Gender
On Monday, at the invitation of the lovely folks at the German Embassy, I attended a panel discussion on feminist foreign policy at the Global Centre for Pluralism on Sussex. I had lots to learn and I am happy to report that I duly did. I mean, I know what
Gender
Pride 2022 was the first one I’d ever attended in Ottawa. I took my kids to experience it and there we were, being loud and proud with an impressive collection of stickers on our faces and much joy in our hearts. The first candidate to appear on my street
Gender
The first thing that hit my face as I walked out of the Seattle-Tacoma International airport was the haze. It was thick, pasty, greyish white and three-dimensional. Make that 4D, actually, on account of the smell that grabbed me by the throat. The forest fires that were foretold by the
Gender
The news out of Iran is terrifying. You can die, totally entirely by accident on purpose, for defying the authority of those whose entire raison d’être is to control what women, girls, and basically anyone who’s not a cis-het man, do, think and feel. You can also be
Gender
Wow. I mean, wow. This column is a handful and a half. I’ve known Randall for a long time. I enjoy his novels. I typically try to read his columns because they express right-wing ideas in a clear and logical manner. I disagree a lot, but I like to
Gender
I haven’t said a whole lot about the sudden and frankly puzzling (to say nothing of stupid) firing of Lisa LaFlamme. Mostly because enough people are rising to defend her and I don’t like pile-ons or crowds. For the record, I’m against her firing. It’s obviously
Gender
It’s Pride Week in Ottawa and for the first time in forever I’m planning to be at the parade. I don’t like parades, because I don’t like crowds. But there are beautiful queer people in my life I love much more than I dislike crowds so
Gender
The sudden, stupid and obviously sexist firing of Lisa LaFlamme from CTV is not going over very well with the vast majority of Canadians. Or so it appears. And part of me rejoices. Why do we keep male anchors until they’re 600 years old, regardless of how they look
Gender
Have you heard the one where a government in Canada ran an essay contest designed, ostensibly, to inspire and encourage women between the ages of 17 and 25 to get involved in politics, and awarded third place to a misogynistic screed? The conservative government of Alberta (now you laugh) is
Culture
It’s one of those things you feel you have to watch, even if you don’t wanna. And I didn’t wanna. I’d heard a discussion of the Netflix series based on real-life award-winning investigative reporting into how police had investigated claims of rape by various women in
Gender
[content warning — abuse and violence against women] Justice is blind to crimes it refuses to see. Let that sink in for a moment. It’s more profound than it sounds. We all know justice can’t do very much about crimes nobody sees, unless someone somewhere pieces the evidence together
Politics
I’ve known Tasha Kheiriddin since before either of us had kids. It’s how I measure time now, bear with me. Mine are almost all teenagers now. So I’ve known her for (counts fingers, adds a couple of toes) a while. We’re not close friends or anything.