Finding Your Way Home
March 16, 2023
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A career in policing for a Black woman leads to liberation—and a new business.
¤ Field Notes from the Feminist Economy
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¤ Field Notes from the Feminist Economy
¤ Field Notes from the Feminist Economy
A career in policing for a Black woman leads to liberation—and a new business.
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A career in policing for a Black woman leads to liberation—and a new business.
LiisBeth reports on and celebrates the work happening at the intersection of feminism + entrepreneurship + innovation. Our freedom dream envisions a care-centered, fair, inclusive, post 20th century capitalist economy. Our stories centre the enterprises, ideas, research and lived experiences lighting the way.
According to the recently released State of Women Entrepreneurs 2023, the gap between men and women are getting narrower.
Melanie Grad and Ruth Wylie bring empathy and flexibility to Perspective Squared through their approach to strategy, creative, and production.
The first Freelance Summit was held on Friday, February 3 in Toronto at Metropolitan University. Participants discussed the crippling erosion of freelance worker well-being in Canada–and if working together was part of the answer.
More than 745,000 people died in 2021 from overwork that resulted in stroke and heart disease, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Jenn Hazel has apps for that–and more.
Mentorship sounds great, but often misses the mark. Why?
A people-first and feminist-led business, Lucky Ones – a media production company – strives to move away from traditional patriarchal and hyper-capitalist structures and instead lead with care and transparency.
A protest novel that reveals political pitfalls and offers ideas for what a people-powered democracy could look like.
The Global Gender Gap Report 2021 ranks Canada in 24th place on gender equality and estimates 61.5 years until parity can be achieved.
These four Canadian dystopian sci-fi novels will inspire you and your activist priorities for 2023.
The new film by Sarah Polley featuring an all-women, all star cast exploring the in-depth debate that exists in the feminist movement in the context of women living in a Mennonite community in Bolivia. Women Talking opens Dec 16 in Canada and Dec 23 in the U.S.
A MILF (Mother I’d Like to Fuck) is a fetish-based term for a hot, horny older woman who is also a parent–and the fourth most searched for term in the US on PornHub.com, one of the biggest porn sites in the world. Can you embrace being a MILF as a feminist? Comedian and single mother Anne Marie Scheffler says hell yes.
Male inclusive gender equality groups are growing in number. Should feminism be worried?
The Lisa LaFlamme story unleashed a wave of feminist rage–and renewed concerns about media and its masters. If profit motives are the problem, what ‘s the solution?
Less than 10% of all indie media outlets in Canada are majority women led and/or owned.
Let’s change that.
Date/Time: Thursday, Feb 2nd, 12:00 PST (3:00 PM EDT)
Where: ONLINE
Cost: Free.
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drienne maree brown in conversation with dream hampton
celebrating adrienne maree brown’s new novel
Maroons: A Grievers Novel
Published by AK Press
A tale of survival, of moving beyond seemingly insurmountable devastation toward, if not hope itself, then the road to hope.
In the second installment of the Grievers trilogy, adrienne maree brown brings to bear her background as an activist rooted in Detroit. The pandemic of Syndrome H-8 continues to ravage the city of Detroit and everyone in Dune’s life. In Maroons, she must learn what community and connection mean in the lonely wake of a fatal virus. Emerging from grief to follow a subtle path of small pleasures through an abandoned urban landscape, she begins finding other unlikely survivors with little in common but the will to live. Together they begin to piece together the puzzle of their survival, and that of the city itself.
adrienne maree brown grows healing ideas in public through her multi-genre writing, her music and her podcasts. Informed by 25 years of movement facilitation, somatics, Octavia E Butler scholarship and her work as a doula, adrienne has nurtured Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, Radical Imagination and Transformative Justice as ideas and practices for transformation. She is the author/editor of seven published texts and the founder of the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute, where she is now the writer-in-residence. Her published work includes Fables and Spells Collected and New Short Fiction and Poetry, Octavia’s Brood, Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, and We Will Not Cancel Us. Maroons is her second novel. Her visionary fiction has appeared in The Funambulist, Harvard Design Review, and Dark Mountain.
dream hampton is a filmmaker, producer, and writer. Her work includes the 2019 Lifetime documentary series Surviving R. Kelly, which she executive produced, and the 2012 An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, on which she served as co-executive producer. She co-wrote Jay-Z’s 2011 memoir Decoded. Her writing has appeared in Vibe, Essence, Harper’s Bazaar, The Village Voice, Detroit News, The Source, and Spin.
Praise for the work of adrienne maree brown
“Brown’s sensational second contribution to AK Press’s Black Dawn series, which highlights works of radical speculative fiction, picks up where Grievers left off. The H-8 epidemic, which sends the infected into comas, has ravaged a near-future Detroit, leaving the city a ghost town. Still, series protagonist Dune remains, scavenging for supplies and seeking the possibility of human connection with other survivors even as an intense winter rages. On her wanderings, Dune crosses paths with remaining Detroiters who help her to redefine community and learn more about the virus. Grief, loneliness, connection, and a little bit of magic all work together to create a powerful metaphor for grassroots activism. Equally thrilling and thought-provoking, this will put readers in mind of speculative greats like Octavia Butler and Samuel R. Delaney.” —Publishers Weekly (★ starred review)
“Bestseller Brown (Pleasure Activism) makes her fiction debut with the powerful, emotional story of Dune, a young woman living in Detroit, Mich., in the midst of a bizarre epidemic … The first novel in AK Press’s new Black Dawn series, which will focus on speculative fiction that expresses the values of antiracism, feminism, anticolonialism, and anticapitalism, this hits the nail on the head with its deep, moving exploration of loss, family, community, gentrification, and rapidly changing urban landscapes. It’s a strong precedent that will leave readers eager for more.” —Publishers Weekly (★ starred review)
“In Maroons: A Grievers Novella, adrienne maree brown travels the question of Rootedness. Like the Maroon communities of Africatown in Mobile Alabama or the Saramacca Tribe in Suriname, redefining home is one that Africans in the new world all face. As the world crumbles all around, we find Dune wondering, ‘What does one do when everyone is gone and everything you love is abruptly taken away?’ adrienne reminds us in this breathtaking novella that ‘making home’ is all about what and who we choose to hold on to.” —Queen Mother Jessica Norwood, Founder of RUNWAY and Maroon Leader
“‘You can find us in the heart of the gentrified new old town, the corner of Cass and Selden, between one gate and another.’ adrienne maree brown took the time to really know our beloved, Black Detroit. She listened and she saw and that knowing and seeing unlocked worlds inside worlds. In all of her work adrienne stretches towards the matrix, the fractals and reflections, the ways our bodies and beings are in conversation with everything and everyone around us, all at once. The characters in Maroons have survived great grief and systemic failure. They carry forward ancestors and memory and magic. Dune and Dawud and all the Detroiters in Maroons are building connections and new worlds where ‘every single thing is both good and as it should be.'” —dream hampton, filmmaker and writer from Detroit
“If adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy and Pleasure Activism books had sci-fi novella niblings, they would be this Detroit trilogy. Maroons imaginatively superimposes Detroit’s political landscape and grassroots movement lessons onto an alternate timeline where pockets of the city are reclaimed as liberated autonomous zones. In Maroons, amb weaves a story world that reminds us that when we give ourselves space to grieve, we create more capacity to build power and connection across dimensions.” —Ill Weaver; lyricist, performance artist, activist
This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation. To learn more visit: https://citylights.com/foundation/
Dates: Feb 7, 21 & March 7
TIME: 4:30-6:00 CST.
WHERE: ONLINE
COST: $200 USD
Overview:
There’s so much to tell you! Here’s a snippet– and for all the details come to my post at https://bit.ly/FeministBusinessHistory
Feminists have created many successful businesses, businesses that were explicitly feminist.
Few people know that these businesses ever existed, and even fewer remember what they were about, what practices and strategies worked for them, and what led to their closures— or their longevity.
Without knowing feminist businesses’ history, we can’t learn from their mistakes. Worse, we can’t build on their achievements.
Starting in February 2023, we will reconnect with the legacy of feminist business, and draw from their experiences some shared principles and guidance for current and future feminist businesses.
Initial Schedule (to be revised with participants’ input):
Class Session #1, Tuesday, Feb 7, 4:30-6 pm ET: Welcome and Introductions. What’s a Feminist Business and what do we know about them?
Office hour: Friday Feb, 10, 11 am -12 pm ET
Tuesday, Feb 14: Contribute your Reflection #1
Class Session #2, Tuesday, Feb 21, 4:30-6 pm ET: Feminist Businesses’ customers, products, services, community connections
Office hour: Friday, Feb 24, 11 am -12 pm ET
Tuesday, Feb 28: Contribute your Reflection #2
Class Session #3, Tuesday, March 7, 4:30-6 pm ET: Getting stuff done: organizing themselves, understanding power, authority, and coordination, conflicts and feminist challenges
Office hour: Friday, March 10, 11 am -12 pm ET
Tuesday, March 14: Contribute Reflection #3
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Overview
In this class, we will collaborate to create a shared understanding of feminist business history, and to draw lessons and unanswered questions from the stories we gather. We will produce a file/living repository of resources on the businesses we consider. We will create a document that identifies feminist business practices and challenges from history, along with citations, that we can all use as a resource. We will decide together how to share this document with other feminist business folks.
At the end of this course, we will have created a cohort of feminist business advocates who can teach others about and continue to develop knowledge of our shared feminist business history. This cohorts’ knowledge will support feminist business coaches, mentors, and practitioners who want to build on rather than repeat the lessons of feminist business.
At the end of this course, you will be well-versed in the history of a particular feminist business or sector, able to explain this history to another interested feminist business person. You will have developed some wisdom from the experience of earlier feminists that you can use in designing your future business activities.
As a facilitator and active participant myself, I expect that our shared work will help me lock in what I’ve learned from my independent reading in feminist business history. Our work together will also help me examine and expand my definitions of feminist business and help me develop better criteria and tools for guiding feminist businesses.
This class will prototype a collaborative format that we can use as we build a learning program for feminist business practitioners, mentors, coaches, and teachers.
Mark your calendars for our in person return to International Women’s Day Toronto!
SATURDAY MARCH 4, 2023
OISE AUDITORIUM 252 Bloor St. W.
Rally starts at 11:00am
March starts at 1:00pm
Bring your placards, friends, kids, allies and join the celebration of women’s solidarity and change making so that all can flourish.
When: Thursday, March 8th
Time: 4:pm-9:00 PM
Where: Metro Hall, Toronto
COST: Free to $2o CAD
YOU ARE BEING CALLED IN!
Spectacular People of Toronto! You are invited to join us for an exclusive gathering, the 6th Annual Celebration of IWB #immigrantwomeninbusiness #iwd2023 #breakthebias
On International Women’s Day March 8th, IWB Calls for Strengthening Role of Women as Tool for Real Change in our Society.
Please join us to share your glorifying uplifting stories, empower and inspire Toronto immigrant ladies. This is the opportunity for you to network closely with some amazing business high-achievers, females thought-leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, activists. (All Genders are Welcome). Join to celebrate All Women – Great Leaders and great Mothers, those who lead with Massive Action and Compassion, Determination to Win coupled with Humble Giving Attitude, Mental Toughness and simple, continuous acts of Kindness.
Date: March 17
Time: 8:00-20:00 GMT (3:00 AM to 3:00 PM EDT)
There are four roundtables during this time period.
Where: ONLINE
Cost: Free
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You are invited to a day of Transhemispheric Dialogues, bringing scholars, artists, curators and activists together across four ‘long-clock’ roundtables, to explore the transformative potential of planetary feminisms for decolonial, ecological thinking and creative praxis in many and more-than-human worlds.
Planetary feminisms mobilize the deep interconnections between decoloniality, intersectionality and eco-criticality, to re-imagine the human and (re-)make a world of many worlds.
Planetary feminisms engage trans-scalar ecological thinking and creative praxis to challenge anthropo- and Eurocentric fictions of epistemic totality, storying pluriversal worlds and worlding pluriversal stories.
Planetary feminisms initiate experimental ecologies of knowing, imagining and inhabiting, Earthwide and Otherwise, moving beyond mutual survival, towards pluriversal and interdependent flourishing.
This event celebrates the publication of Transnational Feminisms and Art’s Transhemispheric Histories: Ecologies and Genealogies (Routledge: 2023), the second volume of the Trilogy Transnational Feminisms and the Arts by Marsha Meskimmon.
According to the recently released State of Women Entrepreneurs 2023, the gap between men and women are getting narrower.
Melanie Grad and Ruth Wylie bring empathy and flexibility to Perspective Squared through their approach to strategy, creative, and production.
The first Freelance Summit was held on Friday, February 3 in Toronto at Metropolitan University. Participants discussed the crippling erosion of freelance worker well-being in Canada–and if working together was part of the answer.
A career in policing for a Black woman leads to liberation—and a new business.
More than 745,000 people died in 2021 from overwork that resulted in stroke and heart disease, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Jenn Hazel has apps for that–and more.
Mentorship sounds great, but often misses the mark. Why?
The Global Gender Gap Report 2021 ranks Canada in 24th place on gender equality and estimates 61.5 years until parity can be achieved.
These four Canadian dystopian sci-fi novels will inspire you and your activist priorities for 2023.
The new film by Sarah Polley featuring an all-women, all star cast exploring the in-depth debate that exists in the feminist movement in the context of women living in a Mennonite community in Bolivia. Women Talking opens Dec 16 in Canada and Dec 23 in the U.S.
A MILF (Mother I’d Like to Fuck) is a fetish-based term for a hot, horny older woman who is also a parent–and the fourth most searched for term in the US on PornHub.com, one of the biggest porn sites in the world. Can you embrace being a MILF as a feminist? Comedian and single mother Anne Marie Scheffler says hell yes.
A people-first and feminist-led business, Lucky Ones – a media production company – strives to move away from traditional patriarchal and hyper-capitalist structures and instead lead with care and transparency.
FREE DOWNLOADABLE 8-PAGE ZINE Time to educate yourself on Canada’s abortion rights history, the current landscape of organizations working to maintain these rights, increase access and ideas about what YOU can do to ensure these rights are there for people who need them in the future.
Published monthly, our award winning newsletter offers views, analysis, news, tips, plus downloadable tools, recommended readings, shout-outs, and WOAH! Feminist freebies! Don’t miss out!
Highlight Reels For All Six Episodes from Season One/Two Now Available on Youtube.
Episode #1: Farzana Doctor/Seven
Episode #2: Catherine Bush/Blaze Island
Episode #3: Nora Loretto/Take Back the Fight
Episode #4: Leanne Betsamosake Simpson
Episode #5: Shaena Lambert/Petra
Episode #6: Jael Richardson/Gutter Child
Episode #7: Rivera Sun/Winds of Change
Episode #8: Rev. Dr. Cheri DiNovo/The Queer Evangelist
Join Lana Pesch again 2022 for another series of intimate conversations with feminist authors at The Feminist Enterprise Commons.
We are a non ad-based, open access, nonprofit indie media enterprise that funds its editorial work via reader and allied sponsor donations.
In 2021, we published over 50 original feature stories about social justice centered founders and their venture crafting work. We also published policy critiques, news and views from the intersectional feminist movement’s front lines, plus informative essays and “how to” articles.
Less than 10% of all indie media outlets in Canada are majority women led and/or owned.
Let’s change that.
Hear expert tips from senior female leaders on the different strategies to build your personal board of directors.
Moderated by Angie Vaux, Founder & CEO, Women in Tech forum
When: October 25, 2022, 11:00am-12:00pm EDT
Where: Online
Cost: £5.98 – £14.06
Convening entrepreneurs, artists, researchers and thinkers to explore the concept of a post-growth economy, share existing knowledge and together, create new knowledge and spark a shared vision of what a better business, economy and society looks like.
Nov 26, 12:00 p.m. EST
OCADU CO (Hybrid Event),
Online: Zoom
In Person: 130 Queens Quay E, Floor 4R, Toronto, ON M5A 0P6, Canada
LiisBeth Media is a women-led, trans-inclusive indie enterprise which is surveillance free, ad free and supported by reader donations. If you found this article of value, please consider a $25-$100 one time donation. We pay writers, editors and creators fair rates. Help us continue to amplify feminist voices and ideas in times when these voices are needed.
