February 5th

Today on the show, our amazing new volunteer Sarah brings us an interview with Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada. They talked about Copenhagen, how climate change effects women and the need for proportional representation in Canada. You can also check out Terra Informa for more with Elizabeth May.

Laura brings us part of the panel presentation given by the Women’s Court of Canada at U of A last March. Gwen Brodsky, co-director of the Poverty and Human Rights Centre in Vancouver, spoke on the importance in understanding the difference between strict equality and substantive equality.

There were some technical difficulties last week, so this week you finally get to hear an interview from a Vancouver based radio show called Red Eye with Jane Kirby about convergence activism and the 2010 Olympics from Red Eye.

The Legislating Sexualities in Alberta panel held today at the U of A was fantastic. Gaywire recorded it and we’ll soon have a link up.

Have a great weekend and get your feminism on!

Red Eye Interview

On yesterday’s show, we played part of an interview with Jane Kirby on convergence activism and the 2010 Olympics from Red Eye, a Vancouver-based radio show. You can find the full interview here. And if you haven’t been on rabble before, take a look around!

Legislating Sexualities in Alberta

Updated: Note the new location, FAB 220

The Political Science Graduate Association and the Faculty of Arts at the University of Alberta are presenting the panel Legislating Sexualities in Alberta.  It will be held from 12-2pm on Friday, February 5, 2010 in FAB 220, University of Alberta North Campus. More information can be found on the facebook page:

This panel will bring together a number of interested and informed actors to discuss the implications of the Alberta government’s actions and attitudes pertaining to sexual minorities. The motivations, repercussions and significance of the Adult Interdependent Relationships Act (AIRA), Bill 44, the de-listing of gender reassignment surgery, and eventual declaration of pride in Edmonton will be considered.

Panelists:

Lucas Crawford (English & Film Studies)
Dr. André P. Grace (Education)
Dr. Lois Harder (Political Science)
Dr. Cressida Heyes (Philosophy)
Rachel Notley (MLA for Edmonton-Strathcona)
Michael Phair (Education)

Laura has written a post for Blogosaurus Lex giving background information and asking questions on the issues this panel is discussing. From the post:

The de-listing of gender reassignment surgery (GRS, also known as Sexual Reassignment Surgery, SRS) for transgendered Albertans raises questions about who we deem worthy of medical treatment and how marginalized minority groups are treated in Alberta. It also raises questions about how people are defined under the law. Our society is heavily invested in the idea of a gender binary and our laws and bureaucratic processes reflect that. Transgendered people in Alberta, and in most places, must identify themselves as male or female on government documents (India legally recognizes the hijra as a third gender, but even this is problematic, in part because it groups all non-conforming gender expression in to an ‘other’ category). Not conforming with one’s legally designated gender can have many legal consequences (US websites) going beyond discrimination.

Check out Blogosaurus Lex to read the rest.

Raise Your Voice!

While we bring you as much awesome feminist news as we can every Friday at 5:30, that half hour once a week isn’t always enough for everything we want to play. This means sometimes we can’t use all of an interview, or can’t play all of a talk. Well those days are over!

At the top of the page is a link to Raise Your Voice! Here you’ll find all sorts of awesome talks, interviews, and whatever else we loved but couldn’t fit on the show.

We’ll be adding more in the coming weeks – including Linda Duncan, Elizabeth May and the Women’s Court of Canada – but for now check out Lise Gotell’s talk on the Garneau Sisterhood.

Talk posted! Police Warnings and Sexual Violence: The Mobilization of the Garneau Sisterhood

Lise Gotell recently spoke as part of iSMSS’s Inside/OUT Speaker’s Series on Police Warnings and Sexual Violence: The Mobilization of the Garneau Sisterhood.

If you missed it, or if you were there and would like to hear it again, head over to our CJSR News page to download the podcast!*

You can find the slides that go along with the talk here and watch the Target Women mentioned here.

If you’d like to find out more about the Garneau Sisterhood, check out their website. You can also email them at garneau.sisterhood@gmail.com.

*to listen to the podcast on a portable device, right click the arrow icon and select “Save link as…”. This will allow you to download the file and transfer it.

After the Massacre: Canadian Sexual Assault Law and the Construction of Neoliberal Sexual Citizenship

Lise Gotell will be speaking today, Wednesday, January 20, from 3:00pm – 4:30 pm in Senate Chambers, 326 Old Arts Building, University of Alberta.

“This talk explores the reconstruction of sexual violence in a context of neoliberalism, focusing on the post-Ewanchuk development of an affirmative consent standard in Canadian law and the development of neoliberal sexual citizenship. Discourses of responsiblization and risk management underpin recent sexual assault decisions, constituting the ideal victim as the rape-preventing subject who exercises appropriate caution (yet fails) and the normative masculine sexual subject as he who avoids the risk of criminalization through securing consent.”

A Woman’s Place is in the House of Commons

Linda Duncan, MP Edmonton-Strathcona, will be delivering the Annual Women’s Studies Lecture 2010, “A Woman’s Place is in House of Commons” on January 22, 2010 from 3:00-4:30 pm in Humanities L3, University of Alberta.

We’ll be there and we hope you will be, too!

Presumed Guilty

Presumed Guilty, a story of a man caught in a justice system and fighting to regain his freedom, will be shown as a part of Edmonton’s DocSoup festival, presented by Global Visions Film Festival and Hot Docs.

Under Mexican law, one is guilty until proven innocent. José Antonio Zuñiga of Mexico City was convicted of murder and sentenced to 20 years based on the testimony of a single eye witness. The film follows Zuñiga and his two lawyers as they undertake the seemingly impossible task of having the case re-tried.  “Through one man’s extraordinary two-year struggle to regain his freedom, Presumed Guilty documents the contradictions of a judicial system that presumes guilt.”

Presumed Guilty shows how [Zuñiga]’s strength and creativity help him through nearly three years of wrongful imprisonment. Courtroom scenes chillingly call to mind Kafka’s The Trial, so absurd is the mindless bureaucracy in the judicial process. Toño is retried by the same judge who condemned him. The prosecutor is concerned only with the previous case file and has no interest in new information. The police officers refuse to co-operate, insisting they do not remember Toño’s arrest. It is revealed that the only witness to implicate Toño had himself originally been accused of the crime, then learned of Toño through the police. Hernández and Negrete uncover a frustrating, labyrinthine legal system defended by mediocre civil servants and corrupt police officers. (TIFF)

Presumed Guilty will be screened on Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 7:00 pm at Metro Cinema, Zeidler Hall in the Citadel Theatre, 9828 – 101A Avenue.

DocSoup will be showing a new film on the first Thursday of every month. Join their facebook group to keep updated.

Tickets are $10 at the door.

Check it out tonight, right after hearing Lise Gotell speak on Police Warnings and Sexual Violence: The Mobilization of the Garneau Sisterhood.

Originally posted at Blogosaurus Lex.

UPDATE: Talk moved

Due to the overwhelming response, Lise Gotell’s talk, Police Warnings and Sexual Violence: The Mobilization of the Garneau Sisterhood, has been moved.

It is now being held in Room 128 (first floor) Education South, UofA campus.

The date and time remain: Thursday, January 7 at 5pm.

In the meantime, check out this article Bearing witness to the new wave of feminism.

See you there!

Police Warnings and Sexual Violence: The Mobilization of the Garneau Sisterhood

UPDATED: Please note the room change.

The always amazing Lise Gotell will be speaking on the Garneau Sisterhood this Thursday, January 7 at 5pm at Room 128 (first floor) Education South Building, Faculty of Education, University of Alberta.

From the facebook event page:

In 2008, a series of sexual assaults occurred in an Edmonton neighborhood bordering the University of Alberta. Edmonton police service did not release any information until three women living within a one-block radius were sexually assaulted by a man who broke into their homes in the middle of the night. After a fourth attack on an elderly woman in suburban middle class neighborhood, the police warnings intensified. All women “living alone” were advised to be vigilant, and “lock their doors and windows.” In response to these events, an anonymous group of neighborhood women calling themselves the Garneau Sisterhood mounted in a poster and media campaign. This campaign was marked by great irreverence and a Do-It-Yourself (DYI) style of activism that is characteristic of third wave feminism. It challenged and mocked the disciplinary and individualizing thrust of police warnings. In this talk, I explore the contemporary construction of sexual violence through technologies of risk management. In its creative and edgy challenge to risk management discourses the Garneau Sisterhood campaign stands as an example of the productive possibilities of contemporary grassroots antirape activism.

We love the GS for their kick ass campaigns which build solidarity and place blame where it belongs – on perpetrators. Be there, Thursday January 7 at 5pm to learn more about this awesome form of anti-rape activism.

Check out the GS on Adamant Eve!