Content Warning: Gender-based violence, misogyny, suicide On Oct. 16, Elnaz Rekabi, a 33-year-old Iranian rock climber, competed at the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) Asian Championship in Seoul. Rekabi—who, just last year, became the first Iranian woman to win a medal at the IFSC World Championship—competed without a hijab,[Read More…]
Tag: feminism
Say her name—Jina Amini
Iran is experiencing its second week of protests following the murder of Jina (Mahsa) Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman tortured and killed in Tehran by ‘morality’ police forces for improperly wearing a hijab. Since Jina’s death, dozens of protesters have been killed, thousands more have been arrested, and the government[Read More…]
To strip or not to strip: The power of political nudity
Content warning: Mentions of sexual violence Activism is an artform. Inspiring and resonating with enough people to make a difference often demands human connection through loud and creative means. Like spoken or written words, nudity carries endless potential for representing a cause, both within and beyond the feminist domain with[Read More…]
Max Liboiron leads webinar on anti-colonial technology within universities
On Jan. 20, Max Liboiron led a webinar on “Building feminist and anticolonial technologies in compromised spaces” as a part of the fourth season of the Feminist and Accessible Publishing and Communications Technologies Speaker and Workshop Series. Co-sponsored by Alex Ketchum, a faculty lecturer at the McGill Institute for Gender,[Read More…]
From feminism to feminisms
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve brainstormed the perfect slogan to scribble on my cardboard sign right before a protest. Almost always, I end up settling on something I deem to be just so-so. The same thing happened in January 2017, a day after Donald Trump’s inauguration,[Read More…]
Famed feminist scholar delivers lecture to McGill students
Over 600 people gathered in the 6th floor auditorium at the McIntyre Medical Building on Oct. 4 to attend “Complaint as a Queer Method: Dismantling Institutions” featuring Sara Ahmed as a keynote speaker. Ahmed is a world renowned feminist scholar who has authored books in feminist, racial, and queer studies.[Read More…]
Let Muslim women wear whatever they want
Newly-elected Premier and leader of the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) François Legault recently shuffled his cabinet, naming Isabelle Charest the new Minister responsible for the Status of Women. Charest sparked controversy in early February for insisting that the “hijab is a symbol of female oppression.” When criticized for her comments,[Read More…]
“But, you don’t seem autistic!”
Last October, my best friend, who has autism, told me that he thought I might be on the spectrum. I was skeptical: I’m not into trains, I take turns in a conversation, and I’m good at giving relationship advice; I’m not autistic. Still, his comment prompted me to do some[Read More…]
Women in STEM and men in the arts: Gender roles in academia
The regrettable lack of women studying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in post-secondary education is well-documented. Efforts to minimize this gender imbalance are widespread, and include initiatives such as Girls Who Code and a UNESCO publication investigating its root causes. However, similarly concerning, yet often overlooked, are rising gender[Read More…]
Abortion Beyond Bounds conference combines academia and activism
On the 30th anniversary of the decriminalization of abortion in Canada, the McGill Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies (IGSF) organized a two-day bilingual conference, Abortion Beyond Bounds 2018, to discuss the continuously-changing global landscape of access to abortion. The conference, which featured a series of student and expert[Read More…]
