Fed up, Bachmann started a local campaign in his home of Penticton, B.C., after garnering attention from a Facebook post lamenting the lack of spaces to change his son. The public response, says Bachmann, has been encouraging. He’s been invited to speak at a council meeting and says community members often stop him on the street to congratulate him for taking up the cause.

“I feel like I can make a difference,” says Bachmann.

Still, the oft-overlooked problem is proving slow to resolve. Meanwhile, south of the border, the issue is gaining traction, with the help of celebrity exposure from the likes of Ashton Kutcher. Shortly after becoming a father, Kutcher realized what many men and their families do and had the platform to draw mass attention to the issue.

And before leaving the White House, former president Barack Obama signed the Bathrooms Accessible in Every Situation Act, requiring all federal public buildings in the U.S. to install baby changing tables in both women’s and men’s washrooms within the next two years.

Canadians continue to push for their country to follow suit. This fight was recently taken up by six online petitions nationwide. Mississauga, Ont.’s Elizabeth Porto started a campaign for changes to be made to the building code in the province. She finds it discriminatory, especially when there is a change table in the women’s washroom and not the men’s in the same location. “Baby change tables in all Ontario restaurants or any other business required to have public washrooms should be a right, and not viewed as a courtesy,” Porto states in her call to action.

Indeed, there is no reason for spaces to assume the mother is always the one changing their child. The lack of changing spaces in male-designated bathrooms becomes even more problematic for same-sex dads, single dads, and transgender parents, who are constantly running into trouble finding a clean, safe place to change their children’s diapers. “Canada claims to be a world leader in the promotion of gender equality and human rights,” Porto notes. “If this is true, then let’s make the change.”

Photo courtesy of Afripads

Madeleine Shaw had been making reuasable cloth menstrual pads for six years when she met Suzanne Siemens at a community leadership course in 1999. The women instantly clicked over their shared goals around business and social change, and together, they decided to take Shaw’s pad project to the next level.

“When I was in university, I became an activist and I thought I’d end up as a social worker,” says Shaw, a women’s studies student at the time. “But becoming an entrepreneur gave me a whole new set of tools to create change.”

Years later, their Vancouver-based company Lunapads is still growing. Their product, reusable pads, is aimed at tackling the host of problems associated with feminine hygiene products: the ongoing cost and environmental waste, and for many women across the world, inaccessibility.

Since 1999, Lunapads has sold one million units, and as of September 2016, select Target stores across the United States were fully stocked with the reusable goods. And while business is thriving, so are their international charities, including Pads4Girls and One4Her, two programs that donate pads in developing countries. Because of their work, 20,000 people in countries such as Uganda, Cambodia, and Jamaica have been given nearly 100,000 pads to help them continue going to work or school while on their periods.

“The typical girl in Uganda, for example, is so embarrassed to take the risk of going to school and soiling herself that she will stay home,” Siemens says. “When they don’t go to school, their grades drop, and they often drop out.” That girl may then be forced to marry and become pregnant, Siemens adds. In effect, access to menstrual pads has the remarkable ability to change the course of one’s life for the better.

This dedication to business and social change helped Lunapads secure a portion of $500,000 in 2016 from SheEO’s #RadicalGenerosity campaign, an initiative that encourages female entrepreneurs to loan money to fellow female founders to help grow their businesses.

As Lunapads moves into the next growth phase, Shaw and Siemens are focused on educating customers on how to use their products for light bladder leakage, making their language and products more gender-inclusive, and publishing a graphic novel-style booklet for Lunapads users in Africa—all while staying committed to their core values. “Every business can do something to be more socially inclusive and environmentally responsible,” Siemens says.

For our special 50th anniversary issue, Canada’s brightest, boldest, and most rebellious thinkers, doers, and creators share their best big ideas. Through ideas macro and micro, radical and everyday, we present 50 essays, think pieces, and calls to action. Picture: plans for sustainable food systems, radical legislation, revolutionary health care, a greener planet, Indigenous self-government, vibrant cities, safe spaces, peaceful collaboration, and more—we encouraged our writers to dream big, to hope, and to courageously share their ideas and wish lists for our collective better future. Here’s to another 50 years!

In May, I followed a BuzzFeed community post by Sabine Grutter, a Montreal-based transmasculine researcher, on how to respond to the Canadian census as a non-binary trans or intersex person. Grutter suggested we opt out of choosing M or F, ignore the reductive checkboxes, and leave detailed comments instead. While I appreciated this workaround, I was also irked that, at some point in the data interpretation process, I’d be funneled right back into a checkbox marked “M” or “F”—while StatsCan provided a way to avoid the binary in the questionnaire, its data collection would still rely on it.

I’m one of an estimated 350,000 Canadians who identify as non-binary. For me, this means that I feel most comfortable between genders, with some masculine and some feminine traits. It also means I don’t feel comfortable with gendered terms. I would like to set fire to honorifics and sidestep over being called Ms., or, worse, Miss or Mrs., ever again; while I’m married, I experience an internal allergic reaction every time someone refers to me as my partner’s “wife.”

The fact that the census doesn’t accurately collect gender information is completely ridiculous—why run a census if it doesn’t capture demographic data correctly? Moreover, in an email interview William (Doré) Garland of StatsCan referred to the workaround as a process that “assist[ed] transgender or non-binary people in responding to the questionnaire”— a statement that makes it seem as though we need help, when the truth is that the questionnaire is only difficult for us because it doesn’t provide the options we need.

StatsCan is set to release a document based on gender data-related comments, and Garland asserted that the StatsCan will run “extensive public consultations” about how it should treat gender in the 2021 census. This is all well and good, but it seems pretty clear to me: the census needs to contain, at the very least, a third gender category, or we’ll continue to erase people who identify as non-binary trans, non-binary, genderqueer, two-spirit, intersex and a-gender. If we’re lucky, this third category will contain a secondary dropdown to further specify— wouldn’t it be interesting to see how identifications evolve over time?—as well as an “other” box, just in case we missed someone. Our demographic data helps us to create policy and carry out important and meaningful research, and we cannot do that until our government acknowledges that gender doesn’t fit neatly into two checkboxes.

Illustration by Matthew Daley

As Zuker says, “Rape in the case of Maya Angelou is used to reflect the suffering of her race and to Maya Angelou a bird struggling to escape its cage trying to understand and respect both her body and her words.” Many of us like to think this title is also a nod to Gray’s tattoo, which she got last September after the rape. Zuker said he cannot accept Ururyar’s evidence and that the defence’s version of events—painting Ururyar as a clean cut nice guy whose cold would have made him too weak to rape—did not happen.

Not only did the judge—an old, white man, in a place of authority—use the term “rape,” a word that is dismissed in so many spaces for being too threatening, he called Gray’s experience a nightmare. The judge used terms that are so often dismissed as feminist jargon. He discredited rape myths surrounding what constitutes a “good” and “credible” rape victim, as well as saying there is no time limit on pain—a comment made in response to the defence’s argument that it took Gray too long to report the assault. (In fact, she went to the hospital to be tested 48 hours after the rape, and then reported it another 24 hours after that.)

“No other crime is looked upon with the degree of blameworthiness, suspicion, and doubt as a rape victim,” said Zuker. “Victim blaming is unfortunately common and is one of the most significant barriers to justice and offender accountability.”

After the verdict was read, supporters and reporters, gathered outside of the courtroom. Celebratory feelings were abundant and palpable. Gray did not attend court that day, but she did release a media statement 15 minutes before the 10 a.m. decision was read.  “I am tired of people talking to me like I won some sort of rape lottery because the legal system did what it is supposed to do,” she said in her statement. Gray acknowledges that both the judge and crown did their jobs well, but rightly adds: “However, I will not congratulate the legal system, or the various courtroom actors for doing what they are supposed to do.”

Gray knows that her intersecting privileges are significant factors—she is a white, heterosexual woman in her late 20s with an in-depth knowledge of the legal system and a graduate level education. “But what can be drawn from my experience is that if I am drowning in these systems, what does that mean for those who are not university-educated, white women who are sexually assaulted?”

In court the defence lawyer acted both appallingly and wrongly. Lisa Bristow ignored Canada’s rape shield law when asking Gray questions directly pertaining to her sexual history. Bristow also read Gray’s phone number out loud in court and compared sex with Gray to sex with a dead fish. I feel sick when remembering Bristow tell Gray, “You were satisfied that you got the hot sex that you wanted.”

In her statement, Gray spoke about how the court process dehumanized her and, as she has said from the start, no matter the verdict, she would not be un-raped.

“My experience has demonstrated that Toronto Police Services do not care about sexual assault. It has been thirty years since Jane Doe first challenged the TPS for their discriminatory treatment of sexual assault complainants. The TPS have had enough time to ‘reform’, ‘diversify’ and ‘train’ but it simply does not work. It is time to imagine alternatives outside of the institution of policing for sexual assault. TPS make it clear that they do not care about sexual assault, so why continue the public façade that they take issues of sexualized and gender based violence seriously?”

Ururyar was found guilty that early afternoon. As Zuker said, “Rape it surely was.” Ururyar was released on bail until Monday July 25 when it was revoked. Gray released a public statement via Facebook sharing her thoughts on the revocation and Ururyar’s application to appeal the verdict. She explains that for over a year she has not been able to feel safe and receives daily messages telling her that she deserves to be raped again, and even die. The same day as the verdict Gray received an anonymous Facebook message calling her a misbehaving whore for having tattoos, drinking, and having sex before marriage. The writer said she deserves to be raped. Messages like these are a sobering reality that there is still a lot of work to be done.

“This is an individual with no remorse for the pain he has caused me, or the others around him. No verdict or sentence will ever reverse the pain imposed upon me by this person. With that being said, jail is not capable of curing his hatred of women,” Gray wrote. “The only reason I am somewhat relieved he is in custody is that because at least I know his likelihood of sexually assaulting another individual is substantially reduced. I don’t think it is a solution. I will never feel joy or happiness about being responsible for putting someone in jail. This is an individual with no remorse for the pain he has caused me, or the others around him. No verdict or sentence will ever reverse the pain imposed upon me by this person. With that being said, jail is not capable of curing his hatred of women.”

Gray’s work is still not done: she is currently bringing forward an Ontario Human Rights Complaint against the university and has switched her Ph.D. focus from women in prison to sexual assault.

Initially, Zuker revoked Ururyar’s bail ahead of sentencing on September 14. However on Wednesday August 3 Ontario Superior Court Justice Michael Quigley overturned the decision and Ururyar has since been released on bail.

Since the verdict Men’s Rights Activist (MRA) groups have criticized the decision, targeting Gray, and she has also been the subject of hateful YouTube videos, as well as a pro-Ururyar documentary. Her article published in NOW Magazine received so many hateful comments that the thread had to be shut down.

The Ghomeshi trial sparked a media circus. People mused on air, in print, on social media, and in coffee shops about where the blame should lay, if at all: institutional failures, failed morals, bad choices. Law degrees were replaced by snappy headlines and witty social media memes. While it’s since settled down, the verdict against Gray’s assaulter has initiated another circus. There are angry, misogynists who—no matter what a judge decides—will fight hard against women who have experienced violence. In the case of Ghomeshi, these groups preached the respect for the judge’s decision. In Ururyar’s case, it’s the opposite: we are told the judge is wrong, and I’ve heard many anti-Semitic slurs. These responses are hateful and scary, but they are not unexpected.

The people who may prove to shake the foundations of those whose lives have been affected by sexual violence are those who we see as friends, family, and peers. These are the people we seek comfort from, or whom we at least feel safe with.

Gender-based violence may seem like something that’s too scary to think about happening frequently, or it can appear like it is something that only happens to other people—bad people—on the news. It may seem like an issue that is safe to theorize about with anyone. However, for some of us these issues are part of our lives, lives that are policed by the threat of this violence. Some of us only have the privilege to say why we think these things happen because we can be pretty sure it won’t happen to us. Meanwhile, while he say whatever comes to mind without much thought, we may be telling someone we love what we think about the violence that happened to them. We may ask why some of the women in the Ghomeshi case kept in touch with the man, and unwittingly be telling our sister that she deserved what happened to her. We may say Gray made a bad choice to go to Ururyar’s apartment, and unknowingly be telling our daughter that she could have prevented her own rape, if only she were smarter.

For some of us the Ghomeshi verdict sparked water cooler conversation. For some of us the Ghomeshi verdicts lead to tears and being scared to leave our homes. It lead to women calling each other all day checking in asking if they were OK; it lead to cancelled plans, and missed work. It is progress seeing mainstream media report on these cases and it can be empowering seeing social movements tackling this issue. However, these events do not mean those of us safe from violence have full license to share whatever theory of the day they believe in—potentially at the cost of another’s well being.

Illustration by Danielle Krysa

Independence has never come easy for me—but it’s always been vital. I was born premature in 1989 with undiagnosed dyspraxia, a neurological disorder that permanently affects memory, coordination, and processing speed. Because my development was delayed and I was held back in kindergarten, I heavily relied on my classmates throughout school. I nodded my head to fake that I understood, but wondered why I felt slower than everyone else. My conservative, Catholic parents called me demanding and needy, encouraging me to settle for whatever nice guy I could find to support me one day—but I was adamant that I would take care of myself when I got older.

I was finally diagnosed with dyspraxia in my early twenties. I’d sought a psychological evaluation because I didn’t understand why I couldn’t keep a job. I was tired of failing to make it on my own and going back to live with my parents. Their look-the-other-way approach, frustrated name-calling, and refusal to acknowledge my struggles only made me feel worse. I used alcohol and sex to cope with the abuse. I felt like an outcast—it seemed like my own family didn’t even love me. My older brother committed suicide when I was 11, and I often felt like he was the only one who would have understood what I was going through. Like him, I was an artist who dropped out of school and was struggling to find my place in life.

Before all this, I’d dreamed of being a writer, graduating with a degree in communications, and getting a job at a well-paying magazine. I knew I was talented, and my teachers agreed, but my highly-graded essays couldn’t make up for the fact that I had trouble retaining information. Tests were difficult and held me back, forcing me to drop out of university. But I was determined to not give up. Even as I was failing classes I had already repeated, I decided to become a freelance writer and start my own magazine. I hoped it would allow me to work in my chosen field, use my talent, and become a better route toward achieving financial independence. After all, if I couldn’t hold a job, what good was a degree and thousands more dollars in debt? So, in 2010, I started FLURT, a socially-conscious magazine for young people who wanted to create a better future. I honestly believed that if I worked hard enough I would get it off the ground and would be able to support myself.

But as most entrepreneurs know, success doesn’t happen overnight. I didn’t have any form of stability to fall back on and the stress of living in poverty pushed my health to its breaking point. I moved constantly as I tried and failed to hold the most basic of jobs. As I strived to balance it all, my freelance writing and my magazine were both pushed to the side. In 2010, at age 21, I successfully applied for income support—a shallow safety net for those who are struggling to support themselves—to help me get on my feet. After a few years, I applied for Alberta provincial disability benefits. It’s a more sustainable program for those who are with living with a permanent disability, but also it’s incredibly difficult to get accepted.

The first time I applied for disability benefits, I was rejected. Unfortunately, it was a year before I received my dyspraxia diagnosis and without it I didn’t know—and couldn’t explain—why I couldn’t keep a job. For the following year, I continued to scrape by on income support, feeling hopeless. I felt trapped in the welfare system, scrolling through online “gigs” as a potential long-term way to get out of the hole.

Finally, in 2014, I made it off the waiting list for a $200 psychological evaluation. After two days of cognitive tests, a doctor said that I met the criteria for dyspraxia. It immediately made sense to me. I recognized many symptoms as part of my everyday life: poor visual perception, difficulty remembering things, bad motor skills, and trouble with speech. This lengthy report became the key ingredient to the collection of letters from doctors, social workers and previous employers—as well as the entire contents of my years in therapy—that I would need to get accepted into the disability benefits program. In 2015, at 26, I finally felt I had the support I needed to achieve independence.

After six years of renting rooms in houses where I felt like I had to walk on eggshells, I was able to rent my own apartment long-term. The amount of anxiety I’d felt these past years began to slowly lift, and I started believing that I would be able to feel happy and safe in the years to come. Instead of constantly being worried about how I was going to support myself, where I was going to live, and what I was going to eat, I could focus instead on my getting my freelance career and magazine on track in a peaceful environment that felt like home.

It was this entrepreneurial spirit that brought my partner and me together last year when he struck up a conversation about my magazine. We were instantly attracted to the other’s drive to be independent and fulfil their career goals—me in the magazine industry and him in tech. We agreed early on that we didn’t want to get married or have children, and that work would take the full centre of our lives. Because of this we talked about long-distance possibilities if he had to move for work, and agreed I’d stay here since starting the process of applying for social assistance somewhere else would be both exhausting and difficult. If we wanted to be together, we decided, we would make it work.

But I struggled internally with the difference in our bank accounts. Even though he made five times more than I received from social assistance, I still wanted to pay for myself on dates and occasionally take him out as well. Even though he would cook for me when I ran out of food and let me borrow money until my next pay cheque (which just put me behind the next month), I always found myself in the same position: broke and feeling like our relationship wasn’t on even ground. He’s the most supportive man I’ve ever met, but he didn’t sign up for this and I didn’t want him to.

I was also shocked to learn that if we were to move in together and become common law, I would lose my financial independence. Since my partner earns more than $3,812 a month—the household income limit for a person on disability benefits—I would be forced to give up my social assistance. It doesn’t matter than I earn nowhere near that amount, benefits or not. His income, in the government’s eyes, would count towards my own. Like many people who’ve applied for disability benefits in Canada, trying to find out information like this was difficult and confusing. When I was finally able to meet with my caseworker and sign the papers a few months after getting accepted, I asked for her to explain the cut-off system to me. She responded with a joke about how if I ever met a rich man—well, she didn’t need to finish her sentence.

I was angry. After six years of commuting to meet with countless doctors, therapists, psychologists, and social workers, filling out piles of paperwork, the stress of an appeal, and the damaging effect it had on my mental health, I was now faced with the unfair, impossible choice of financial independence or living with the person I loved. I felt like I’d rewound to the 1950s. I imagined myself at a top-level university that promised a stable, prestigious career, only to have a university professor tell me that once I graduated I needed to decide between a husband and the field I worked in.

Today, all but the most conservative would call that ultimatum outrageous. We understand, as a society, that women have careers not just because they need the money but because having financial independence gives them a sense of purpose and control in their lives. Why did the government assume that, just because I had a disability that affected my ability to work, I’d jump at the chance for a man to take care of me? As much as I tried, I couldn’t shake the question: Can you truly be a modern woman with a disability?

What the government is telling people who are on disability benefits, especially women, is that instead of seeking independence, the better choice would be to find a rich man—or, really, just any man. The Institute of Women’s Policy Research has, after all, declared that women in North America potentially won’t have an equal wage for another 50 years or so—a man doesn’t have to be rich to out-earn us. And, if women without disabilities have a hard enough time making it in a man’s world, I wondered, where does that leave those on disability benefits? I knew there must be more women out there, like me, who imagined a life with someone—only to face a threat to the financial independence they’d worked so hard to achieve. Because having your benefits yanked from under you and then having to rely solely on your partner for your basic needs doesn’t just curb your independence—it destroys it.

As I contemplated the consequences of my relationship, I couldn’t help but think of those women who had forgone their benefits. What happened if they wanted to leave their relationship?

Lola is a 20-something woman living in Alberta with Hashimoto’s Disease, an autoimmune disease that attacks a person’s thyroid. Like all of the women I interviewed, she asked that I give her a pseudonym because of the stigma associated with living with a disability. I can relate. Since I’ve been on social assistance family and friends alike have felt the need to tell me how I’m just not trying hard enough. Because Lola is in a common-law relationship with her partner, she hasn’t applied for disability benefits because he makes too much money for her to qualify. But that doesn’t mean she’s financially stable.

Instead, she works as a server despite “feeling like death” and “starting her day with an arsenal of medications.” Lola has expressed concern about how her partner treats her and her pets—mishandling both when he gets
upset. She’s wanted to leave the relationship multiple times, but she says she keeps forgiving him because he does a lot to help her. When it comes down to it, she believes that her hands are tied and she needs to keep pushing for survival.

Like Lola, Marci (who also asked that her name not be used) is a 20-something woman living in Alberta who has been common-law with her partner for 10 years. Even though she struggles to support herself and lives with bipolar disorder, Marci hasn’t been able to apply for disability benefits because her partner earns over the threshold. While she appreciates her partner’s support, this dependence has taken a toll on their relationship. She says she’s been forced to confront the terrible reality of feeling trapped because there’s no better alternative. When I last spoke to Marci, she and her partner had taken a step back from their relationship. She’s now in the process of looking into reapplying for disability. Like Lola, Marci finds surviving day-to-day hard enough—never mind jumping through the hoops of applying for disability benefits. It took me six years to successfully navigate the system, find the courage to contact doctors, and then to get all the paperwork I needed (and even then I had to appeal because the language in the paperwork wasn’t clear).

I can relate to Marci and Lola, who, despite desperately wanting financial independence, know that sometimes the most viable option is the one that gives you your best shot at survival. Even though I knew living with my parents hurt my confidence and mental health, I didn’t have the resources to leave. Income support allowed me to distance myself from my parents, and disability benefits let me cut them off completely. Having the latter gives me a sense of freedom. I don’t have to worry about relying on anyone else for survival; I can make decisions based on what I truly want. But for those who are still in vulnerable situations, other options are often homelessness—something I’ve experienced as well. And believe me, after a week of sleeping on a gym mat and wandering the street, a warm place to live, even somewhere that’s abusive—well, it isn’t even a question. This makes me sure that fewer women would find themselves in shelters if they were able to have social assistance regardless of their relationship status.

“The government expects people who are common-law to share incomes,” a social worker told me over the phone. And while this sounds like a fine deal if you’re in a relationship where you’re okay with that dynamic, it’s a poor one overall. Many women also want to share a house and start a family, and these extra expenses on one person’s salary exponentially raise the likelihood of living paycheque-to-paycheque—or make such goals simply impossible. Not only does this put all of the pressure on the breadwinner, but it can create a dynamic in which the person with a disability feels like a burden—an awful place to be in a relationship that’s supposed to be based on love and support, and when the rest of the world already underestimates those with disabilities. Even worse, if the relationship doesn’t work out, they’ll have to apply for disability benefits all over again after giving them up.

Of course, I could lie to the government. Like many couples who live together and aren’t on disability benefits, I could say I’m living with a roommate or have my partner take over the lease to avoid tax deductions. But I’m not going to do that. Lying to the government just adds to the stigma that people on social assistance are lazy and misusing people’s tax dollars. After all the work I’ve done to get to where I am, I’m not going to risk having my financial independence taken away. Instead of the Alberta government giving people no other option than to try to get around the system, it should take a hard look at its old-school views and remember that women are equal to men. Women with disabilities shouldn’t have to worry about losing their benefits because of how much their common-law or married partners earn.

Marci says that she has no idea what the future holds. She’s scared, and like me, the lack of stability and support has only made her mental health worse. She believes she’ll either get some kind of support and be able to finally focus on her needs—or she won’t. It feels like a gamble, and if she loses, she’ll have to continue to struggle with part-time work and stay in her relationship for survival instead of love. “Not every couple shares money,” she says. “The people applying for disability are not the ones living in mansions with happy, healthy marriages. The people applying are the ones who need it. The government shouldn’t be able to say some disabilities and living situations are more or less valid than others.”

I’m not sure what the future holds for me either. I currently live a life full of purpose while working on my freelance writing and magazine, and my partner and I are happy living separately for now. But maybe one day we’ll get tired of making the trek to and from each other’s apartments and decide we want to share the same space. Whether or not he takes a job outside Alberta, we’ll always have to live knowing there’s going to be distance between us. It’s true that respecting the others’ need for independence is a key component in what makes our relationship so great, yet having that independence forced on us isn’t what I expected when I told myself that I would one day take care of myself.

As a woman with a disability, I acknowledge that I’m lucky to have disability benefits in the first place; it’s incredibly difficult to qualify. Speaking out about the flaws within the system comes with a fear of biting the hand that feeds me. But progress has been made to increase disability benefit amounts and to raise awareness of how a person can afford to eat on social assistance. More and more women are writing about what it’s like to live with a disability to break the stigma that we’re lazy and misusing tax dollars. I’m happy to be one of them, and I feel confident that if we keep working to tell our stories we’ll come to create change. We need to keep fighting for our rights as citizens—and we can do it. After all, we’ve felt what it takes to overcome so many obstacles already.

Also in this issue: Amanda Van Slyke asks “Is welfare sexist?” in her new essay; Nadia Alam contemplates what it’s like to run away from home; Lisa Whittington-Hill hangs out with the Hervana; Saskatchewan makes huge strides forward in transgender rights; and more!

Want This Magazine delivered right to your door? Visit this.org/subscribe today. You can get one year (six great issues!) for only $27.99 or two years for $42.99 (an even better deal)!

Also, head on over here to meet our new art director Valerie Thai.

Spoken word poet Zeinab Aidid // Photo by Setti Kidane

Nasim Asgari is looking at the tofu sitting in her shopping cart, waiting for her mother to join her at the food aisle at the No Frills store in north Toronto. I wonder what it’s going to taste like, she thinks. She adjusts her headscarf. Tomorrow she’ll start her trial 40 days as a vegetarian. It was time for a diet change. Time for a proper cleanse.

Asgari tries to spot her mother in the crowd but can’t recognize her among the other Muslim women shopping there this afternoon. She turns back to examining the tofu, oblivious to the older white man walking down the aisle. “The animals are out again,” he says under his breath but loud enough for her to hear. “Welcome to the First World.”

The moment feels like a dramatic slow motion film scene for the then 16-year-old. The man never looked directly at her but his words took her mind off tofu. Slowly they hit her eardrums and connected to her mind: Oh, that’s for me.

In that moment, Asgari said nothing. Upset, she went home that night, almost a year and a half ago now, and translated her emotions into lines of poetry in her journal. She performed those lines for the fifth or sixth time on March 8, 2015 at “When Women Rule the Night,” an International Women’s Day event held at Beit Zatoun, a cultural centre, gallery and community meeting space located in the west side of Toronto. She named the poem “Breath of a Warrior”—a literal translation of her Iranian name. Nasim means breeze. Asgari means warrior.

She smiles now when she recalls the man’s words, but her eyes give away the confusion she felt. The man had called her an animal simply because of the scarf she chose to wear, a decision she made when she was nine years old. He wasn’t the only one. A couple of days later after the grocery store incident, she was standing at a bus stop, when a man, probably drunk she thinks, ambled up to her. “Oh you Muslims,” he says, “you’re going to kill us all.”

He told me this is Canada,
And people who look and dress like me should have no business here.
He felt the need to remind me of the country I’m in,
As if the white colour on the flag
Represents the colour of the skin
Of the people who ‘should’ belong here.

“The Quran says to greet ignorance with peace,” says Asgari, so she turned to spoken word poetry to calmly create a counter-narrative against hate speech. She has chosen to embrace her “animal” self. She has released her suppressed inner voice and speaks out loud now of her Muslim experience in Toronto. She and other like-minded young Muslim women have formed a pack of poetesses that empower each other, not only through their own encounters with bigotry and cultural clashes, but those of other Muslims around the world, from the unwarranted deaths of Deah Barakat, Yusor Mohammed Abu-Salha, and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha at Chapel Hill, North Carolina in January 2015 to the foul and false images of Muslim women that ISIS propagates in Syria. Closer to home, the group was part of the movement strongly advocating the welcome of Syrian refugees to Canada.

They do it with pens and voices, not teeth and claws.

In London, Ontario, 23-year-old Rozan Mosa performs her rhyming spoken word poetry, clad in a niqab. “Simply standing on stage is powerful enough to get people thinking about their prejudice,” says Mosa.

Muslim women like Asgari and Mosa are part of an evolving tradition of slam poetry and spoken word in North America that is reactionary in nature and activist in function. It grew more prevalent among Muslim American youth initially in response to the events of 9/11. In his report on “The rise of Islamic rap,” Peter Mandaville, director of the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University, writes that Islamic hip-hop met a need for youth who were “searching for music that reflects their own experiences with alienation, racism and silenced political consciousness.” For Muslim American women, it was a new channel, making a space for their voices in a male-dominated field. In 2002, Palestinian-American poet Suheir Hammad’s performed her poem “First Writing Since” on Def Jam Poetry, an HBO spoken word TV series hosted by Mos Def, marking the shift.

In Canada, MuslimFest, an annual three-day festival in Mississauga, Ont., and one of the largest Muslim arts and culture festivals in North America, also emerged as a response to 9/11. Founded in 2004, it was meant to answer the question: How can we move forward as a community and show youth that Islam is more than the stereotypes portrayed in media and elsewhere? “Muslim Canadians come from such different backgrounds, cultures and experiences,” says Maduba Ahmad, a 23-year-old organizing member of the festival. “MuslimFest is a platform that allows them to just take their identity, whatever they associate it with, and vocalize it.” They’re speaking to themselves and also to the 25 percent of the attendees that are not Muslim.

In the 12 years since the festival launched, other platforms have also emerged to create spaces for Muslim poets, specifically Muslim female poets. One of those is the Muslims Writers Collective (MWC), an initiative aimed at cultivating a vibrant Muslim literary tradition that began in 2014. At such events, most of the audience, according to Key Ballah, a 25-year-old published poet who heads the Toronto chapter of the MWC, are women. I see what she means when I go to the inaugural MWC meeting in Toronto in February 2014. Out of the 50 people in the meeting space in the basement of the MaRS Discovery District at the footsteps of University of Toronto, only three are men. In five minutes, these women come up with a couple of verses of poetry on mental health, cultural confusion, identity struggles, and the definitions of home. “Our job now,” Ballah says, “is to continue to provide a space for these women to speak their voices.”

As these spaces flourish, community leaders I spoke to have noticed more women coming forward, especially as news coverage of Muslim-based issues, unwittingly, gives them material for their art. “We try to provide a unique, alternative space that doesn’t always exist,” says Yasmin Hussain, violence prevention coordinator at the Muslim Resource Centre (MRC) in London, Ont., where Mosa first performed. Like the MWC, the overarching goal isn’t to bring more women to the stage but create spaces that are more inclusive and safe for them to be comfortable and empowered to enter. “They are valuable and valid,” she says, these spaces that encourage and support the lesser-known insights and stories shared.

To do so effectively, some platforms choose specific topics that introduce women to the spoken art form. Platforms like Outburst! Young Muslim Women’s Project, an awarding winning project by the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic in Toronto that began September, 2011, are spaces specifically for Muslim girls to speak out about violence in their community. They create sisterhoods, embracing and empowering young women like Asgari.

In 2014, the MRC led a spoken word workshop where 21 Muslim girls wrote a collective piece called “As a Muslim Woman.” The first chorus rings out with relatability: “As a Muslim woman I am tired of representing one billion people.” As a young Muslim female writer, I can’t help but nod in agreement. These women channel, or allow the translation of, interpretations of Islam that emphasize teachings on women’s rights, gender justice, and independent identity. These identities, in terms of religion, race, and gender, are the tools they use to break free of their cages and change the perception of the wild. Asgari calls
it an “inner revolution,” and in many ways it has become one.

Spoken word poet Nasim Asgari // Photo by Tara Farahani

At Beit Zatoun’s “When Women Rule the Night” event, Asgari watches the performance of another Muslim girl, whose youthful energy exudes from her smile, her louder-than-life laugh, and her Persian eyes as she performs to a still and attentive room. “Tell them about me,” the performer says, both her hands point at herself. The crowd replies without missing a beat, “this woman that I am.”

Tonight, Beit Zatoun is a makeshift coliseum, and the tigresses have been released, ready to tear apart anti-Islam, antifeminist, anti-human bigotry and stereotyping. About 100 people, three-quarters female, mill about the wood-panelled town hall type of room with high ceilings and haunted-house style chandeliers. Today is a safe space for the female performers to share their personal truths with the audience. No judgement, no insult, no backlash. We’re all just listeners and observers to the stories and journeys these women let go of on the stage.

The venue’s name is Arabic for “House of Olives,” a fitting name for the cathartic atmosphere the room embodies. In a Quranic parable, the olive tree is referred to as “a blessed tree … neither of the east nor of the west, but whose oil would almost glow forth, though no light touched it.” Every performer seems to be an olive from that tree tonight, not embodying a geographical location, but shining bright in the spotlight.

Asgari is the last performer at the open-mic portion of the evening. She stands against a wall off to the side before she’s called to stage. Her eyes are closed but her lips are moving—she’s rehearsing. She wears a blue and yellow scarf on a black dress with a full-length chiffon coat. She’s introduced as “a 17-year-old high school student who will blow your mind” by this evening’s emcee. As always, before she begins, Asgari calms her nerves by saying a verse of the Quran to herself. She lifts her head, moves one step back from the microphone and raises her arms.

If hatred knocks at your door,
Greet it with a smile,
But tell it it has come too late,
For love is already having tea inside.

Asgari’s hand gestures in this performance make it seem like she has the wings of an albatross. The big sleeves of her coat rise and fall with every arm movement. She seems to soar on her words. The audience snaps their fingers melodically, indicating some kind of collective cerebral connection to her words and her emotions. Some nod their heads, some express their love more audibly—“soul grunts,” they call them. When her voice softens, the audience goes silent. When she raises her voice louder, the audience responds proportionally.

They’re responding to a transformation of a small girl into an impressively powerful woman. In mere minutes she gives the crowd goose bumps, makes them laugh, makes them cry, and lifts their spirits. When she’s done, she walks away to the thunderous applause of the crowd. Quick hug to the emcee, some smiles to her friend, and a couple of high-fives. She once described the process of performance as a release of energy, transferring the heavy thoughts in her head into space. That’s why, after most performances, she leaves for a moment, to escape the thoughts she left floating around in the room, to escape, what she calls, the uncomfortable vulnerability of her open mind and soul.

Afterwards, women come up to thank her for her voice. Some hug her, some hold her hands. The cerebral connection is acknowledged physically. We are the same, suggests the hug. Thank you for understanding, suggests the two-handed hand shake. Some, like me, just nod and smile with tears in their eyes to indicate that for five minutes, our inner struggles were her spoken thoughts.

The loudest voices supporting Asgari at these performances are her friends from Outburst!. Asgari joined the organization in 2014. There, she found a family of young women who accepted each other without judgement and listened to one another’s voices. They called their group a sisterhood and have grown to become just that: supportive, dependable, and present.

One of her “big sisters” in the crowd is Zeinab Aidid, a21-year-old Somali-Canadian with beautiful long black-to-brown braided hair and big, brown eyes. She says she has been obsessed with def poetry jam since she was 13 years old, when she went to a spoken-word event at a Muslim festival in Mississauga. There she became entranced by Amir Sulaiman, who was then one of the only prominent Muslim spoken-word artists. He performed a piece that the CIA once questioned him on because it deemed the words “anti-American.” His wife, Liza Garza, also a singer and a poet, wasn’t allowed to perform because the organizers didn’t want female performers, something that annoyed Aidid at the time. But, Sulaiman brought his wife on stage anyway. Between the life-threatening power of Sulaiman’s poetry and Garza’s performance with her baby strapped to her body, Aidid couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

Aidid tossed a couple of braids on her face towards the side as she casually told me how she used to wear the hijab all through high school. She doesn’t anymore. We were sitting in a reading room in the University of Toronto, at the end of one of the building’s signature long, wooden Hogwarts-esque tables.

She pulled out her driving licence: a picture of a younger Aidid wearing a headscarf. “I wasn’t pressured or anything. I just felt that it was a lie,” she says. “I was giving off this vibe that I was a devout Muslim, but I wasn’t.” She’s working on a new piece about her experience with the hijab, trying to convey her guilt over not experiencing what other Muslim girls do.

Even though she was born and raised here, Aidid doesn’t consider Canada to be her home: “I don’t feel any attachment to this land, but then what land do I have an attachment to?” Poetry, for her, is a way to document alternate narratives to find that sense of belonging. “I never read a story in a textbook I could relate to.” Asgari has told me the same thing. An animal can’t call a cage home.

One frigid February evening in 2015, I arrive at Reverb, a Regent Park community centre program where Aidid is a mentor. It’s taking place at Daniels Spectrum, an arts and culture hub, where I see Aidid talking to some of her “sisters.” We’re sitting in another makeshift coliseum, set up in the third floor lounge featuring an open concept kitchen. Fifty emerging spoken-word artists and poets are sitting in a semi-circle, many of us on wooden chairs, plastic chairs or stools. Some lounge on a rug with large floor pillows that’s at the centre of the room. A rustic wooden “Welcome Desk” sign hangs above the performing space, microphone all set up. “This is a safe space,” announces the emcee. “We’ll be hearing some truth tonight. We’ll be hearing some honesty tonight.”

In Grade 7, my English teacher was a tall, bald, tubby British fellow who never wrote on the chalkboard behind him but used his versatile voice box to prove the power of poetry. “You have to read it to know it,” he used to say, “but you have to read it right.” He would demonstrate. First, he read Shakespeare’s “Shall I compare thee to a summer day” in his loud, booming headmaster tone, onerously emphasizing every other word with his right arm powerfully flailing up and down. Then he read it in his soft, melodic tone, the volume of his voice decreasing as he concluded the poem, the last line just a few decibels above a whisper.

I’m reminded of this today as I hear Aidid voice her piece about her cousin who was shot over a stolen phone that happened to belong to a drug dealer in a gang. When Aidid told me the story at U of T, she looked away and spoke vaguely, mentioning that lately her writing had been “consumed” by her cousin. She tells the audience this too when the emcee affectionately calls her to the stage in a booming sports announcer voice as “Z-Money”—a joke from Aidid’s high school days when she wanted to be a rapper. Today, Aidid looks right at the audience and tells her cousin’s story softly, powerfully, emotionally, fiercely.

I replay it in my head
My aunt collapsing into my mother’s arms when
we got there
Her children crying at her feet
My uncle calling in to work
‘It’s March 23, 2012. This is employee #7752, I
will not be coming into work today because I
will be burying my son’

She repeats the last line three times. The first time is soft. She chokes up and holds back tears the second time. She pauses. The crowd listens silently. No snaps, no soul grunts, no verbal applause. Only Aidid’s voice pierces the room the third time. When she finishes, she walks away quickly to roaring applause. Her sisterhood meets her at the back with supportive hugs. The next speaker thanks her for sharing. He’s been reminded of a similar experience he had, a shooting at a pizza joint. He was happy they could collectively mourn, remember, and move on.

A couple of weeks later, I was walking down the street one sunny afternoon, heading to an Outburst! event, when Asgari tells me, “sometimes existing just feels heavy.” Aidid turns to her, “You should write that down.” Asgari replies, “I think I might have somewhere.” They stop at a red light, watching the red hand, waiting for it to turn green.

Young women like Aidid and Asgari trace their ability to tell such poetic stories to their ancestry. In most cultures, the origins of spoken word can be found in the oral tradition in religious, cultural, and familial setting. It is the oldest form of poetry that has evolved over time, but its core principles still remain—consciousness of how words sound out loud, the cerebral thread that connects speaker to audience, and the power of the tone of voice.

Aidid emphasises how words are part of her blood: “Somalia is a nation of poets,” she says. “My dad’s quite creative too. I’ve never seen him write, but he tells stories.” Asgari credits her parents for giving her a poetic name that she channels, which she addresses in “Breath of a Warrior.”

There is a reason this oral culture is handed down. MWC’s Ballah says Islam is poetic in nature, and poetry has historically been an integral part of Muslim culture. A fable recalls how Prophet Muhammad entered a verse of the Quran into a poetry competition without attribution. The entries were put up for display and a poet from afar read the verse and declared it to be the most inimitable piece of poetry he had ever come across. Islamic folklore is also littered with examples of women being unable to tell their stories. Many were slave girls fighting for their voices to be heard. Some were queens and princesses, fighting for a female narrative.

Ballah has her own stories to tell. Her book of poems Preparing My Daughter for Rain was published in 2014, the same year she started wearing the hijab. On Jan. 7, 2015, the day of the Charlie Hebdo shooting, she was spat on by a woman at a subway station. Her assailant missed. A couple of years earlier, while she was at university, a drunk young Muslim man, so ashamed and saddened by his actions, began reciting Quranic verses in an attempt to prove to Ballah, to God, to himself that he was a Muslim.

I swear I am Muslim—he slurs.
I say: I know. No—he says—you’re judging me,
look.
And he holds his hands over his ears and he begins
to recite
[…] and he tries again and again, never getting
past Bismillah
He keeps on saying ‘No you don’t understand.
I am Muslim, I am Muslim, I am Muslim, I am
Muslim.”
I know, I say.
And he holds the bottle to his mouth and he almost
swallows it whole…

In this way, identity and culture continue to be lock and key to the trappings of personal struggles and societal perceptions. Ballah is finishing her new self-published book titled Skin and Sun, documenting her struggle to understand her position in the world as a Black Muslim woman, set for release this year. This summer, she’s set to speak at Duke University as part of a panel that discussed Muslim women who use art as a medium to express themselves.

Asgari is also set to release her first collection of poetry, at the age of 18. Eighty-nine backers raised more than $5,000 on Kickstarter for the book to be published. Called What was Swept Under the Persian Rug, the image on the cover of the book is a powerful gothic photo of Asgari standing on a Persian rug in a desert landscape, her head raised to a grey sunset sky, her arms wide open, her coat made of faded Arabic lettering. It’s the still image encapsulating the moment before lightning strikes and thunder roars, all at the beat of a woman’s command.

Illustration by Samone Murphy

I don’t have much in common with Eminem, but I do empathize with these lyrics about his pre-rap battle jitters: “Palms sweaty, knees weak, arms heavy.” My body floods with this nerve-wracking discomfort in a space so many others navigate with ease: the rich world of academia. As a 23-year-old woman with extensive coursework in creative writing and a degree in health studies and gerontology, currently completing my master’s of environmental studies, however, I spend a lot of time wondering why I don’t fit in. After all, on paper at least, I have all the credentials. I have spoken at a variety of conferences on topics ranging from health to feminism to student leadership; I have taught inclusivity workshops at a university level; and I have been a teaching assistant.

Yet, every time I have to do one of these things or, worse, enter a classroom, anxiety rips at my seams. I drown in these academic spaces. I usually flounder for a bit, perform, gesticulate. I come out of whole courses gutted or beached, my insides left for the foraging of others within the institution. I know it’s because, as a woman of colour, I was never meant to thrive in many of these spaces. People like me are only truly welcome when our knowledge and lived experiences are there for others to forage. When, my peers can use me for their own curriculum vitae, proudly listing credentials like:
• Ally
• Culturally competent
• Intersectional feminist
• Trained in anti-oppression
• Applies social justice lenses
• And on and on

I want to love this list of buzzwords because in their simplest form they are meaningful and integral to an equitable society; good intentions exist at the core of this list. At the same time, I have a hesitancy to embrace them—especially when they have manifested into popular talking points for those in academia who are trying to stay relevant, employable, and in solidarity with social movements and interest groups. These conversations never carve away at how these “attributes” are too often attained by exploiting the narratives of communities, not through truly active and constant actions of solidarity. A seminar will not make a white person understand the totality of their privilege and a degree in social justice (yes, it’s a thing) will never trump lived experiences.

As more schools start to formalize social justice learning, those who have the mobility to attain a degree speak over myself and members of other minority groups engaging in advocacy work. I feel a gnawing hopeless despair when I see academia giving accolades, funding, clout, and respect to those who trade on outside knowledge, making a study of us—strangers penning dissertations on my community and others. How do we move forward with integrity within institutions that were never meant for us?

In September, I walked through a law school I was debating on applying to after I finish my master’s degree, scoping out its holistic application approach, hoping it translates onto the class composites. But nobody looks like me. I see a bunch of white men, followed by a block of white men and white women, and then just a few brown faces. Not many of them are women. Positionality makes us all see the deficit we relate to most. As much as I try to carve out space with other women in academia, I always come back to the nuances. Some women can be marginalized, yet more privileged than many others.

As much as I strive to knead at this sense of sisterhood in academia, white women are better positioned to shatter through the glass ceiling than many of us deemed “other.” We’re not all on escalators to the top; some us have to tediously climb up—exhaustion is inevitable and often so too is subsequent defeat. Academia could take a few pointers from the experiences shared on #solidarityisforwhitewomen.

I have two parents who did not finish high school, and university has been a never-ending struggle. My parents deeply value education, but can do little to help me navigate the system. When I had surgery in my first year of university, my parents didn’t know what advice to give. Where they come from, Morocco and Pakistan, a deferral even for medical reasons can result in expulsion. My parents also did not always understand extra-curricular activities, or the importance of presenting at conferences. They often do not understand my work and it breaks my heart.

I hesitate to explain that I craft papers to get the necessary marks for school funding. Or to say how, at home, we have shared labour and responsibilities rooted in cultural values. Many misunderstand when I say I have to help family; it is not a “choice” to sacrifice schoolwork but an obligation to those who lent a hand in giving me the life I have today. Explaining that I have filled out immigration applications and written letters for family is dismissed with “why can’t your parents/ aunt/uncle/cousin do that on their own?” Such tasks take time, but also energy. It is a learned social justice education. Not that I get to pad my curriculum vitae with the short-list of buzzwords.

To our detriment, we seldom talk about how we came to be at this place in academia—where some bodies seem meant to be in these concrete buildings and some do not. Too rarely do we talk about the racism and sexism that pervades these hallowed hallways. How, for instance, Oklahoma University’s SAE fraternity was recently filmed happily reciting a lynching chant filled with racial slurs. Or how, in September, posters for a White Student Union popped up around three Toronto university campuses. The latter group’s website features a mission statement to “promote and celebrate Western Civilization” and a bunch of other racist stuff. These groups should not be dismissed: the long history of exclusion still exists in present day. As much as institutions have worked to tweak and fine-tune panels on topics such as diversity, inclusion, and anti-oppression, these Band-Aid solutions miss the foundational problem that universities will discuss ally-ship, but not how we are accomplices to the system—talking about people who, thanks to systemic barriers, cannot be in the same classrooms.

Even when I know the coursework extensively and comprehensively, I walk into a space pondering its dynamics and all of the potential for harm. I daydream about how academia would work if we aimed for harm reduction in academic spaces with the clear knowledge that they are spaces where violence is inevitable. If we could preemptively equip professors and students with ways to combat micro-aggressions or conduct damage control. Where an entire academic system isn’t steeped in racism. I envision a future where when we discuss an identity on the margins we create a space where every student will learn. Because, right now, as it stands, when we have these discussions, it’s the most privileged amongst us who benefit, while the many students who are already marginalized are not able to learn.

It’s not as if the dominant academic culture doesn’t know these challenges exist. We often see tools, such as Peggy McIntosh’s famous “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” used in progressive classes. But bearing witness to such scenarios—in which open-minded dialogue about race, class, and intersections occurs—is a largely stagnant experience for those who face the oppression. The first time I heard McIntosh’s list, I was in a first-year social work class that I thought would be an exciting elective.

I cringed as it was read aloud, point by point. My professor seemed to relish in the instant revelations of white students, telling them about her own experience grappling with the list as an undergraduate student. What manifests is white people and model minorities learning, while the rest of us hold our breaths. After this particular class, white students dominated the conversation, expressing feelings of guilt and surprise. Three years later, in the first and only woman studies course I have ever taken, a white student brought up how every time she reads McIntosh’s list she cries. Guilt with little action does not do anything. Unpacking the list for people of colour and watching white people express their guilt over it always feels like an out-of-body experience.

The 50-point list, if you haven’t read it, touches on points of privilege like, “I can, if I wish, arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.” And, “I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys and children’s magazines featuring people of my race.” Or, “I can choose blemish cover or bandages in ‘flesh’ colour and have them more or less match my skin.”

Many people of colour know these harsh points of privilege exist from as early as junior kindergarten, yet we pay the same amount of tuition to sit through classes, conferences, workshops, and training that all teach this list. It’s a list a white woman wrote, touted as a golden, comprehensive document—in itself about white privilege, and yet a white academic coined it, and gets the credit and monetary gain of its popularity as a teaching tool. Can we not use a racialized person’s work instead? Why are such attempts at diversity so blatantly half-hearted?

Whenever I get invited to be a token presenter at a university conference (usually on either religious identity, ethnicity, feminism, or all three), white people feel compelled to let me know they are “different,” how they “feel sorry for their people’s behaviour,” and how they “never thought about it that way.” Yet, would-be allies get very upset when people of colour or queer communities ask for identity-specific spaces. They don’t seem to understand we want to feel safer, that these safe spaces allow us to reach the heart of issues—like racial profiling—that we are all too familiar with. But we are not their specimens. They don’t get to use us as tools in anti-oppression training.

Currently, allies occupy opportunities that should belong to the “other.” But, I have hope for those working in solidarity with minorities. Diversifying more course syllabi is a start, but advancing equity in higher education also demands a few more actions. We need a critical generosity amongst peers and we need to create safe classrooms where we can have the much-needed difficult conversations.

Institutions that were not created for people of colour need to finally start consulting and listening to people of colour. We need to practice compassionate accountability and move away from an academic industrial
complex, toward a collective future. Emotional accountability to our peers is also vital. Often more privileged peers ask if they can “pick my brain,” but use my knowledge without credit, presenting it as their own. This invasive excavation of a life needs to stop. We need to strive for equitable learning environments.

How we all experience a space is different. Often defending our work becomes defending ourselves for many who are marginalized. For many it is never just an academic exercise. It is never just a project. We invest our stories, identities, and lives but also our communities. During my first master’s degree course this year, focusing on race, gender and the environment, a white man said his hope for the class was “to learn about white privilege.” I held my breath.

Here’s a glimpse so far:

Up for Debate

Wouldn’t it be handy if there were a debate specifically about women’s issues? There hasn’t been one since 1984. That means there has not been a debate focused on women’s issues in my lifetime. Up for Debate, an alliance of over 175 national women’s organizations, invited Stephen Harper, Tom Mulcair, Justin Trudeau, and Elizabeth May to debate such issues. Mulcair was proud of the fact that he was the first to accept the invitation. Trudeau and May also accepted, and Harper did not. When the time came, Mulcair backed out. If Harper wasn’t doing it, neither would he. As a result, because two men didn’t want to play, organizers canceled the event. Up for Debate went ahead with Plan B, where one-on-one interviews with the politicians were arranged. Mulcair—the guy who backed out of the debate last second—took this opportunity to identify as a feminist. Trudeau also says that he is a proud feminist. Harper did not participate in the interviews.

I was looking forward to this debate. Very disappointed it had to be cancelled. https://t.co/q2Awq4iQcX

—    Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) August 24, 2015

Where did our debate go, @ThomasMulcair? And @pmharper? #women #GPC http://t.co/iSLL9pN4Ue pic.twitter.com/m1cQArPhnZ

— Green Party Canada (@CanadianGreens) August 24, 2015

Transcripts of full interviews:

Mulcair

Trudeau

May

Munk debate

The Munk debate is a charitable initiative of the Aurea Foundation, a right-wing organization founded by Peter and Melanie Munk of Barrick Gold. The September debate was on Canada’s foreign policy. Unlike the women’s issues debate, RSVPs to to the invitation of right-wing millionaires were quickly accepted, disheartening to say the least. May was not allowed to attend. The Munk Debates reasoning is the Green Party does not have party status. However, as a charity they are not legally allowed to support or oppose a political party. So the reason is official, not because of the boys-only nature of the Munk Debates. In the end, May used Twitter to participate in the debate. Trudeau said May should have been able to attend. Yet, he still attended, as did Mulcair and Harper.

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women

Harper has said there really isn’t an issue around the fact that Indigenous women are over-represented among Canada’s missing and murdered women. For him, it is a non-issue that does not rank high on the Conservative radar. Not all candidates agree with him. “”Do you think that if 1,200 women who had been murdered or had gone missing in Ottawa, we’d need the United Nations to tell us to have an inquiry?” Mulcair asked at an August rally. “It would have happened a long time ago. This is about racism, that’s what this is about.” The NDP leader says he will launch a national inquiry into Canada’s missing and murdered indigenous women. May has said the same and Trudeau has committed to support indigenous advocacy groups.

Childcare

Women today can work! Just for less money. Oh, and often only within daycare hours—which usually do not reflect the precarious shift work so many women undertake. Currently, Harper maintains he will slash all benefits for low-income earners, including childcare. Trudeau says he will end this trend and help families with lower incomes. Mulcair promises affordable childcare, saying, like healthcare, childcare is worth the money. May agrees that childcare is kind of a big deal.

Sex Work and Bill C-36

Harper passed Bill C-36 into law, further endangering the lives of women in sex work. But actually, he is saving them, because these women need to be saved by the morals of rich white men, as do we all. (Sarcasm intended.) May says the Green Party will repeal C-36, and Trudeau said, last year, that his party would be looking at the Nordic Model. More information about parties’ positions on sex work can be found here.

Domestic Violence

Those who participated in the Up for Debate interviews touched on this subject. Prior to the debate, the only thing the Green Party addressed in terms of domestic violence, according to a Toronto Metro article published August 26, was that “false allegations” were common. OK. At least, by the time the interviews were done May, a self-described feminist changed her tune, saying Canada needs a national strategy to confront domestic violence against women. Both Mulcair and Trudeau spoke about Parliament being a boys’ club and that they will lead by example there to make it less so.And money for shelters is a good idea, says Trudeau, but it isn’t up to the federal government to create them because municipalities, he believes, should do it. So, someone is going to do something, don’t worry about it.

Abortion

Pro-choice, anti-choice, reproductive rights. Light stuff, right? Harper doesn’t actually come out and say he is anti-abortion rights. Instead he says that abortion should not be discussed within politics because it is a matter of faith and morals. And although his own faith condemns these rights, he isn’t in the good books of anti-abortion group Campaign Life Coalition (CPL). The Conservative party is, though. At least there is someone out there ready to police women’s bodies. Phew. The CPL hates Trudeau, so that’s a good sign for the Liberals. Mulcair’s NDP is also pro-abortion rights: “A New Democrat government will increase funding for women’s organizations, particularly women’s rights organizations. Family planning, reproductive and sexual health, including access to abortion services, must be included in Canada’s approach to maternal and child health.” May is also on Team Abortion Rights.

The Niqab

Conservatives were getting attention for doing things like peeing in people’s mugs, and that was weird. So, a distraction—I mean, very important issue—was created by the Harper government. The niqab is a veil that covers part of the face and a sign of faith worn by some Muslim women. It is also being attacked for being anti-Canadian—as decided after settler colonialism. The argument goes something like this: “My white grandparents knew what it was to be Canadian (after white folk made what it is to be Canadian tailored to said grandparents) why can’t everyone else?!”

While fostering xenophobia the Conservative party is saving women by oppressing women. Anti-Muslim propaganda is being circulated on social media and women are being attacked because of this federally accepted hatred of the “Other.”

Mulcair says this is wrong. Like, no one likes the niqab, he says, but we need to trust the authority of tribunal decisions. Trudeau is also opposed to Harper’s stance. At a Maclean’s sponsored debate the Liberal leader said:  “You can dislike the niqab. You can hold it up it is a symbol of oppression. You can try to convince your fellow citizens that it is a choice they ought not to make. This is a free country. Those are your rights. But those who would use the state’s power to restrict women’s religious freedom and freedom of expression indulge the very same repressive impulse that they profess to condemn. It is a cruel joke to claim you are liberating people from oppression by dictating in law what they can and cannot wear.” As for May, at a televised French debate she said, “It’s a false debate . . . What is the impact of the niqab on the economy, what is the impact of the niqab on climate change, what is the impact of the niqab on the unemployed?”

Fun Facts

• Trudeau addresses misogyny, in certain communities.
• May re-started a women’s caucus in Parliament.

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna is in her second year of the gender and women’s studies program at York University. She also maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

As of Sept. 11, Toronto police decided an online poster’s request that feminists be shot at the nearest UofT women’s studies classroom wasn’t a credible threat. Still, campus security was increased and the police investigation is ongoing. For those who aren’t familiar with the story: A user going by “Kill Feminists” posted this threat, and others, in BlogTO comment sections. CUPE 3902 with University of Toronto Education Workers called the threats beyond abhorrent, “As many of you will know from the Provost’s earlier message, public threats have been received at the University of Toronto. We can add the detail that these were gendered threats made specifically toward women and feminists.”

In further response, CUPE 3902 Women’s Caucus also held a demonstration against gendered violence—and in support of feminism. The event gathered over a thousand supporters on Facebook, and the physical turnout was impressive. After the demonstration the women’s caucus posted to the event page, Some of our favourite moments came from seeing folks who were nervous to come to the rally really get into chanting, dancing and shutting down the roads.” To the organizers, it was a chance to expand the conversation about gendered violence on campus, yet others have criticized the action, saying the threats was blown out of proportion.

Marcus Gee wrote an article for The Globe and Mail, published last Wednesday, headlined “Why U of T’s reaction to online threats was excessive—and unavoidable.” “It is sad to see a proud public institution devoted to the pursuit of reason let itself get so rattled by such a puny thing as an online posting, however vile,” Gee wrote, referencing  the increase in security, the demonstration held on September 14th, and the cancellation of some gender studies classes.

But is it really absurd that people were scared? That women and girls reported feeling unsafe? As Gee himself pointed out, this threat reminded people of the 1989  Montreal Massacre, in which Marc Lépine walked into a classroom at L’École Polytechnique and separated students into two groups: men and women. He declared his hated of women and began shooting the women. He then shot and stabbed women before shooting himself. A note he left behind listed the names of prominent Canadian feminists he intended to kill.

There is still the lingering idea in our society that online comments and discussion are entirely divorced from “real life.” Now that everyone and their grandmother is online in some way, online socializing is indeed real life. Maybe this specific poster did not mean to shoot anyone, but with the wide audience reached through the internet, it’s entirely plausible such comments could be the encouragement and validation for another Marc Lépine. The “big deal” made by police and campus security can send the message that women and girls are, in fact, people whose lives are worth something.

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna is in her second year of the gender and women’s studies program at York University. She also maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.