. Verner had the word ‘equality’ quietly added to the overarching goals of the Women’s Program and tried to suggest at committee that it applied across the board. When Liberal members asked the Minister to clarify why the so-called change is not in the funding guidelines section on the department’s website, she dodged questions. Later departmental officials confirmed that adding the word ‘equality’ was only symbolic and that ‘nothing had changed’.”

In September 2006, the Conservative government changed the terms and conditions of the Women’s Program at Status of Women Canada. The changes included removing “equality” from its mandate, which meant that women’s groups and organizations that do advocacy work were no longer eligible for federal funding as they had been in the past. The Women’s Program at Status of Women is the main vehicle to fund projects to promote equality for all women.

[…]

“This is insulting to Canadian women, but it’s more proof that the Conservative government is only prepared to pay lip service to the importance of equality and what it means to the Women’s Program and women’s groups,” said Ms. Minna.