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You’re invited to McClung’s magazine Spring 2013 launch party! Festivities will take place on Fri. May 3 starting around 6 p.m. at JOEY Eaton Centre.

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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Humanitarian Stephen Lewis has traveled to some of the most devastating regions of the world, listening to stories of injustice unimaginable to many in this country. For five years he served as the United Nation’s General Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS and has devoted his career to advocating for social justice.

It’s this dedication, he says, that puts him in the position to criticize the UN’s mishandling of women’s issues around the world, particularly the “starving” of UN Women.

“The hopes that rested in this organization were, in significant measure, dashed,” Lewis said during a lecture on gender inequality at Ryerson University April 17. “They simply haven’t been able to take on this initiative because they’ve been so under-funded.”

Gender Inequality: The Most Important Struggle on the Planet, hosted by the International Issues Discussion Series on April 17, was the last of in a series of similar lectures held this year.

Lewis said he is cautiously optimistic of the newly passed resolution on sexual violence. Last weekend, U.K.’s foreign minister William Hague, with the celebrity backing of Angelina Jolie, announced a plan for G8 nations to pour millions into combating systemic sexual violence against women in war-torn countries. Canada has pledged $5 million to the effort.

“Take this with a barrel of salt, the commitments made to women,” said Lewis, pointing out that this promise has been made at least twice before.

The current Distinguished  Professor at Ryerson questioned the efficacy of the UN in the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where militant groups have waged war on the nation’s women through systemic rape, despite hosting the largest contingent of peacekeepers anywhere in the world.

“The record is so deeply flawed,” said Lewis.

G8 resolutions always state a clear and specific focus on conflict countries, like Syria and Libya (“As if rape were not a world wide condition,” he said) despite the reality of sexual violence in South Africa, Zimbabwe and systemic abuses within the United States military – none of which are conflict countries.

This explicit focus on the developing world – while not unwarranted – ignores the subtler but no less egregious and pervasive injustices women in first world nations deal with every day. Lewis cited Steubenville, the cases of Rehtaeh Parsons and Amanda Todd, and the hundreds of missing Aboriginal women in Canada as proof of the uphill battle toward gender equality.

Part of the struggle is getting a substantial number of women alongside the body of men who make up the UN’s decision and policy-making panels and organizations. Lewis talked about three cases, including the International HIV/AIDS conference last July, where there is a glaring lack of women present in making the decisions that affect them most.

Women will continue to bare the burden of poverty, war, disease even the environment, Lewis said.

“Unless you give primacy to women, things won’t change.”

It’s what he calls the “arrogance” and hypocrisy of the UN, especially as powerful institutions like the Vatican has consistently had a voice in international affairs despite of its well-documented abuses and discrimination, including resisting the UN’s effort to reduce violence against women.

“I have a very wide emotional range, but it usually just goes from rage to rage,” said Lewis of his frustrations with the current state of women’s rights worldwide.

Lewis’s voice cracked at times as he retold the stories of the women he’d met. He also managed to make the audience laugh, however, adding some much needed brevity to a frustrating and disturbing discussion. He joked about his abandoned academic pursuits, his many, many honorary degrees and how he credits his wife, columnist Michele Landsberg, for his feminist education.

“In my 20’s I was absolutely [a] quintessential, socialist, sexist jock,” he said. “Had I not married Michele, it probably would have taken 40 years to grow out of that.”

But he hopes however long it takes his peers and the younger generations to “come to their senses” they will welcome the breadth of information available with open minds. Lewis speaks highly of non-government organizations like Human Rights Watch and the strength of institutions worldwide doing the work their governments can’t (or won’t) do. The strength of African women, especially, keeps him hopeful.

“I just can’t get over their ability to create grassroots, community-level organizations, and their decency, their generosity of spirit, their sophistication, their intelligence – I wish the world could understand how powerful it is,” he said.

It’s a significant statement – not just because of his acknowledged privilege as a white male activist – but also because Western and first-world feminism often makes the mistake of assuming agency for all women worldwide. Earlier this month, the Ukrainian feminist group Femen launched Topless Jihad Day in a stand against religious oppression. The move drew sharp condemnation from Muslim feminists for its paternalistic and ethnocentric presumptions.

For his part, Lewis urges the public to – at the very least – stay on top of international issues and find a cause about which they are passionate.

“Everyone has to care,” he said. “It doesn’t serve anyone to be defeatist.” M

Image courtesy of cascade_of_rant via Flikr.

The message of the video is clear: don’t rape.

Although only 26 seconds long, Samantha Stendal’s YouTube video A Needed Response has gone viral in just two weeks, with over 2 million views and lots of attention on social media sites like Tumblr and Twitter.

Stendal, a 19-year-old student film major at the University of Oregon, created the video along with three fellow students – all members of their school’s University Film Organization. After hearing mainstream news sites like CNN spout sympathy for convicted teen rapists during the Stuebenville rape trial, the four felt frustrated with the media.

“I wanted to put something positive out on the internet that pushed the conversation away from victim blaming and towards how we should be treating one another when in a vulnerable state,” says Stendal in an email.

The video is only one of many pieces of media that are now hitting the internet in the wake of the verdict of two young rapists from Steubenville, as well as the sympathy they received from mainstream media.

Trent Mays, 17, and Ma’lik Richmond, 16 – both big football stars in their small town – were convicted of raping an unconscious 16-year-old girl after a series of parties last August in Steubenville, Ohio and sentenced to at least one year at a juvenile detention centre. Some believe the sentencing should have been harsher.

People are also upset with the media’s response. Many large news corporations in America sympathized with the teens, mentioning again and again how their promising futures are now ruined. Issues are also being raised from the fact that the two teens didn’t think they were doing anything wrong.

Pictures and videos of the rape and the victim were posted on social media after the event. Many of these were taken by peers of the convicted, who looked on and, along with their friends, thought what was happening wasn’t wrong.

In her article called “Steubenville: this is rape culture’s Abu Ghraib moment” Laurie Penny, a columnist for the New Statesman, writes, “What makes these men so sure of their inviolable right to stick their fingers and cocks into any part of any female they can hold down that they actually make and distribute  images of each other doing so? Rape culture. That’s what rape culture is. The cultural acceptance of rape.”

This acceptance of rape culture, one commonly discussed and rejected on sites such as Tumblr, is what is driving people to use social media to speak out.

Posters, tweets and conversations are forming, all based around the idea that sexual assault is taken too lightly by society, and that the focus must shift from accepting rape as a part of life and blaming the victim for allowing themselves to get raped, to educating people about consent and how rape – in any form – is wrong.

Some include posters on Tumblr, from Sexual Assault Voices of Edmonton, promote consent by saying, “It’s not sex when she’s passed out” or “Just because she isn’t saying no, doesn’t mean she’s saying yes”.

Others are satirical tweets meant to mock  an old trending topic, #safetytipsforladies including :

The more skin you show, the more chance you have of getting raped. To ensure safety, please consider removing your skin.#safetytipsforladies—
Jade Cleaver (@jade_cleaver) April 14, 2013

Boys might mistake your talking to them for flirting, & then get provoked. Don't talk to boys. Send smoke signals only #safetytipsforladies—
Aleya Kassam (@aleyakassam) March 28, 2013

Most rapes happen inside or outside. Avoid these places #safetytipsforladies—
Sarahphina (@PhinaMcGregs) March 26, 2013

Michael Petit, a lecturer in new media at University of Toronto Scarborough and author of many books on pop culture, says social media’s ability to respond to injustice is what makes it so powerful.

“Social media is a force for the positive,” he says.

Norma Coates, an associate professor in Information and Media Studies at Western University, agrees that the ability for social media to provide perspectives different from the mainstream is a good thing.

“It’s nice that people can get on social media and say to the mainstream, ‘that’s wrong,’” says Coates.

But she also believes that social media is a “double-edged sword”.

After Fox News released (and later retracted) the name of the Steubenville victim, a Tumblr account went up using her name, created to embarrass, insult and blame the 16-year-old for being raped and for calling out her rapists. She and her family received death threats from multiple people and two teenaged girls, ages 15 and 16, were charged for threatening the victim through social media.

And sadly, there were tweets in support of the sex offenders:

Tweets went out supporting the two sex offenders.

Royal Mayo, a former president of the Steubenville chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, spoke out as well, saying in an interview by the International Business Times that the 16-year-old knew what was happening around her and is an “alleged victim”.

But even with so much conversation, social media may not be able to get rid of rape culture by itself.

“On its own, social media can’t fully accomplish what it wants to do,” says Petit.

“It shows how far we’ve yet to come,” agrees Coates. M

By Judi Zienchuk

Images courtesy of Surf Sister

The world of surf is a land full of sun, sand and waves – void of all worries. It’s a tight-knit community that spans several generations with young surfers (groms) beginning their careers before their seventh birthday and old-timers still catching waves at 93-years-young. It includes writers, photographers and film crews.

With all of this involvement, one area of the industry’s still lagging behind: the world of women surfers. Even in cities like Tofino, British Columbia, which has one of the highest numbers of female surfers per capita on the planet and is the birthplace of surf schools like Surf Sister that promote gender equality, surfing is still “very much a boy’s game.”

“When I first started out, they didn’t even make wetsuits and equipment for girls,” says Surf Sister’s owner, Krissy Montgomery. “I had to borrow hand-me downs from my guy friends.”

These differences care clear in one of surfing’s biggest international competitions: the ASP World Championship. It accepts 34 male surfers to compete in 10 events, but only takes 17 females to compete in seven. The prize money awarded for surfing event also varies significantly between genders. Men and women both compete in the Breaka Burleigh Pro event held in Burleigh Heads, Australia where they are surfing the same waves and being judged on the same criteria. Women, however, are competing for a prize of $40,000 while the men are competing for $95,000.

Striking variances like this are unfortunately common. Only 22 per cent of total industry prize money is awarded to female surfers. While $40,000 is nonetheless still a large sum of money, the average cost of equipment and training required to compete at a professional level is around $50,000. This means that even the top woman surfer in the world will not be able to support her surfing career on prize money alone.

Professional women surfers also have a tougher time finding companies to sponsor them.

“There’s always the issue of finding funding,” says Montgomery. “Companies open their pockets to guys, but are more stringent towards girls.”

This is if the girls can even get into the competition at all. When Tofino was selected to host Coldwater Canada in 2009, Montgomery and her fellow surfer girls were excited to show off their skills. This enthusiasm was short-lived, however, as she soon found out that, once again, the competition was going to be a boys-only event.

“We felt a little slighted that there wouldn’t be a female event,” says Montgomery. “It was just the history of competition in the area – it’s all about the guys.”

Unwilling to face defeat that easily, Montgomery and her team from Surf Sister, as well as members of the local community, banded together to create Queen of the Peak, an annual women’s surf contest in 2009.

“The community has really embraced [Queen of the Peak],” says Montgomery. “It’s a really inclusive event. We have competitions for surf grommets as young as five and six, as well as events for older women. We also have pre-qualifying events for guys, so we don’t exclude anyone. It has been pretty well received.”

Inclusivity is nothing new for the Surf Sister team, as although they mainly target female surfers, their enrolment for men versus women is split about 60/40.

“We’re not looking to exclude men,” Montgomery explains. “We just want to create an environment where men and women are equal in the water. I think people are just happy to see a female instructor because we have a difference approach to the sport. We keep it light, fun and don’t have the same degree of machismo many of the boys do.”

Despite all of the success within the community, Surf Sisters still struggles to get funding for Queen of the Peak. For most surf events, the majority of these sponsors come from surf brands like Quiksilver, Billabong, Rip Curl and O’Neill. For widely followed male events, finding sponsors usually isn’t a problem and the top surfers receive top funding. For female events (which tend to have smaller viewership), these brands look more towards girls’ appearances when choosing who to sponsor and which events to support.

Many girls find that the industry is trying to brand female surfing as a world full of bleach-blonde California girls. Surfer Magazine even featured “Most Photographed Surfer” over “Top Female Surfer” in their article on the Surfer Poll and Video Awards (one of the biggest surf awards nights).

This issue is less prominent in Canada because of the colder weather. Simply put, wetsuits (which are required in water temperatures that range between three to 15 degrees in Tofino) just aren’t sexy. While this has saved a lot of Canadian girls from being pushed to the stereotypical image, the “rugged Canadian girl” image Montgomery finds most of the surfers embody attract a far smaller market, meaning funding is lower, and companies are few and far between.

With all of the work Montgomery puts into Surf Sister and Queen of the peak, day-to-day life can get a bit crazy. She brushes this off as just part of the surfer lifestyle, however.

“Canadian girls are just a rugged bunch. We don’t care that putting on a wet suit is kind of ugly, its just who we are,” she says, noting the on-site coffee bar at the school as been a bit of a lifesaver.

The world of female surfing is still far from perfect, but with surfer girls like Montgomery working to make the industry a more accepting place and encouraging girls to get out onto the waves, men and women will hopefully one day be able to surf the waters on an equal level. M

WATCH: The trailer for the new Tomb Raider video game.

Photo via Britta B.

It’s the intermission of this Monday’s R.I.S.E. Poetry show. It’s the break between singers and poets. The audience is let loose to mingle and catch up with friends to the beat of 90s hip-hop playing in the background. Instead of singing and whistling along, like she did in the first half, Britta “Britta B.” Badour is scanning her yellow Moleskin notebook. She walks around, settles into a corner, hidden by filing cabinets, and hunches over her notebook. Then she turns around again, skips forward slightly and then straightens her arms to stretch her book out at eye level. Badour, better known as Britta B., runs a hand through her mass of curls and reads something to herself. Then she takes a pen and scribbles something … but what? Earlier, she said she was down to her last little page in this book, already graffitied with sideways writing, crossed out chicken-scratch and scribbled drawings. Even that page had makeshift margins between other scratched out words.

Soon Randell Adjei, the host for the night, and one of Britta B.’s mentors, ushers everyone to their seats. He calls out the next impromptu act—Britta B. Earlier, a friend, Michael Flamank, asked Britta B. if she was performing. She shook her head and popped open the lid of her pasta, “I didn’t sign up.”

“Aw, So?” Flamank prompted. He had an act coming up soon. She flipped her legs up in her seat to sit cross legged. “Well I have nothing prepared; I’m not really feeling it.”

Now an hour later, she climbs the steps to the stage to hoots and calls of her names from the audience. “Alright, so this is my freestyle. Randell inspired me to try something new. You guys get the first performance of this ever. You ready?” Inspired by the snowstorm bellowing outside and put together from fragmented poems-in-progress, came a poem about change which met a roomful of cheers and applause. The most enthusiastic audience member of the entire night was silent. Of course she stayed silent; it would be inappropriate for the performer to cheer for herself. She just smiled at the audience and her fellow performers.

Earlier, Flamank said to Britta B., “I went over the footage of the January show and you could hear your laugh throughout the whole thing! It was so distinguishable!”

Tonight again, her voice stood out on its own wavelength. Each performer’s call got a Britta B. response.

“Can I get a rise? No, no, that was a little weak, can I get another rise?!”

To which Britta B. roared, “Rise!” then dropped her voice an octave, smiled and said to the man on stage, “You just gotta ask; you gotta ask strongly.” She snapped her fingers, joked with the performers, sang with the chorus when someone preformed John Legend’s Ordinary People. She did anything to engage, to put them at ease on stage. For the last performance, singer Dakarai asked the crowd to get to their feet. David Delisca threw his hands in the air and creeped around floor on beat. Britta B. tied up her hair in a lopsided ponytail and joined him. “I love David he brings out the nerd in me!” Flamank jumped up and joined them too. “You feel it?” she asked Flamank. “It’s because you’re trying something new!” She threw her head back and bellowed, “It’s the best feeling!”

These Monday night performances are for those who want to be inspired and develop their craft. The space is free of judgement. Britta B. is an ambassador for the program.

This was her first Monday back at R.I.S.E. since returning from Minneapolis, where she represented Toronto for the annual Women of the World Poetry Slam (WOWPS). It’s an individual competition for self-identified women worldwide.

 For the past three years Britta B. has auditioned at the Toronto qualifiers, each time coming in second or third.

“The first time I didn’t even know I was going to audition. It was literally half hour before and I was printing poems at my office.”

Last year it was Britta B.’s coach from the Toronto Poetry Slam team, Alessandra Naccarato who placed first and moved on to WOWPS.

This year, it was her turn.

“More women should be in spoken word. We unite; it’s energy; it’s power shared.”

Britta B. placed 27th out of 72 poets from around the world. But she was more focused on her awe-inspiring peers and the experience overall.

“Women, we run the world. We are the energy that is chaotic and moving. Men tend to have a ‘do or die’ lifestyle. We’re up and down, we are moving. It’s a feeling I don’t think I could have understood sitting in a room full of men.”

Dominique Christina Ashaheed, last year’s WOWPS winner, who placed second this year, particularly moved her. “I’ve been inspired, empowered, in awe, but she shut me up. I was crying as she spoke. Afterwards I asked her to be my mentor. Hearing her is one of the most memorable experiences I’ve had as a poet.” Going over the time limit was the reason Ashaheed lost; by just 0.1 points. This year’s WOWPS winner was Denice Frohman “I think [Ashaheed] should have won.”

Then, Britta B. offered some food for thought. “What women need to do is constantly re-evaluate and see if they’re getting the love they deserve. That’s the biggest women’s issue. With the world we’re in we have to be twice the women as any woman in our lives.”

For Britta B., writing became her release during high school, and altered her outlook, which was darkened by her home life. Her pupils contracted when she mentioned the neglect and domestic violence she experienced when she was younger. “Hey ma!” she calls out in one of her favourite poems about her mother. “You must be the only one who knows how much I love the moon. We’ve seen so much darkness together.” But in an instant, her eyes brightened again. “Writing made me realize the power in my words, and then the power in my actions. I developed more awareness, like what kind of person am I if I walk through a door, but don’t gaze back to see if I could hold it for someone else. It seems like I’m saying, ‘Woo, these are my issues now let’s change the world!’ but poetry really provoked my consciousness.” It wasn’t until her third year at Laurier University that a professor had her perform for the first time, and she continued from there.

Since then, Britta B. has made a career out of her poetry and positivity. She’s performed across Canada, including at When Sisters Speak, a showcase for North America’s best Black female spoken word artists. Apart from poetry, she’s a motivational speaker and youth mentor. Two years ago she finished working with Free the Children, organizing workshops and being a key note speaker for youth. She inspires kids, but they inspire her. “I’ll be in a funk, then I see their faces and I say ‘oh yeah, right’,” looking dumbfounded with her eyes widening and her jaw hanging open, “that’s why I’m here.”

“I can give my time and a workshop to them at a time they really need it. I get to create a part of their journey. I needed a ‘me’ when I was growing up!”

One thing Britta B. wishes she could change about herself is to be more balanced. “Right now I feel really good, but if you asked me three days ago I would have said ‘everything,’” dramatic voice drop and all. “I find I go through a lot of crests and troughs, so I guess I could use a bit more balance.”

Britta B. is an artist in every sense of the word. “If I couldn’t write? I’d be crying. I actually wouldn’t be able to breathe.” She laid her hands protectively over the yellow binding of her book, like a mother protecting her child. Like an artist, protecting her craft.

Suspended 30 feet in the air, Miho Inaba looks down at the ground below her. Back arched, feet pointed, she is held by nothing but the black ribbons that envelope her.

“When I perform, I get this crazy feeling of happiness. You’re just up there and your mind goes blank. It’s such a thrill, such a rush,” she explains later. “This crazy energy comes out of you and you have no idea where it comes from—but it’s something.”

With strength, she twists her body into the next position. She lightly strokes the air with her fingers. Pressing her lips together, she lets go of the ribbons and spirals downwards like a spool unwinding from its thread. At the moment her audience would gasp, she is caught in midair by the ribbons only a few feet above the floor. The soft music in the background fades away and she steps down from the silk ribbons.

She smiles.

“After you perform, you’re just so at peace with yourself, it’s insane.”

Inaba, 19, trains daily – 30 hours a week – often using the studios available at the National Circus School in Montreal through a program offered by Tohu Inc. that allows circus artists to train on their own.

In the fourth-floor studio, she practices a self-choreographed aerial silks routine. Here, a massive window looks onto the Northwest side of Montreal, as well as the Cirque du Soleil’s international headquarters.

Four days earlier, in this exact studio, she auditioned for the National Circus School in Montreal. In the circus world, getting accepted here means the same as it would for a law student getting into Harvard. For the young Inaba, it would be the first real step towards becoming a professional circus performer and leaving her old life behind.

A year ago, she would have been sitting in the drafting studio of Canada’s most prestigious architecture school, the University of Waterloo. While this may have been ideal for some students, for her, the seemingly infinite hours she spent sitting at a desk left her feeling empty.

“I was really depressed,” she recalls. “I had that awful feeling in my stomach that it was not where I was supposed to be and that I needed to do circus.”

She struggled to find time for her love amidst her hectic school schedule. She’d make the hour and a half commute to Toronto on weekends for her aerial silks and trapeze classes. But doing so meant sacrificing the one thing her body gravely needed: sleep.

“On the highway, I would be falling asleep. I can think of so many times when I almost got into accidents,” she says, shaking her head. “That’s when I realized that one day, I’m not going to be good. So I have to stop.”

Her decision to leave architecture school did not come easy. She struggled with both her family’s traditional views on education, as well as her own insecurities. When she told her mom and sister about her decision to quit school, their initial reactions were harsh and hurtful.

“It was never an option to become an artist. It was always academics first and then what you do on the side, you do it on the side,” she says. “Logically, it was the priority, but in my heart it wasn’t.”

While her sister still disapproves, her mother’s opinion has shifted towards excitement and support. Inaba believes her struggles remind her mother of what it’s like to be at a crossroads in life. After getting divorced at a young age, she moved from Japan to Canada to raise her two daughters and never got the chance to pursue her passion in medicine.

“Somewhere there, she kind of understands,” Inaba says.

Her final decision came with the help of courage, overcoming insecurities, and the words of encouragement from her peers and mentors. Shortly after declining a job opportunity to work for an architecture firm in France, she set off to Montreal, the international capital for circus arts.

That was one decision she’ll never regret. M