Author: LiisBeth

LIISBETH DISPATCH #48

“Comfort & Joy” photo by: Jack Jackson

VIEWPOINT

Pinch me, I must be dreaming.

That’s how I felt standing next to Gloria Steinem in Toronto last week. Steinem is now eighty-four years old and still wearing boots with five-inch heels.

The woman is beyond inspiration.

A powerful voice for feminism, as well as a professional and personal governance role model extraordinaire, Steinem makes no apologies about her views on patriarchy as a persistent rapacious force of devastation for both half the planet and the environment. She is genuine when she says she wants to (still) change the ridiculous situation in the US.

And at a time of year that can be a bowl of mixed nuts for many, it was grounding to hear the words from a woman who never gave up on the movement or the fight. She’s been ridiculed, criticized, heckled, and slammed for her ideas of equality and fairness. But she kept going, continually unearthing, learning, leveraging her incredible humanity, creativity, and wicked wit to advance gender equality.

During the panel session which followed her keynote, Steinem was asked if she believed that a gender just world would be possible by 2030. Seven hundred of us attending the “Courage of A Movement” event waited in suspense.

After a few moments, she replied “I’m a hopeaholic. Yes, we do need to be realistic. But I do think hope is kind of planning. I have to say that part of the good thing about being old and I am very old, is that we remember when it was worse. We can all see how bonkers [patriarchy] is and that’s why we need to work together-the young and the old.

We each have something to bring. So I’ll bring hope. You bring anger. And there’s no stopping us.”

Wow. With that, I left feeling joyous and full of ambition for 2019.

Read the full VIEWPOINT here.

THIS WEEK ON LIISBETH

The Entrepreneurial Feminist Forum 2018 snapshot review by Jack Jackson.
Music credit: This Changing Life by Joan Armatrading

What the EFF? Wow. The 2018 Entrepreneurial Feminist Forum was a jam-packed two days of provocative talks, lab sessions, “think and do” workshops, movement classes, and creative writing practice. Overall theme? CONNECT + TAKE ACTION. We’ll have a full report next year but for now, check out these SIX action items from the forum here.

Shecosystem coworking and wellness space, Toronto, Canada

If you’re working at an organization that is closing, the story of Shecosystem shutting their doors might give you renewed hope and a different perspective. As we usher in a new year, perhaps identifying what needs to end, change, or be “shecomposted” in your business (or life!) is worth a closer look. Read Sue Nador’s piece on how shecomposting is fertilizing new ground here.

It’s Campaign Season! If you think our advocacy for women and gender-non conforming entrepreneurs is worthy, or you find our content of value professionally, we hope you will consider contributing to our 2018 Patreon Fund Raising Campaign. Each online magazine refresh and newsletter takes a community to create and disseminate. We have 2000+ subscribers, but less than 30% contribute financially. We are open access and rely 100% on reader donations. Our impact is measurable. So if social justice and economic transformation are on your intentions and gratitude list this year, here’s your chance to donate to LiisBeth.

LIISBETH FIELD NOTES

Carol Anne Hilton speaks at the EFF 2018 on Indigenomics

When Giants Break Free-A New Reality for Indigenous Relations in Canada

On Dec 5th, EFF speaker Carol Anne Hilton’s report on the indigenous economy in Canada and its potential to reach $100B by 2023 was released. The report says that if achieved, “total Aboriginal income would be greater than the level of nominal GDP of Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island combined.” Hilton is the founder of the Indigenomics Institute, an economic advisory group launched in 2018 that works with public governments, Indigenous communities, and the private sector to overcome economic barriers imposed on Indigenous communities. You can read the full report here.

Photo credit: www.isachandra.com

Vegan Egg Nog?

Isa Chandra Moskowitz is the best-selling author of Isa Does It and Veganomicon, and her restaurant Modern Love has locations in Omaha and Brooklyn. Her recipes are equals parts humour and delight. Cheers to Isa’s Matrioshka Eggnog recipe for a creative twist on a holiday favourite!

Huge kudos to Christina Zeidler, Chief Alchemist and founder of Toronto’s hottest art hotel, the Gladstone Hotel, and their entire staff for developing and implementing a feminist business framework that guides business decision making and operational practice. Zeilder and her colleague, Chris Mitchell presented their framework and the journey undertaken to get there at the recent Entrepreneurial Feminist Forum. You can read more about feminist business practice at the Gladstone here. Better yet–just go and stay there! You will feel the difference.

Food Starter entrepreneur Eden and founder of Coco and Al promoting her Keto friendly baked goods at Food Starter’s booth at the St. Lawrence Farmer’s Market

One-Eyed Innovation Mindset At Work

On Dec 11th, Ontario’s only food processing startup incubator, Food Starter, announced the need to close its doors by January 31^st, 2019, leaving 160 self-employed food entrepreneurs and growth stage companies without accessibly to well-priced food processing resources and a place to make their products. Over 65% of Food Starter’s clients were women and 80% were people of colour and/or newcomers. Programming which supported their market feasibility assessments and commercialization will also cease.

Meanwhile, just a few miles away, McMaster University announced another $1M in federal funding to expand its tech incubator. Down south, the city of Chicago proudly announced the opening of a new, 67,000 square foot, $34M food and beverage incubator known as “The Hatchery” — with shared kitchens, storage, and office space for roughly 100 startups.

Let’s be clear. Food Starter had sustainability issues from its inception—and not all of them were related to funding. They were however, not intractable. A longer runway would have gone a long way to provide the time needed to sort them out.

The enterprise needed just $500K per year to continue to advance food entrepreneurship in Toronto and beyond. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of money poured into tech incubation–and conferences like Elevate in Toronto –and across the country every year.

You can’t eat a computer. Just sayin’.

Photo by Elliott Stallion on Unsplash

NEW! LIISBETH STORY VOTE

HEY! HAVE YOUR SAY!

We receive MANY queries and asked you last month to choose your favourite from our top 3 but…only got ONE vote 🙁

So let’s give it another try!

Below are the top 3 story ideas we’ve received recently: VOTE HERE for your TOP PICK.
OR tell us what you want to read in LiisBeth 2.019!

1. The Duality of Entrepreneurial “Struggle Porn” and Unseen Women’s Labor from a business owner in the gaming industry
2. Portrait of Swedish Feminist Party leader Gudrun Shyman
3. Women are the backbone of Africa’s labor force but lack of opportunities to advance. Why a conducive environment for African women to thrive makes sense.

FEMINIST FREEBIES

LAST CALL! 2 x SIGNED COPIES of Gender Physics by Betty-Ann Heggie. Share our Patreon page on the social media platform of your choice and email us your mailing address here and you got yourself a sweet holiday read.

WHAT WE’RE READING

Essential for everyone who feels overwhelmed and anxious about our hyper-connected world—whether you’re a corporate lawyer, a student, a sales person, or a yoga instructor—How to Not Always Be Working includes practical suggestions and thoughtful musings that prompt you to honestly examine your behavior—how you burn yourself out and why you’re doing it. A creative manifesto for living better, it shows you how to carve sacred space in your life. This book is a quiet revolution, a guide filled with practical advice to help you curb your obsessions and build boundaries between your work, your job, and your life. – Indiebound.org
Marlee Grace lives on the rural coast of California. She works with improvisation as a method for navigating being alive and making work through movement, quilting, writing, and podcasting.

By effortlessly telling this short, intense tale in the voice of an unnamed, ungendered (and brilliantly unreliable) narrator, Dionne Brand makes a bold statement not only about love and personhood, but about race and gender–and what can and cannot be articulated in prose when the forces that inhabit the space between words are greater than words themselves. – Penguin Random House Canada

“Theory is a book for those who are intrigued by how a brilliant thinker approaches lost love, unmet potential and unreliable narration. But if none of that appeals to you, Brand’s gorgeous prose and sly humour will definitely win you over. ” – Sadiya Ansari, The Star

AND FINALLY . . . IN CASE YOU MISSED IT!

New $9M Women’s Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub Announced! And the Hub grant was given to Ryerson University. What do people think? Read all about it here.
Women human rights defenders are under threat worldwide and Amnesty International has chosen to focus all of this year’s Write for Rights cases on courageous women peacefully advocating for human rights. December 10th was International Human Rights Day but the Writeathon.ca continues. Take action here
On the lighter side, looking for something different to make for dessert this holiday season? Check out this amazing sweet potato pie recipe by Eden Hagos, founder of Black Foodie. Brown sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, sweet potatoes…mmmmm.
Jennifer Armbrust, founder of Sister and an L.A. based feminist business school and a coach for embodied business practice has launched a new book called Proposals for the Feminine Economy! Check out her website and the book which offers 100 pages of proposals, principles and photos here.
Baby, It’s Cold Outside Controversy–Innocent Traditional Song? Or Precursor to Date Rape? “I think the song has always been creepy, but we didn’t have the words to explain why,” said Lydia Liza, 24, a singer-songwriter. Check out this New York Times article and let us know what you think by tweeting us @LiisBethHQ

That brings us to the end of our December newsletter, the last of 2018! It’s time for the LiisBeth team –and you–to take a break, allow time for self care and reflect on where to take this work in 2019.

To date, we have published 49 newsletters and 168 original feminist business practice stories along with advocacy pieces to help shine a light on this growing community. We have mounted two Entrepreneurial Feminist Forums with our partner, Feminists At Work, and have loved every minute of serving this community and others, working to advance gender and social justice.

As our holiday offering this year, the LiisBeth editorial team (Lana, Margaret and I) donated $200 to help advance the mission of Match International-an international women’s fund working at the intersection of women’s rights and innovation.

Thank you all for your support, volunteer time, feedback, participation, and encouragement. We could not continue to do this work with out you and your readership.

Have a great holiday season, no matter what you celebrate.

We will be back mid-January–with pens and hearts a blazin’–and a lot of good news for 2019!

Namaste, Cheers, and Peace,

Tags Gloria Steinem, Indigenomics, Indigenous women entrepreneurs, isa chandra moskowitz, Shecosystem

Sample Newsletter

LIISBETH DISPATCH #47

Photo By Thais Ramos Varela

VIEWPOINT

Creating a Feminist City: We Rise By Lifting Others

The other day, I came across an article written by the incredible Mayor of Madrid, Manuela Carmena Castrillo (elected in 2015) in which she wrote about Madrid’s commitment to “to promoting gender equality and fighting the continued discrimination which women face daily.” Then I did a little more research.

I was blown away.

In the article, Mayor Castrillo lists the plethora of innovative initiatives and programs that the Madrid City Council have underway to advance gender equity including “Spaces of Equality” which among other things work to legitimize women’s knowledge and provide them with a safe space to question gender roles defined by patriarchal society, and offering funded, extra curricular programming to “raise awareness and mobilize the population around issues of equality by disseminating the great contributions brought by feminism and implications around the concept of gender.” Not one to mince words, Castrillo goes on to say “Our society needs a breakthrough and profound transformation in this regard. The structural inequality between women and men takes many forms …[including] the alarming rise in macho attitudes among the younger generation. These forms of inequality require a determined and firm response from all of us.”

Let’s pause for a moment. Can you imagine the Mayor of your city even mentioning the word patriarchy at a Board of Trade luncheon or economic club? Or launching a new program to educate citizens about the contributions of its-heretofore mostly maligned feminist community? I can’t. I live in Toronto.

Introducing the Feminist City
There is a strong business case behind the idea that a Feminist City would produce incredible economic development opportunities – so why aren’t all city mayors rushing to become one?

And what if we could rank cities according to how desirable they were for women to live, work and play? What if this equated with sustainable economic growth for all?

If we could pinpoint and, hence, strengthen factors that would attract women and in particular, women entrepreneurs and investors, to move to a city, what might those factors be? Safety in all areas of a city, during day and night? A thriving diverse women-led entrepreneurship ecosystem. A feminist enterprise district? A thriving and well connected feminist community? A self-identified feminist Mayor?.

Sound attractive? We could call this The Feminist City.

Imagine the sign on the highway as you cross into city limits: Welcome to The Feminist City: We Rise by Lifting Others. Please Take Our Values Home.

Read more about the feminist city idea in the full VIEWPOINT essay here,

THIS WEEK ON LIISBETH

100% woman owned and queer feminist lead, The Gladstone Hotel is located in Toronto, Canada

“New ideas must use old buildings.” – Jane Jacobs

Artist, activist, and entrepreneurial feminist Christina Zeidler runs the Gladstone Hotel, Canada’s first B-Corp hotel. Lana Pesch visits the Inn With Agency that operates under an anti-oppressive feminist framework. Zeidler and her team are challenging the status-quo…one magic pony at a time. Read the feature story here.

Rivera Sun, author of The Dandelion Insurrection and workshop facilitator at the 2018 Entrepreneurial Feminist Forum

Solutionary Ideas From a Love-Based Revolutionary

Rivera Sun, author of the Dandelion Insurrection Trilogy, says she has fantasized about running away to Canada. Sun grew up on an organic farm in Northern Maine, but now lives in New Mexico–even further away!

Though oh-so-close at one time, Sun has never had the opportunity to check out our native land first hand. Until now. Sun arrives in Toronto on December 2nd by invitation to facilitate a workshop at the Entrepreneurial Feminist Forum on how entrepreneurs and business leaders can leverage non-violent activism to drive systems change.

In this interview Sun says, “Change doesn’t just happen through protest. It doesn’t just happen – for regular people anyway – through calling politicians or senators. And it doesn’t usually just happen through buying the right goods as individuals. It happens when we organize. It happens when we look at the whole system, identify what’s holding us back, and starts when we begin working with others — and connecting our enterprises and organizations in ways that leverage each other’s strengths to drive the desired change.”

Check out more Rivera’s thoughts on enterprise-based activism on LiisBeth this month by clicking here.

Lana Pesch, LiisBeth Newsletter and Associate Editor, at the Made by Feminists GH Marketplace in the Gladstone Hotel Ballroom

FEMINIST FREEBIE!
HOLIDAY GIFT FOR THE FEMINIST ENTREPRENEUR WHO HAS EVERYTHING!

Win the t-shirt that speaks for itself by being the first 2 people to TAKE OUR SURVEY TODAY and drop us a note here when you’re finished. We’re on the home stretch but we still need a few more responses before we can publish results.

We sold a few of these at the FAC markets at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto last month and the first feminist entrepreneurship t-shirt is available for $32 here. Use the LiisBeth reader discount code LIISBETH10 for a 10% discount!

LiisBeth is not in the t-shirt business, which is why we partnered with Jamie “Boots” Marshall so you can #buywomenled. Marshall owns and runs Boots Tees, an online shop for her t-shirts, art, and other fun stuff. Her hobbies include: reading, board games, and fighting the patriarchy.

LET’S GO TO THE EFFs!
CAUTION: FORUM MAY ADVANCE SOCIAL JUSTICE AND GENDER EQUALITY

The 2018 Entrepreneurial Feminist Forum in Toronto less than A WEEK away!

NEW ADDITION! Lunchtime writing sessions led by Sarah Selecky, author and creator of Sarah Selecky Writing School.
Sarah believes good writing needs heart, consciousness, skill, and presence

What else? Three thought provoking foundational talks, three deep dive lab sessions, six 90 minute “think and do” workshops, two embodied movement classes, journaling and creative writing break rooms, a poster session, reception and more!
Full speaker bios and session details here

Tix are still available!
$299 for ALL sessions // $99 for Students — For TWO WHOLE DAYS!
Get your tickets here

ONE DAY PASSES ALSO AVAILABLE for December 2nd or 3rd

Read about our official transportation partner, child care support + local dog walking services below!

SEE YOU THERE!

Kids, Dogs, and Automobiles

Can’t get a sitter? Pooch need a pee? The 2018 EFFs has all your dog walking, childcare and local transport covered!

Jack Jackson of DoggyDatesToronto is available to provide dog walking services while you’re attending a session and ticket holders’ little ones can be left with Helm, Toronto’s leading babysitting app. Download the Helm app HERE.

Our official transportation partner, DriveHer is the new alternative & safe ride-sharing service dedicated to women by women. Uber for women but without all the deliquency. DriveHer’s priority is to help you arrive safely, comfortably and in style. Click HERE to download the ride sharing app.

LIISBETH FIELD NOTES

Turning the Grey Tsunami into the Silver Economy

If you’ve got an hour to spare, the video above is 60 minutes worth of wisdom, advice, and inspiration from Helen Hirsh Spence and others about finding purpose post retirement.

She was a disruptor in the 60s and 70s and now she is disrupting in her 60s and 70s. The 69 year-old started Top Sixty Over Sixty when she discovered seniors’ superpower: invisibility. Unless you’re wearing Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility, feeling unseen can erode a person’s confidence and be damaging. Spence wanted to create something that would undo that damage. Top Sixty Over Sixty is a platform to celebrate, educate and amplify the positive impact of older Canadians. “We should be maximizing and growing the potential of older people and seeing them as an asset as opposed a detriment,” says Spence. “It’s about a change of mindset.” And entrepreneurial opportunities for Boomers abound in areas like housing and transportation, health and well-being, education and learning, fashion and design.

The site houses articles like Best Before Dates are for Products Not People, dispelling commonly held myths about ageing, entrepreneurship and generational differences, like:

older people are less reliable in the workforce
you can’t train older people
older people are taking jobs away from young people

Spence developed the ReSet program which is a series of modules that focuses on reducing ageism, helping older adults redesign their future and also increase their entrepreneurial mindset to facilitate better multigenerational teams. “In a youth obsessed culture very often we’re looking at the frailty or older people, not their energy.” The program was supported by Ontario Centre of Workforce Innovation and Ryerson University. Out of 48 participants, 44 were women, and people like Vicki Jasperse (also in the video up top), jewelry artisan/entrepreneur, gained validation from the course to understand that she was on the right track.

Spence is in the process of evaluating next steps and is following her own consult: “Contrary to what you think…there’s nothing that stands in your way other than your own mindset.”

Good advice at any age.

Francesca Da Costa

Welcome Francesca Da Costa!

LiisBeth’s new Advisory Board Member is Director Of Philanthropy at The MATCH International Women’s Fund. She is a fundraiser, diplomat, community advocate, entrepreneur, volunteer, foster parent, and foundation builder. Francesca believes we all have the power—and responsibility—to make our communities a better place for all. As a former intelligence and security officer for Global Affairs Canada, she has lived in and traveled to over a dozen countries. It is these experiences that have formed the foundation of her career and a desire to “do more” and we are thrilled to have her join the team.

We are still looking for two additional directors to join and diversify our board. If you, or someone you know is interested in advancing entrepreneurial feminism, we would love to hear from you! Drop us a email here outlining your interest.

From the UK’s The Pool, a 7 minute video from author and brand communications maven Mary Portas about five ways to improve your working life and your sense of yourself. The tips are taken from her new book Work Like a Woman and include being vulnerable in a confident way and supporting other women.

From left to right: MP Arif Verani, Heather Gamble, Minister Mary Mg, PK Mutch

Last month in Ottawa, we gifted Minister Ng with one of our signature t-shirts. She was pleased with message and promised to wear it the next time she announces more funding support for Women Entrepreneurs.

Lana’s cat, Neil

NEW! LIISBETH STORY VOTE

We’re stunned with how many good queries come to LiisBeth and sometimes it’s hard to know what readers want. So we thought we’d do it the feminist way and ask you directly!

Below are the top 3 story ideas we’ve received recently:

1. The Duality of Entrepreneurial “Struggle Porn” and Unseen Women’s Labor from a business owner in the gaming industry
2. Portrait of Swedish Feminist Party leader Gudrun Shyman
3. Women are the backbone of Africa’s labor force but lack of opportunities, gender-based violence and policies reduce their ability to advance. Why a conducive environment for African women to thrive makes sense.

VOTE HERE on the one you want to read most.

Photo by Matheus Ferrero on Unsplash

AND THE WINNERS ARE…

Recipients of last month’s FEMINIST FREEBIES:

Tickets to the Move The Dial event went to:
Golnaz Golnaraghi, Toronto, ON

WE Connect conference pass was won by:
Golnaz Golnaraghi, Toronto, ON

3 signed copies of Gender Physics went to:
Alyson Nyiri, Wroxeter, ON
Heidi Phillips, Santa Barbara, CA
C. V. Harquail, Chicago, OH

ARE THERE MORE COPIES TO WIN?
YES! We still have three signed copies of Betty-Ann Heggie’s new book, Gender Physics! The first three people to do the energy evaluation quiz (that under a minute to complete) and send their response (including their address) to: [email protected] will receive the next three copies. FREE! Old school in the mail! (unless you’re at the EFFs)

WHAT WE’RE READING

Financialization not only refers to the incredible power of the financial sector over economics and politics, it also refers to the creep of financial ideas, metaphors, narratives and measurements throughout society and culture more broadly. Examining a wide range of examples and case studies, this book argues that, at the same time as popular culture and everyday life are increasingly saturated by a financial idiom, the financial sector as a whole is more deeply invested than ever in everyday life and culture writ large. From the security culture of Walmart to children’s play with Pokémon trading cards, from the hype around the “creative economy” to the economics of austerity and precariousness, this book seeks to reveal financialization at work where we might least expect to find it. In an age when seemingly imaginary financial assets determine the fates of whole economies, this book suggests we take the idea of “fictitious capital” seriously as a way to understand the power of finance, and what might be done to stop it.

“Where are we right now? With feminism and all that? There was the vote. We got the vote, which was lovely. Then there was work, and the pill, and sexual liberation, which was all great, and today there’s #MeToo, and Beyoncé, and something else – something like a sinking feeling: a realisation that these might have been a series of battles won, rather than the war promised. Meg Wolitzer’s 11th novel sympathetically satirises this complicated landscape of contemporary feminism, while also pressing knowingly against these bruises. ” – Eva Wiseman, The Guardian. The Female Persuasion (Penguin Random House) deals with female mentorship, power, ambition and how a single encounter can forever change a person. It’s a story about an intergenerational female friendship encompassing
ideas of influence, ego, and loyalty in Wolitzer’s signature wise and witty style.

“Wolitzer’s social commentary can be as funny as it is queasily on target.” —The Wall Street Journal

AND FINALLY . . . IN CASE YOU MISSED IT!

On Nov 5th, the Canadian government revealed a list of seven “alternative model” venture funds who will receive some piece of $50M in federal venture capital money which they in turn, can invest in companies. Great idea. The only problem is that only one of the funds is woman-led (Pique Ventures, Vancouver B.C.). All the other recipient venture firms are male dominated. And tech/STEM focused. Not very alternative in our books. We say to Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Minister Bains-good initiative overall. But uncreative, status quo perpetuating selection criteria. #patriarchy
Our book recommendation from last month won the Governor’s General’s Award for Fiction! Sarah Henstra’s The Red Word was among the seven English language books announced in November. Listen to Henstra on CBC radio here. (12 minute segment)
Do Women’s Networking Events Move the Needle on Equality? The short answer: yes. Author Shawn Achor wrote this article in the Harvard Business Review full of stats about the power of connection, and it’s not just about gender. (See you at the EFFs!)
Women’s Entrepreneurship Day is everyday, but especially this past week, on November 19th, following the WEDO Summit (Women’s Entrepreneurship Day Organization) at the UN in New York City. See who attended the summit here.
Nearly 9.1M firms in the US are owned by women and generate $1.4 trillion in sales. Celebrate #ChooseWOMEN on November 28th, by joining the greatest movement to empower women in business. Click here to join
In a recent survey, The Girl Guides of Canada found out what teens in Canada really think and how girls start to experience gender inequality at age 11. The good news is by having these tough conversations, girls can get the tools to grow their confidence and reach their full potential. Read the full report here.

That brings us to the end of our November newsletter. You’ll see a website refresh and newsletter mid-December, 2018, after we come up for air post-EFFs.

Did you read something of value in this newsletter?

LiisBeth is the only media voice in the world which supports the work of feminist entrepreneurs and innovators. We are 100% reader supported. If you love what we do, become a subscriber to LiisBeth! We humbly remind you that subscriptions are $3/month, $7/month or $10/month.

Remember! We are now also on Patreon!

Funds go directly towards paying writers, editors, proofreaders, photo permission fees, and illustrators. Building a more just future requires time, love—and financial support.

Save the daylight, winter is coming.

Tags enterprise feminist forum, Max Haiven, meg wolitzer, Minister Mary Ng, Minister of Small Business and Export Promotion, Rivera Sun, Sarah Selecky, the female persuasion, the feminist city

Sample Newsletter

LIISBETH DISPATCH #45

Close up studio shot of plastic small T-Rex holding paper bags with greenery isolated on yellow.

VIEWPOINT

Mountains of private sector led studies and a handful of task forces over the past ten years on how to unleash the power of women entrepreneurs…and we are no further ahead. In fact, the 2017 McKinsey study on gender parity in Canada identified that Canada had “extremely high inequality in five out of fiftteen indicators.” One of those was women’s entrepreneurship. According to the study, it will take us 180 years to reach parity in terms of creating an environment where women entrepreneurs can thrive as well—or as easily—as their male counterparts.

One of the reasons for this disappointing rate of progress, in my opinion, is the fact that we have allowed a handful of powerful, privileged people, girl-boss celebrities and Bro’ tech voices to have an outsized impact on how we view women’s entrepreneurship. The learning here is: women entrepreneurs are not mini-men entrepreneurs. A woman’s lived experience in a kyriarchal world is entirely different than a man’s and thus, not surprisingly, so is their approach to venture design and growth. Instead of developing programs and policies designed to homogenize and encourage women entrepreneurs to learn how to proceed like unencumbered, entitled tech-dudes, it’s time to recognize, celebrate, and amplify our uniqueness.

And here’s the good news. This might finally happen.

This summer, the Canadian government launched a competitive bid process to establish an independent Womens Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub fuelled by a hefty $8.62 million dollar budget over three years. The application must be be consortium based and led by an academic institution. The goal? Take off the Tom Ford aviators and see things as they really are.

Grant opportunities like this don’t happen often so it’s no surprise that the competition is fierce. The assessment criteria includes points for things like research credentials, large project management skills, plans for long term financial sustainability, and the ability to leverage technology. Applicants must also demonstrate some level of prior engagement and knowledge of women’s entrepreneurship in Canada, the ecosystem that supports women entrepreneurs, plus experience working with diverse, intersectional groups of women.

All useful criteria on which to base a decision.

But…let’s face it. If we truly want to see different results from the past, it’s the leadership style of the lead applicant team that matters most.

When it comes to awarding big government contracts, we tend to go for thigh thundering T-Rex’s bearing gifts. The bigger and louder the better. We think someone famous, aggressive, with corporate connections who is chummy with the 1% will help get things done.

But if we want a different result, we need a different approach. Like Dandelion leadership.

In feminist and activist literature, the natural characteristics of the lowly dandelion is often referred to as a metaphor for the type leadership needed to advance social equity in any space, including entrepreneurship. Dandelion leaders recognize that innovation and leadership can come from anywhere, not just the tip of the economic iceberg. Dandelions are democratic, humble, agile, and responsive to their environment. They don’t care where they grow. They are everywhere. Farmer’s fields, a gated community lawn, or between cracks in sidewalks. They deeply understand the concept of inter-independence because without it, they die. They help nourish and ripen challenging ideas. They detoxify. They encourage others around them to flourish as opposed to expanding their own empires. And at the same time, they are not afraid of revolution. Imagine a field overrun with dandelions!

Imagine an economy fuelled by feminism.

Canada has lagged in its ability to productively support women entrepreneurs because this diverse and heterogenous community is still greatly misunderstood and misrepresented. Moving forward, one way to avoid this is to ensure research and collaborations engage grass roots organizations, feminist leaders, and the kaleidoscope of main street female entrepreneurs in purposeful ways. No more tokenism.

This will take a leadership team that knows about creating safe environments. People who can harvest and include learnings from the fringe. An open minded team who is understands collective impact theory. Someone willing to challenge the current dysfunctional sacred cows of entrepreneurship and innovation—perhaps throwing them out all together.

The decision regarding who gets to lead the hub will be announced in October. I can’t wait.

And I, for one, will be rooting for the dandelion team who is able to take root in depleted spaces and encourage generative growth.

LiisBeth Founder & Publisher

THIS WEEK ON LIISBETH

What We Are Talking About When We Talk About White Privilege: Themes From the White Privilege Conference in Toronto

What happens when you think of white privilege? Maybe it makes you angry. Perhaps it’s a subject you avoid. Possibly you become itchy and uncomfortable because if you are white (and privileged) you feel like you are to blame. If you are a member of a minority facing struggles because of race, how do you get someone to understand your barriers, challenges, and point of view?

White Privilege Conference has become synonymous with tackling widespread issues of inequality and 2018 marked the first time WPC has crossed the border for a Canadian version of the conference.

Dr. Golnaz Golnaraghi’s story is a moving and inspiring account of her time at the White Privilege Conference, and includes practical ways we can move towards solutions and change. Read it here.

The four Atlanta social ventures awarded a total of $200,000 by the Sara Blakely Foundation and Atlanta Emerging Markets, Inc. (AEMI) through the Civic Impact Loan Fund.

Change Makers: A unique residency supports women entrepreneurs on the front line of social innovation

Welcome to Atlanta, the city with the highest rate of income inequality in the US. Now, thanks to the vision of Rohit Malhotra who worked on civic innovation initiatives in the Obama administration and Sara Blakely, Atlanta’s most influential female entrepreneur and Spanx CEO and founder, The Centre for Civic Innovation is fostering startups who are addressing the root cause of why this inequality exists. From yoga practice for police officers to Civic Dinners bringing community members together, the centre provides financial and development support to entrepreneurs.

Adina Solomon explains how the one-year residency is measured by how much the entrepreneurs achieve – not by financial indicators. Check out the article here.

Above: Lido Pimienta, Venus Fest 2017

New LiisBeth Playlist! Time to Soar

September is here. Time to get back to initiatives, routines, and commitments sometimes left to languish as we frenetically try to enjoy our short summers.

To get back into the swing of things, Aerin Fogel, founder of Venus Fest, created a new playlist for LiisBeth to help get us back into gear! Have a listen here.

The playlist features ten artists performing at this year’s Venus Fest, a Toronto music festival and concert series celebrating feminism in the arts. It happens Thursday to Saturday, September 22-24th at various locations!

FEMINIST FREEBIE! VENUS FEST PASS GIVEAWAY! LiisBeth has two festival passes to give away to the first two LiisBethians to complete our reader survey today on September 11th! Recipients will be announced on Twitter (and notified by email).

All LiisBeth subscribers are also invited to the Venusfest Pre-Party Show and Panel which happens at the Drake Underground on Saturday, September 15th. Tickets are $12 in advance.

Feminist campers

WTF is Feminist Camp?

You can find a camp for anything: music, archery, cooking…and now, there is Feminist Camp, a front-row seat to feminist work, activism, and action beyond classroom theories. Feminist Camp is the brainchild of two women on a mission to show (mostly) college-aged women what their futures might look like. Campers meet professionals like judges, police officers, and artists who practice feminism in their jobs.

No bonfires or marshmallows, but an impromptu sing-a-long could very well erupt on the streets of New York City, Seattle, or Zambia, along with a renewed sense of direction, confidence, and possibilities. Catherine Drillis shares her thoughts from Feminist Camp’s HQ, located at Ms. Foundation in NYC. Read the piece here.

LIISBETH FIELD NOTES

The RAISE Collective

The weRAISE 2018 program featured seven women-led ventures seeking capital for growth from industries including technology and consumer goods. The #womenRAISE campaign took place over 100 days with the cohort collectively raised $1M.

“Entrepreneurs benefitted from the connections they made and to having access to the right types of capital for their specific needs.” – Jill Earthy, RAISE Founder

weRAISE is now collaborating with Female Funders, a program for women interested in investing and who are unlocking capital to support female entrepreneurs. To learn about the need to increase gender diversity within Canada’s investment ecosystem, check out the Women in Venture report.

The next weRAISE cohort launches in early 2019. Companies who want to learn more can visit www.theraisecollective.com

Thrive Podcast for Women Entrepreneurs

Brew yourself a cup and have a listen to this 30 minute podcast from Start Up Canada. Janice MacDonald chats with Petra Kassun-Mutch about everything from B-corp info, responsibilities of an entrepreneur, and the five values of the feminist business model canvas. Do you know what they are?

Pramilla Ramdahani, Founder of the Community Innovation Lab

NO WAY! A FINANCE CONFERENCE JUST FOR WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS!

Pramilla Ramhahani (pictured above), founder and CEO of Durham region’s Community Innovation Lab saw the economic and personal transformation potential of women entrepreneurs. So she created the Refinery, a women’s entrepreneurship program that will provide technical advisory support, workshops, bootcamps, year-long intensive coaching, and co-working hub space to an estimated 1,435+ female entrepreneurs over the next three years.

The Community Innovation Lab (CiLab), is a not for profit organization currently led by an all-female staff.

On September 12th, CiLab is holding the first women-centric finance conference of its kind in the region where they will announce a significant partnership with the Business Development Corporation to advance startups and women entrepreneurs across Ontario.

If you are looking for women-led financing opportunities, don’t miss this conference! It will be worth the drive to Durham.

The Conference will be held at the Co-ilab hub on 600 Rossland Rd., Oshawa. To get tickets visit: www.communityilab.ca

But how do you really feel? What do you really think?

LiisBeth has grown to over 1850 newsletter subscribers. And we thought it might be time for us all to get to know ourselves better as a community. So we created the “un-reader” survey in that nu-uh, we aren’t going to ask you about what kinds of articles you like or advertiser-centric demographic questions. We don’t even advertise!

WE WANT TO KNOW: what you’re thinking about, what you care about, your views on feminism, and your take on how LiisBeth can improve.

This survey takes about 12 minutes.We also understand your time is super valuable. So in return for your generosity, we will be publishing a copy of our survey results on LiisBeth so that you too, can get to know this community better!

To take the survey now, click here.

WHAT WE’RE READING

Vivek Shraya’s poetry collection, even this page is white, is a bold and personal interrogation of skin–its origins, functions, and limitations. Shraya paints the face of everyday racism with words, rendering it visible, tangible, and undeniable. (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2016) “A provocative meditation on what it means to grow up anything other than white in Canada, tackling institutional racism and sexual identity from a unique viewpoint, all delivered with astute observation and trenchant insight.” — Rollie Pemberton, former Edmonton Poet Laureate

Joyful Militancy: Building Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times by Nick Montgomery and Carla Bergman is not what you might expect given the title. While this hard core left of centre book clearly advocates for change through activism, it has a unique perspective on this type of work and issues experienced by those working in the thick of it. If you have been growing tired of resisting Trump, Ford, and other various forms of oppression, injustice or new policies that create more barriers rather than remove them, this book serves as a bit of a pick me up.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Healing Solidarity Online Conference
Eunice Baguna Ball, Founder of ATBN (African Technology Business Netowork) will be speaking at Healing Solidartiy’s week-long conference about reimagining international development. Get your free ticket here.
New Women’s Cannabis Entrepreneur Accelerator in Oregon! The state’s first cannabis accelerator program and co-working & events space is dedicated to boosting women entrepreneurs and their weed businesses #womeninweed
YMCA Launch Women’s Empowerment Exchange Traded Fund — Impact Shares and YWCA US now offer an exchange traded fund (ETF) on the New York Stock Exchange enabling investors to invest in companies whose practices are aligned with gender-equality standards. Now that’s pretty cool. Will Canada’s YWCA be next?
Size doesn’t matter! Supporting membership to the Women’s Enterprise Organizations of Canada (WEOC) is free and open to any organization that supports its objectives. To join, find out more here.
As the hype winds down from the federal government’s August 31st release of the Social Innovation and Social Finance Strategy (sisfs.ca) Co-creation steering group’s recommendations, you can still make some noise! Email your MP or tweet about it using #sisfs #innovate4impact
Read the full report here

That brings us to the end of our September newsletter. The next website refresh and newsletter is scheduled for October 15th, 2018.
Did you read something of value in this newsletter?

LiisBeth is the only media voice in the world which supports the work of feminist entrepreneurs and innovators. We are 100% reader supported. If you love what we do, become a subscriber to LiisBeth! We humbly remind you that subscriptions are $3/month, $7/month or $10/month.

We are now also on Patreon! You can choose to donate to us there!

Funds go directly towards paying writers, editors, proofreaders, photo permission fees, and illustrators. Building a more just future requires time, love—and financial support.

Enjoy September. Peace out.

Petra Kassun-Mutch Lana Pesch
Founding Publisher, LiisBeth Newsletter & Associate Editor

Tags #aerinfogel, #joyful militancy, community innovation lab, entrepreneur activism, Feminist Camp, raise collective, Social Innovation, start up capital, the refinery, venture capital, venus fest, vivek shreya, white privilege, White Privilege Conference, women entrepreneurs, women in venture, women-led ventures, womxn finance conference

Sample Newsletter

LIISBETH DISPATCH #44

VIEWPOINT

STARTUP INCUBATORS ARE FAILING WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS-SO LET’S FIX IT.

In my line of work as a program consultant, I am often hired to help startup incubators and innovation spaces rethink how they attract and more importantly, retain more women entrepreneurs; In Canada at least, their public funding support is increasingly dependent on doing so.

Turns out, marketing only to women, tossing in a few pink bean bag chairs, and offering free tampons and perfumes in newly labelled gender-neutral washrooms doesn’t cut it. Neither does creating women-only startup programs embedded in co-ed spaces with programs that reinforces the patriarchal status quo. They sound good at first, but soon after the program starts, women entrepreneurs end up feeling ghettoized and stigmatized.

They end up frustrated. They leave. And they don’t come back.

Today, only 16% of incorporated enterprises in Canada are women-led and women majority owned. Reports show that participation in co-ed incubator spaces runs between 5 and 30% on average. Yet women start businesses at a rate of 20-30% higher than men. Studies showed that in spite of the extra baggage, women-majority owned businesses out-perform their male counterparts on several metrics.The fact is, ineffective programs for female founders is costing Canada alone billions of dollars of lost economic opportunity.

What economy can afford that?

Many people leading co-ed entrepreneurship and innovation incubators acknowledge the still growing body of research that confirms again and again that women face additional barriers as entrepreneurs thanks to gender-bias in our financial systems, sexism, and the realities of biology in an economy designed to privilege people who can delegate caregiving and don’t need time off after physically growing and finally squeezing a new eight to ten pound human out of their bodies–not to mention then feeding them exclusively via your boobs for months after.

In fact, the people running incubators witness examples of the many barriers first hand. They have VIP seats in the stadium when it comes to observing how women experience and must navigate entrepreneurship differently to succeed. They also see how women of colour, indigenous women, newcomers, and those working two jobs to make ends meet. They experience additional challenges.

So why are they having so much trouble figuring out how to help women founders, and their enterprises, flourish?

The answer is in knowing “h ow to get through a gateless gate“.

This article could help get you started.

THIS WEEK ON LIISBETH

Woman Is Wolf to Woman

From a psychological and philosophical perspective, mental health counsellor, Maria Basualdo discusses the critical need for women to unite and work together. “…activism is the only way women can bring about transformation in ourselves, not just socially and politically, but by refusing to be wolf to women in our mundane realities.”

Sounds like an obvious idea. But why doesn’t it happen?

Montreal Startup Fest 2018

New Contributor Ria Lupton got an “inclusion” ticket to Startupfest 2018 in Montreal last month. So we asked her to writing a story about her experience as a participant in a program dedicated to “…connecting entrepreneurs from diverse communities to equal opportunities.”

Ultimately, we wanted to know if to find out if things had improved since we last wrote about this tech-fest now in its seventh year.

https://youtu.be/MTaTnyN5vxU

Fallen Men of Thrones

I knew that billionaire motivational speaker Tony Robbins and I were not aligned in many of our beliefs about how the world worked. But he sure knew how to whip up mass hysteria.

In the video above, you will notice that his euphoric fans represent a diverse, mostly-male-but-good-helping-of-female crowd looking to be primarily…reassured. They are told that if they work hard, remain disciplined, clean, goal-focused, and believe in themselves, the world is theirs to exploit—despite the various systemic oppressions they face. Blaming something other than yourself for your state in life is not part of Robbins’ creed. “Just Say Yes! And presto, you are halfway there!”

Come on. Who doesn’t love a message like that?

But then came Robbins’ #metoo moment where he showed incredible ignorance about the powers that shape the lives of women in the workplace. He apologized. But that wasn’t enough for Kelly Diels.

Kelly Diels, feminist marketing consultant

This is Diels, a feminist marketing expert, who is writing a new book about the female empowerment brand says “…when our most cherished self-help leaders, spiritual teachers, coaches and empowers-of-women are waving the same flag as an MRA, let us agree it is a red one.”

In her free-online-chapter of her upcoming book, Diels critically interrogates the female empowerment brand and highlights the dark role that motivational speakers—mostly male but also many female—play in advancing this dangerous opioid-like narrative.

If you are attending a conference with a motivational speaker as a keynote in the next few weeks, you might want to read this before you go.

LIISBETH FIELD NOTES

Don’t You Want Me

A global photography project showcasing the beauty and resilience of disenfranchised LGBTQ people with their rescued dogs. The coupling of compelling and personal images with accompanying narratives and a celebratory flair, the aim is to show that individuals of all stripes have the shared ability to transform their lives when they are given love and the question of ‘who rescued who’ becomes universal, no matter how you identify.

The project kicks off soon and is currently seeking subjects in Toronto, Brighton UK, and NYC. To participate get in touch here.

Feminist Economics Yoga in Thunder Bay

Cassie Thornton isn’t a healer, she’s just really angry. She is also an artist, an activist, and a kundalini yoga instructor who lives and works between Thunder Bay, Berlin, and Oakland.

In short, Feminist Economics Yoga is combining feminized practices and values like care, health and reproduction with a challenging but accessible yoga practice that focuses on breath and movement. It is designed to heal the nervous system, spine and brain—all areas affected by the experience and challenges of living, breathing, and working in today’s world.

“Practicing feminist economics yoga is a way to remind yourself to check in with what you’re experiencing and see what parts you might want to break up with.” – Cassie Thornton, Feminist Economist

You can help fund production of a new series of yoga video tutorials that aim to help heal our social and economic wounds and move forward collectively by visiting Cassie’s Kickstarter campaign: Let’s Break Up w/ Capitalism!

She is planning a Feminist Economics Yoga workshop is in Thunder Bay later this fall. For more info go to: www.secretchakra.net

Is the Backlash back?

From the Aspen Ideas Festival…Good Feminist, Bad Feminist — Who Gets to Decide?

“The beauty of feminism is that it’s always growing and changing and that we allow space for it.” – Tarana Burke, Founder of #Metoo Movement

If you have an hour on your hands, take the time to watch this panel talk. It will change your perspective. The star of the show in our view was Brittney Cooper, Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Africana studies at Rutgers University. She is also the co-founder of the edgy and widely read Crunk Feminist Collective blog. Her new book, Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower is available now!

Hang on to your hat for this one. [90 minutes]

Summer Camp for Little Girls with Big Dreams

Joyce Lee is the founder of herPossibility, a summer camp for girls ages 8 to 14 that focuses on empowering youth to be confident and creative leaders.

The camp will have hands on STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) activities to help girls develop their empathy and growth mindset, generate creative ideas, and build self-confidence in group settings.

“This year we’re supporting a group of refugee girls that are new from Syria. And seeing them be able to speak their truth and be themselves is wonderful,” says Lee who encountered a lot of tech bias when she attended the University of Waterloo. “I was always that shy girl in the corner and having that experience really made me want to do something about it.”

Camp runs August 13 – 17th, 2018 at Ryerson University’s Student Learning Centre in Toronto.

You gotta give Svetlana Ratnikova (pictured here hugging the woman in the foreground), founder of Toronto’s Immmigrant Women in Business network a bow. She knows how to energize a group-in a whole hearted and dare we say, uniquely Russian way! LiisBeth attended their last event. The quality of the talks were high. And you have to love the fact that the event was opened up with a toast to the opportunity to be in Canada. If you are a entrepreneur looking to experience global feminism in one room, we highly recommend you give them a try.

WHAT WE’RE READING

Radiant Shimmering Light by Sarah Selecky

Sarah Selecky thanks Kelly Diels in the acknowledgements of her debut novel, Radiant Shimmering Light. “Diels coined the term “Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand” and confronts the subject deftly on her website,” says Selecky. The same could be said of Selecky. The novel is bursting with sparkle and satire, earnestness and colour. The story follows Lilian Quick, a struggling pet-portrait artist who reconnects with her estranged cousin, Eleven Novak, who runs a hugely successful women’s empowerment program called Ascendancy.

Through sharp insight and detailed, entertaining prose, Selecky examines the interconnectedness of art, commerce, and entrepreneurship in a timely resurgence of online feminism.

How We Get Free, edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

T he Combahee River Collective Statement was written in April, 1977 but is as relevant today as it was then. It has been referred to as “among the most compelling documents produced by black feminists”. This is one of intersectional feminism’s foundational texts.

The Statement itself has four separate chapters: The Genesis of Contemporary Black Feminism; What We Believe; Problems in Organizing Black Feminist; and Black Feminist Issues and Projects. The published book adds on to this; It includes interviews with original members of the collective.

The writing is eloguent, inspiring and clear as glass. Anyone looking for a good example of a manifesto–or deepen their understanding of intersectional feminism– need look no further.

AND FINALLY…IN CASE YOU MISSED IT!

CIX is seeking female entrepreneurs!
Canada’s highly curated startup investment conference is looking for more submissions to the Top 20 program from female entrepreneurs across Canada as applications in the demographic are low. The summit runs October 22-23rd in Toronto. Apply here.
The Honourable Bardish Chagger, P.C., M.P., Minister of Small Business and Tourism announced the launch of an $8.6 millioncompetitive process to create a Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub to accelerate the accumulation and dissemination of data, knowledge, and best practices regarding women entrepreneurs. Read the news release or find out about the application process here.
LiisBeth Founding Publisher Petra Kassun-Mutch will be speaking about feminist business practice at the upcoming MJBizConINT’L Women in Cannabis Wednesday, August 15th at George Brown. MJBizConINt’L attracts more than 2,000 attendees and 125+ exhibitors from around the world will meet to discuss the role of the cannabis global marketplace.
NEW! The Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa released a report about benchmarking small and medium enterprises as suppliers to the Canadian government. The report provides new insights about gender of ownership, innovation, international trade, and firm performance.

CAN’T MISS EVENTS

Fall is coming! And oh la la! The list of events worth putting on your learning journey calendar is getting longer:

UN Women – Metro NY Chapter: Summer Info Session in NYC
Join the Metro NY Chapter of the U.S. National Committee for UN Women for our semi-annual info session. Learn about their all-volunteer organization and network with other like-minded gender equality warriors! Refreshments will be provided.
Wednesday, August 22nd, 2018
6:30 – 8:30 PM
WeWork
300 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10016
USA
Cost: Suggested donation: $10
RSVP here.

Networking and Inspirational Leadership Event
A new IWB (Immigrant Women in Business) Chapter in Bradford is hosting an exclusive, private gathering. IWB welcomes all, and is especially important place for immigrants. (All genders welcome). Saturday, August 25th, 2018
4:00 – 8:00 PM
CU Optical
157 Holland St E #4
Bradford, ONTARIO
Cost: FREE
Register here.

Venus Fest: A Canadian Music Festival Celebrating Feminism in the Arts
September 20–22nd, 2018
Opera House
735 Queen Street West
Toronto, ONTARIO
Cost: $77 for a three-day pass.
Get tickets here.

Anti-Oppression for Artists + Cultural Producers
This workshop for artists explores the language, theories and practices of anti-oppression in depth. Participants will have access to a plethora of digital and print resources to continue their learning journey beyond the scope of the session. Wednesday, September 26th, 2018
6:00 – 9:00 PM
Wychwood Barns Park
B Current Space
76 Wychwood Avenue
Toronto, ONTARIO M6G 2X7
Cost: PWYC – $55
Register here.

B-Corp Champions Retreat in New Orleans
The annual gathering of mission-driven leaders of the B Corp community focused on collective action and continuous improvement. Open to all employees of Certified B Corps, Impact management partners, nonprofits and academics, and other members of the ‘B Economy’.
September 25 – 27th, 2018
New Orleans, Louisiana
USA
Cost: $400 – $1095 + fees
Register here.

Power the Economy: Growing Women Owned Businesses in Canada
WEConnect International in Canada will host its signature annual event, Power the Economy, for women-owned businesses, multinational corporations, senior government officials, and partner organizations supporting the growth of women’s entrepreneurship across Canada.
October 26th, 2018
Beanfield Centre
105 Princes’ Blvd
Toronto, ONTARIO
Cost: $199
Register here.

The 2018 Entrepreneurial Feminist Forum
November 10 and 11, 2018
The Gladstone Hotel
1214 Queen Street West
Toronto, ONTARIO
SAVE THE DATE!
Ticket information coming soon.

That brings us to the end of our August newsletter. The next newsletter is scheduled for September 2018.

We are looking for speaker and workshop proposals for the second annual Entrepreneurial Feminist Forum planned for November, 2018. For guidelines, visit the website.

And just one last reminder. If you are considering a way to support feminist entrepreneurs, or help connect women-led initiatives and communities, look no further than cbecoming a subscriber to LiisBeth! We humbly remind you that subscriptionsare $3/month, $7/month or $10/month.

We are now on Patreon!

Funds go directly towards paying writers, editors, proofreaders, photo permission fees, and illustrators. Building a more just future requires time, love—and financial support.

Enjoy August. Summers are so short!

Sample Newsletter

LIISBETH DISPATCH #43

VIEWPOINT

How to Kill Feminism

Well the good news is, you can’t.

Many have tried and still are trying. From Phyllis Schlafly in the 1970s, to the likes of Jordan Peterson, Suzanne Venker, and Penny Nance who have also discovered that, unlike advocating for feminism, working to crush feminism has become a fast way get an audience and make serious cash. But they will ultimately fail.

Here is why.

Because it lives our hearts—not our pocketbooks.

It’s always a surprise to me to learn how few people realize feminism is both a gender equality movement and a set of values which serves to unleash undervalued human potential; its origins are rooted in compassion and love. From Maya Angelou to Louise Arbour to Zunera Ishaq, its history sparkles with stunning stories about overcoming man-made odds and finding the courage to speak truth to power despite searing personal risk. Though the mountain that feminists must negotiate to drive change is steep, rubbled, and treacherous, not to mention career and income limiting, the approach is learning-centred, innovation-led, and powered by unrealized possibilities—punctuated by brilliant colourful bursts of killer Schumer-esque insight and humour along the way.

Feminism realizes that what humanity has today is not even close to having it all. Its passion for realizing the benefits of fresh alternatives to current systems is what fuels its persistence to ascend again and again—like Japanese filmmaker Tomoyuki Tanaka’s gender non-confirming Godzilla, also a mother, who rises from the sea with a vengeance to defeat man-made monsters designed to do nothing but destroy and empower it’s masters.

There. I feel better now.

This was a brief excerpt. For the full essay, click here.

THIS WEEK ON LIISBETH

Op Ed: Does Vigilante Justice Help? Or Hinder.

Last week, #metoo struck Ontario’s bucolic Prince Edward County. Norman Hardie, one of the area’s most successful winery entrepreneurs, faced allegations of sexual harassment as a result of an extensive Globe & Mail (Canada’s national newspaper) investigation. We know what the reporters think. But what do locals think? Read Prince Edward County resident and LiisBeth contributor Valerie Hussey’s op-ed here.

Emily Mills Hustles and Slays!

Emily Mills, founder of Toronto’s fast-growing network of diverse women entrepreneurs recently left her day job to work on developing How She Hustles full time. Thank goodness. Because women entrepreneurs need enablers like Mills.

On May 30, Mills held a marquee event featuring a panel of six diverse women entrepreneurs. LiisBeth’s newest contributor, Bee Quammie, was assigned to go, check it out, and share what was learned in this month’s feature article, How She Hustles Can Fire Up Your Startup.

Chessica Luckett Takes a Stand

At LiisBeth, we get over a hundred queries for story ideas a month. One day we received an email from a 22 year-old entrepreneur named Chessica Luckett from Helena, Arizona. She wrote, “No one wants to respect a young person but to respect a young person who has started her own business while being of the minority is another story.”

We wanted to know more. Here is her story, published as is, and only edited slightly for clarity.

FIELD NOTES

Vivek Shraya sings “Part Time Woman” at Luminato’s “No Going Back” panel held on June 9 in Toronto. Take a listen. It’s great!

Luminato Highlights

Luminato is a Toronto-based arts festival that aims to feature “…critically acclaimed, globe-spanning, and expansive theatre, dance, music, and talks.” This year’s program had a lot of feminist-oriented events.

LiisBeth attended most of these events, including the “No Going Back” town hall, which looked at the future of feminism through the eyes of young adults. Among the stellar four panellists, two stood out: Vivek Shraya, a trans woman artist, writer, and educator, and Krysta Williams, an Indigenous feminist. Both shared novel insights and perspectives.

You can listen to the entire panel session here. Note: it’s one hour and forty minutes long.

Other events at Luminato included a screening of !Women Art Revolution, a new documentary film that chronicles the history of feminist art in the United States (Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party was a highlight).

There was also Burning Doors, a harsh and challenging theatre production named one of the top 10 best theatre works of 2017 by The New York Times. Burning Doors was billed as an “explosive demonstration of the power of artistic resistance.” But it also underscores the power of the state.

Pussy Riot‘s Maria Alyokhina was part of the troupe, and mid-way through the play she stopped to answer questions from the audience about her incarceration experience as well as the aftermath. She said that as it turns out, being in jail is not much different from being out of jail when you consider the role systems of oppressions play in one’s lived experience.

The sum total of what was learned by participating in Luminato’s human rights–related programming can be reduced to this: driving human-first centred social change is complex, hard work, and the activism associated with its advancement has varying degrees of consequences depending on where you live.

Burning Doors talked a lot about courage and the importance of not accepting an unacceptable status quo. For those who don’t have that kind of courage, the very least they can do is support those willing to stand in the front lines on our behalf.

From right to left: Natasha Raey, founder of Cadence Health Centre; Aniko Farkas, co-founder of the Green Tent and founder of BodyBeautyMind; and two other Green Tent friends.

The Green Tent: Creating Spaces for Women on Trade Show Floors

After attending several cannabis industry conferences, four women noticed that there was zero opportunity for women at these conferences to convene, connect, and talk to each other in a non-“push-push-push” sales environment about how to successfully navigate a fast-moving new industry that is increasingly and systemically shutting women out.

Their solution? To create The Green Tent, an oasis-style space in the midst of the trade floor where women could stop in, find each other, have a coffee, meet the speakers, try some cannabis-infused hand cream, and learn from each other’s experiences as new entrepreneurs in the space. Says Aniko Farkas, the space’s co-founder and owner of BodyBeautyMind, “I have been in business for 18 years but am new to the cannabis space. This is a space where we are teaching each other.”

Above: Melissa Pierce, COO of Ellementa, in Toronto

Ellementa Comes to Canada

Yes. More news on the cannabis front. But for good reason.

First the Senate of Canada passed the bill last week. Legalization of nonmedical use of cannabis will follow in approximately two to three months, depending on who you ask.

Cannabis is a $6-billion-plus industry in Canada already, and while Bay Street investors titter about how current valuations are inflated, innovators and entrepreneurs don’t really care. Shortages? New, messy, market? Awesome! And while some entrepreneurs are focusing on creating products, others like Ellementa, a U.S.-based women’s network focused on wellness and cannabis education see services–namely health and wellness education- as the bigger opportunity. We met Ellementa co-founder Melissa Pierce at their Toronto launch. “I grew up in the ‘just say no’ generation,” says Pierce, “so the idea of using cannabis medicinally for me personally was a difficult transition.”

However, cannabis is now recognized in North America for being a legitimate and effective herb for a variety of medical and wellness-related issues like chronic pain management, insomnia, menopause symptoms, and anxiety. As a women’s advocate, Pierce, who is 41 and a mother of four, believes that women over 40 will likely comprise the largest user demographic and the main household decision maker in the cannabis market. Pierce also recognizes that women working to ensure equality and equity will have their work cut out for them. “We have to keep fighting…and we need to be mindful of the industry culture we hope to create. Collaboration, not competition, will be important at this stage.”

Ellementa currently has two chapters operating in Canada (one in Vancouver and another in Toronto). A Montreal chapter opens on July 9th.

Above: Sarah Lacy, founder of Chairman Mom, speaks to a full house during an event called “Detoxing the Bro Economy.”

Tech for Good?

The inaugural and unique True North conference that was held in Kitchener, Ont., attracted over 2,400 tech industry revellers. The purpose was to start a conversation about how technology and, more importantly, the industry as a whole can work to create social good—and ground zero “bro culture” once and for all.

Two sessions were devoted to creating a “Tech for Good Declaration,” which organizers hoped would, once it’s in final form, be adopted by tech companies everywhere as a code of conduct credo. You can download a copy of the draft here. Do you think they’re on the right path? See for yourself.

We didn’t know what governance feminism was, so we decided to find out. Turns out it’s about feminists in power. The authors of Governance Feminism look at what happens when feminist critique inverts into governing norms. What kind of feminism becomes law and what becomes of arguments among feminists when it does? How are feminist challenges to male super-ordination transformed and distributed by bureaucratization and NGO-ification? How might we honestly assess feminism that governs? It’s worth reading.

Lately, LiisBeth has been fascinated by these questions: What is a feminist city? What defines a feminist city? And is it worthwhile to develop one? While we explore the idea further in our feature essay, How to Kill Feminism, we have also been fascinated by China Miéville’s book, T he City & The City, which “skillfully examines the illusions people embrace to preserve their preferred social realities.” This book was a referral by Tim Hurson, the co-founder of Mindcamp. A good cabin read for those who love fantasy, mystery, and dream about bridging divides.

And finally…in case you missed it!

This month, Startup Canada announced a new $5K per successful applicant women’s entrepreneurship grant fund. The grant program is underwritten by Evolocity Financial Group, a small business lending enterprise with just two women out of nine on its senior management team (predictably, one in HR and one in accounting). Is this another case of gender washing? We think so. It’s not the amount–it’s what women are expected to do with the money if they get it. Apparently, “grants are awarded to established women entrepreneurs and women-led companies in STEM from across Canada to support operations, access opportunities, and new markets, and to invest in training to upskill and grow, while accelerating gender parity and further unleash the economic potential of women.”
Not sure who does the shopping at Evolocity, but most of us building companies will soon realize that $5,000 barely covers the time it takes to fill out their form, plus maybe a cup of coffee or two. This is just another “must perform miracles with pennies” initiative for women entrepreneurs. Some say it’s better than nothing. We say organizations trading in gender halos should stop selling women entrepreneurs short.
Have you heard about the Canadian Women’s Foundation’s new initiative, the Gender Equality Network? Its goal? To identify and articulate the need for policy changes, build inclusive intersectional leadership, and take collective action to advance gender equality in Canada. Find out who’s on it here (there’s 137 women).

Is encouraging women’s entrepreneurship or, more accurately, self employment in developing regions a good thing? Not always. Based on 10 months of fieldwork in Ahmedabad, India, as well as 30 interviews with women engaged in home-based garment work, a study by the Rotman School of Management’s Institute for Gender & the Economy examines how women perceive themselves as workers, and how this relates to economic accounts of the benefits of entrepreneurship. Do North American self-employed women have similar experiences? Check out the research brief here.
The Kapor (pronounced KAY-por) Center for Social Impact aims to make the technology ecosystem and entrepreneurship more diverse and inclusive. In its 2017 study on why people leave the tech industry, it found that unfairness-based turnover in tech is a $16-billion-a-year problem. The study points out why the problem exists, and how tech enterprises can avoid this costly result. Read more here.

CAN’T MISS EVENTS

This time our list is short, because it’s summer! But here are two events worth putting on your learning journey calendar:

Queer & Trans Inclusivity for Entrepreneurs
This workshop provides entrepreneurs with the language and tools they need to promote inclusivity for folks who identify as queer, trans, and non-binary.
Monday, July 16, 2018
6:15 PM – 8:30 PM
Make Lemonade
326 Adelaide St. West, Toronto
Cost: $35. Get tickets here.

Blockchain for Your Organization
Thursday, June 28, 2018
Opera House
735 Queen Street West, Toronto
Cost: $77 for a 3-day pass. Get tickets here.

Panic in the Labryinth
A series of performances centering on intersectional feminist poetics.
Thursday, August 2, 2018
6:30 PM – 8:00 PM
Gardiner Museum
111 Queen’s Park, Toronto
Cost: Free. Register here.

Venus Fest: A Canadian Music Festival Celebrating Feminism in the Arts
September 20–22, 2018
Opera House
735 Queen Street West, Toronto
Cost: $77 for a three-day pass. Get tickets here.

The 2018 Entrepreneurial Feminist Forum
November 10 and 11, 2018
The Gladstone Hotel
1214 Queen Street West, Toronto
Hold the date! Ticket information coming soon.

That brings us to the end of our June newsletter. The next newsletter is scheduled for late July 2018. Watch for some cool upcoming announcements too (Hint-we’ve hired!). In the meantime, follow us on Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook for updates, news, and provocative views.

If you are looking for an easy way to support feminist entrepreneurs, or help build feminist cities, look no further than considering a subscription to LiisBeth! We humbly remind you that subscriptions are $3/month, $7/month or $10/month.

Funds go directly towards paying writers, editors, proofreaders, photo permission fees, and illustrators. Building a feminist future requires both love—and financial support.

In the meantime, stay bold, stay woke, and slay.

Petra Kassun-Mutch
Founding Publisher, LiisBeth

Sample Newsletter

LIISBETH DISPATCH #42

VIEWPOINT

Aren’t Anti-Feminists Feminists Too?

At first, I had to do a double take. Did I read that right?

In an article titled “Liberals Accused of Using Feminism as Political Weapon,” Rachael Harder, a Conservative critic for the Status of Women and former successful dog kennel entrepreneur in Lethbridge, Alberta, complained that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government were—get this—hogging feminism.

If you read the rest of the piece published in the Ottawa Citizen on May 7, you essentially learn that she is concerned the Liberals are doing too many good feminist things, leaving little room for those who define feminism differently. For example, “feminists” who are anti-abortion, don’t believe the pay gap exists, and believe equality is possible without also addressing equity.

Can a word mean anything you want it to mean?

These days, it would appear that the Progressive Conservatives (Canada’s official opposition party) are noticing that aligning one’s identity with feminism gets votes, and they desperately want access to some of that firepower. Some, invoking the Humpty-Dumpty principle of definitions, are suggesting that how one defines feminism is a matter of personal choice. Translation: even anti-feminists are feminists too. #AllFeminismsMatter

If you were old enough to watch the ERA debate unfold in the media in the 1970s, this attempt by anti-feminists to hijack feminism is probably making you feel like you just ate a bad brownie and saw Rod Serling sit next to you holding a cigarette.

Next stop, the Twilight Zone. Even Phyliss Schlafly, North America’s iconic and proud-to-be conservative anti-feminist who mobilized conservative women and successfully blocked the passing of the ERA amendment, is probably rolling over in her grave.

What is additionally odd about watching Canadian political candidates—and even corporate leaders of all stripes and genders—scurrying about to also be known as feminists is that, until recently, the very term was considered the other “F” word. To call yourself a feminist threatened your career and could clear the room like a bad smell. Several polls from that dark pre-2015 era showed that only a minority of Canadian women (ranging from 10 to 32% depending on the survey) and even fewer men identified as feminists.

But here we are just three years later and people are actually lining up to be pinned a feminist as though it’s an Order of Canada being bestowed. One survey even shows that today, there are more men identifying as feminist than women in Canada.

Think about that for a moment.

It’s great that the word feminism has been suddenly embraced by so many, so fast. But reductively, I say shame on thinly veiled opportunists looking to reduce, redact, and reframe a living movement whose proponents were, not too long ago, roundly vilified and socially punished, just to win today’s vote or sell products.

Some women died fighting for women’s rights. Thousands more died because they didn’t have rights at all.

Feminism. Not Just a Word.

Feminism is a 200-year-old movement justice and rights-based movement and here’s the kicker-an enormous body of work that, when translated at a societal level, imagines a safer, more inclusive world that can only be made possible by fundamentally eradicating gender inequality. There are many pixel level undertakings that make up its colourful landscape, but there is undeniably one shared photo of the goal.

Then as now, feminists of all genders across the globe continue to work hard to challenge, replace, and evolve systems and cultural beliefs that reinforce all forms of gender-based oppression. They are guided by a shared set of values that prioritize gender equality and equity, generosity, inter-independence, economic inclusion, intersectionality, and most importantly, agency.

The latter is key and implies a woman’s control over her own body, health, and right to determine her future.

If the candidate in your area, or anyone for that matter, doesn’t respect or speak about any of this, they ain’t a feminist. Don’t be conned.

THIS WEEK ON LIISBETH

When You Need Help As An Entrepreneur, Who You Gonna Call?

Feminist entrepreneurs with advancing enterprises are looking for two things: 1) help! and 2) the opportunity to support women-led enterprises that can provide that help.

That is where serial feminist entrepreneur Katrina McKay comes in. Her new enterprise, Uplevel Solutions, is an outsourcing enterprise for entrepreneurs. Think TaskRabbit, but with fair wage practices and a trained female staff that makes outsourcing hassle free. You can learn more about Katrina and how to level up here.

What Makes An Event a Feminist Event?

Event planning for the fall is in full swing for many activist entrepreneurial feminists. So the timing is right to ask the question: what makes an event a feminist event, that is, other than the subject matter or the nature of the community that gathers?

In this months’ refresh, co-producer of the Entrepreneurial Feminist Forum and our newest contributor, Lex Schroeder (pictured above), noted five feminist event design practices that worked. Schroeder shares her insights and experiences here.

The 2018 Entrepreneurial Feminist Forum will be held on Sunday, December 2 and Monday, December 3, 2018 at Daniels Spectrum, 585 Dundas Street East, Toronto, ON. Save the date!

FIELDNOTES

Off the Radar: A Special Report by LiisBeth for YOU!

Back in March, we set out on a quest to create a list of active women and other gender minority entrepreneurship support clubs, meetups, investor groups, and networking bands that do not currently exist on other mainstream lists. Why? Because here at LiisBeth, we receive inquiries every day from women and feminist entrepreneurs of all genders about where they can find support for ventures and startups that don’t fit the dominant mould of startups that are typically male-led, low-cap, extreme growth, or flip-it-to-make-it-oriented, which get most of the attention in today’s mainstream entrepreneurship ecosystem.

The good news is that this is changing thanks to dozens of initiatives by activist women entrepreneurs and investors looking to support and grow high, multi–bottom line alternative innovations and ventures. In a few short days, we were able to list over 100 amazing groups working across Canada to help entrepreneurs.

You can get a copy of the summary report here.

If you would like to download the Excel spreadsheet or add/edit the list, please visit our Excel spreadsheet on Google Docs here. Tell us and the LiisBeth community that you exist!

And if you appreciate the work that we are doing to surface the feminist and women’s entrepreneurship community, please consider donating $3, $7 or $10 a month via Patreon or our subscribers’ page. It will help us do even more!

The Ontario Election: Who to Vote For?

Last week, Toronto’s NOW Magazine called the election a “crapshoot.” And while all three candidates have legitimately icky unelectable baggage piled high on their backs, there are three questions that LiisBeth suggests you consider before heading to the polls:

Which candidate genuinely cares about advancing gender equity, inclusion, and innovation in this province?
Which candidate would you at least even mildly enjoy being stuck in an elevator with for four hours?
Which candidate even mentions advancing equity for Ontario women, and specifically women entrepreneurs in his or her campaign/platform?

To find out what initiatives, if any, each party has documented in its platform for the advancement of women entrepreneurs, we made the effort to reach out and ask.

The first to respond was Kathleen Wynne’s campaign team. And in less than an hour, they sent us an entire document—hot off the press! You can find it here.

Highlights for women entrepreneurs include the creation of an Ontario Women’s Entrepreneurship Association to increase women’s access and opportunity to scale up and expand ventures, and $500+ to support additional women entrepreneur programs and the advancement of entrepreneurship opportunities for girls in high schools. The document also highlights new investments in child care, elder care, and ending gender-based violence. Andrea Horwath’s NDP government is also committed to investing in child care and Ontario women.

To find out what the Progressive Conservatives, aka Ford Nation (led by Doug Ford), is planning for women, we decided to ask him directly via Twitter (see below) as he has yet to release a platform. We have not heard anything from Ford Nation yet (24 hours later), but let’s give them more time. At the moment of writing this newsletter, Ford has yet to reveal or articulate his platform, but we have some idea of how he views women’s rights by reviewing articles and his voting history.

As of today, we could find no up-to-date, post-March articles or news on Doug Ford’s initiatives related to women entrepreneurs—or women at all.

What about the NDP? We know Horwath is also committed to investing in child care in Ontario but were unable to find information regarding the party’s initiatives related to women’s entrepreneurship on its platform website. We did, however, find an initiative to revitalize the horse racing sector. Cool. But #odd

In our opinion, the Green Party and its leader Mike Schreiner would likely win question #1 and the “stuck in an elevator” question most of the time for a lot of people. Being stuck in an elevator with him might also be the only way we get to hear him talk given his unfortunate exclusion from the televised debate.

The Greens are often thought of as just a pro-environment party, but the Ontario Greens these days are smartly positioning themselves as a pro–social enterprise, triple–bottom line party. Uniquely, they support the introduction of a hybrid for-profit and non-profit legal form (like the U.S.-based Benefit corporation option). Like the Liberals and the NDP, they also support expanded child care and elder care support plus strategies to advance pay equity. At present, they do not have a specific program laid out for the advancement of women entrepreneurs.

Well, that’s our roundup regarding each party’s plans for women entrepreneurs. And if you feel there is any bias in our report, we admit that there is. #AnyoneButDoug

Now it’s up to you to go and vote.

Make Lemonade

In April, LiisBeth checked out Make Lemonade, the newest inclusive-yet-women-centred co-working space in Toronto, which opened in September 2017. The space was founded by Rachel Kelly, a 26-year-old Toronto gig economy entrepreneur who saw the growth in gendered co-working spaces as a promising new venture opportunity.

The space is fun, airy, and light. Its offerings are similar to co-working spaces in town. And the good news? It doesn’t exude that misguided “girl boss” sorority brand concept (unlike WeWork’s The Wing, a women’s co-working social club that opens in Toronto later this year).

As with all these spaces, it’s really not the decor or yoga classes that count, it’s about who’s in those spaces, the vibe, and the reflection of values held by the people who founded, occupy, and animate the space.

To see if Make Lemonade is your scene, check it out for yourself by signing up for a tour here.

Feminism and AI (Artificial Intelligence)

Meet Dr. Parinaz Sobhani (above), director of machine learning at the University of Ottawa and LiisBeth’s latest feminist-woman-in-tech crush!

Iranian-born Dr. Sobhani was the keynote speaker at the launch of Inspiring Fifty, a new award established in Canada to celebrate inspirational female role models in tech and innovation. Her talk, “Importance of Diversity in AI,” was both chilling and a call to action.

While the technology can overcome gender bias and risk of misused data, it will take the will and vigilance of humans to ensure that it does. We need a feminist-leaning watchdog organization in Canada.

Interested in being part of an initiative to start one? Email us and mention AI Watchdog in the subject line.

To hear part of Dr. Sobhani’s speech, click on the approximately seven-minute audio file here.

LiisBeth Is Hiring!

Eeek! Our little feminist media startup is growing so we need a little more help.

We are currently looking for a three- to six-month contract freelance newsletter editor. Ideally, the newsletter editor will be someone with exceptional writing, critical thinking, and research skills, have a women’s studies, journalism, or gender studies background, plus demonstrated familiarity with WordPress, MailChimp, and Canva or Adobe Photoshop. The workload is anticipated to be about 10 to 20 hours per month (less in the summer). The pay is $40/hour.

Since we have begun, we have published more than 125 articles, 37 newsletters, and provided fair wage income opportunities for more than 35 feminist-leaning freelance writers, editors, illustrators, and photographers.

Lots of groups are working on moving the dial for women. But we go beyond that. As a feminist organization, we work for economic, social, and political systems change. As a community of feminist entrepreneurs, we work to drive change through the power of entrepreneurship and innovation.

For more on our work and impact, you can download LiisBeth’s 2017 Impact Report. The job description is available here.

Preference will be given to applicants who actually read this publication. Duh.

If you are interested in joining our community in this capacity, please e-mail your resume and link to best writing examples to [email protected] by May 15, 2018.

WHAT WE’RE READING

This book covers important issues facing Indigenous people: violence against women, recovery of Indigenous self-determination, racism, misogyny, and decolonization. This new edition also covers Indigenous resurgence; feminism amongst the Sami and Aboriginal Australians; neo-liberal restructuring in Oaxaca; Canada’s settler racism and sexism; and missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada.

Okay, so the City of Toronto and Google’s Sidewalk Labs organization are working on designing an amazing new Jetson-like district on the Toronto Waterfront in an effort to explore what the city of tomorrow might actually be like. At present, the vision includes driverless cars. Once you read Elly Blue’s Bikenomics, you will soon be wondering why any vision of an urban future has to include cars at all.

AND FINALLY…IN CASE YOU MISSED IT!

This month’s uncommon find? Check out Feminist Economics Yoga, a fusion of yoga, capitalist, and feminist economics taught by Cassie Thornton, a yoga instructor, feminist thought leader, and activist artist from Thunder Bay, Ontario. According to Thornton’s website, she teaches kundalini yoga while also instructing students on issues related to money, debt, race, gender, and class. You can read her article over at Guts Magazine.
Kelly Diels, a Vancouver-based feminist marketing guru (our word, not hers) writes in her last newsletter: “For a long time, I’ve been encouraging the people I write for and the authors and entrepreneurs I work with to share what they truly know—even when it’s polarizing.” Despite its challenges, Diels believes you can succeed. Most of us know first-hand that mixing business with feminist systems change work is dicey stuff. Succeeding requires unique insight—and Diels has this in spades. If you are not following Diels’ newsletter, you are missing out.
The new anti-harassment Bill (C-65) is in its final stages. As a feminist entrepreneur, it is important to be up on the facts and the discussions. It’s not perfect, but its good. You can read the latest point of view on the bill (published by CUPE) here.

CAN’T MISS EVENTS

Black Women in Tech
Saturday, May 19, 2018
2:00 PM–4:00 PM
Bitmaker
220 King Street West, Unit 200, Toronto
Cost: By Donation

I Love You Mary Jane: Women, Weed and Wellness
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
7:00 PM–9:30 PM
Shecosystem Coworking + Wellness
703 Bloor Street West, Toronto
Cost: $20. Register here.

Startup & Slay: Panel & Meetup With Diverse Female Entrepreneurs
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
6:00 PM–9:30 PM
Spaces
180 John Street, Toronto
Cost: $45-50. Register here.

Financial Planning for Entrepreneurs: Learn About Cash Flow Management
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
10:00 AM–11:30 AM
Verity Club
111D Queen Street East, Toronto
Cost: $15. Register here.

The Big Push Expert Series: Best Hiring Practices to Increase Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace
Thursday, May 31, 2018
6:30 PM–9:30 PM
Uberflip
370 Dufferin Street, Toronto
Cost: $15–$250. Register here.

Walking Your Why: Discovering Your Values Perspectives
Thursday, June 14, 2018
6:00 PM–8:00 PM
School for Social Entrepreneurs
720 Bathurst Street, Toronto
Cost: $0-50. Register here.

That brings us to the end of our May newsletter. The next newsletter is scheduled for late June 2018. In the meantime, follow us on Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook for updates, news, and provocative views.

You can also watch for new feature articles on feminist outsourcing plus more this month at www.liisbeth.com.

If you are looking for an easy way to support feminist entrepreneurs, look no further than considering a subscription to LiisBeth! We humbly remind you that subscriptions are $3/month, $7/month or $10/month.

If you would like us to promote your event, we are happy to do so if it suits our readers’ interests! It’s free for current subscriber donors; for non-donors there is a one-time donation of $25 per listing.

We accept PayPal and credit cards. And we also now have a Patreon page!

Funds go directly towards paying writers, editors, proofreaders, photo permission fees, and illustrators. LiisBeth needs your love—and financial support.

In the meantime: stay bold, be safe.

Petra Kassun-Mutch
Founding Publisher, LiisBeth

Tags #AI, #entrepreneurialfeminist, #offtheradar, Artificial Intelligence, Bikeonomics, co-working space, Entrepreneurship, Feminism, indigenous feminism, Katrina McKay, Lex Schroder, Liberals, make lemonade, Ontario election, The Wing, Uplevel

CONTRIBUTORS

ABOUT

support us

Pinch me, I must be dreaming.

When Giants Break Free-A New Reality for Indigenous Relations in Canada

Vegan Egg Nog?

One-Eyed Innovation Mindset At Work

HEY! HAVE YOUR SAY!

LAST CALL! 2 x SIGNED COPIES of Gender Physics by Betty-Ann Heggie. Share our Patreon page on the social media platform of your choice and email us your mailing address here and you got yourself a sweet holiday read.

New $9M Women’s Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub Announced! And the Hub grant was given to Ryerson University. What do people think? Read all about it here.

On the lighter side, looking for something different to make for dessert this holiday season? Check out this amazing sweet potato pie recipe by Eden Hagos, founder of Black Foodie. Brown sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, sweet potatoes…mmmmm.

Jennifer Armbrust, founder of Sister and an L.A. based feminist business school and a coach for embodied business practice has launched a new book called Proposals for the Feminine Economy! Check out her website and the book which offers 100 pages of proposals, principles and photos here.

Creating a Feminist City: We Rise By Lifting Others

Sound attractive? We could call this The Feminist City.

100% woman owned and queer feminist lead, The Gladstone Hotel is located in Toronto, Canada

“New ideas must use old buildings.” – Jane Jacobs

Solutionary Ideas From a Love-Based Revolutionary

FEMINIST FREEBIE! HOLIDAY GIFT FOR THE FEMINIST ENTREPRENEUR WHO HAS EVERYTHING!

LET’S GO TO THE EFFs! CAUTION: FORUM MAY ADVANCE SOCIAL JUSTICE AND GENDER EQUALITY

SEE YOU THERE!

Kids, Dogs, and Automobiles

Turning the Grey Tsunami into the Silver Economy

older people are less reliable in the workforce

you can’t train older people

older people are taking jobs away from young people

Welcome Francesca Da Costa!

We are still looking for two additional directors to join and diversify our board. If you, or someone you know is interested in advancing entrepreneurial feminism, we would love to hear from you! Drop us a email here outlining your interest.

Last month in Ottawa, we gifted Minister Ng with one of our signature t-shirts. She was pleased with message and promised to wear it the next time she announces more funding support for Women Entrepreneurs.

We’re stunned with how many good queries come to LiisBeth and sometimes it’s hard to know what readers want. So we thought we’d do it the feminist way and ask you directly!

AND THE WINNERS ARE…

Our book recommendation from last month won the Governor’s General’s Award for Fiction! Sarah Henstra’s The Red Word was among the seven English language books announced in November. Listen to Henstra on CBC radio here. (12 minute segment)

Do Women’s Networking Events Move the Needle on Equality? The short answer: yes. Author Shawn Achor wrote this article in the Harvard Business Review full of stats about the power of connection, and it’s not just about gender. (See you at the EFFs!)

Women’s Entrepreneurship Day is everyday, but especially this past week, on November 19th, following the WEDO Summit (Women’s Entrepreneurship Day Organization) at the UN in New York City. See who attended the summit here.

Nearly 9.1M firms in the US are owned by women and generate $1.4 trillion in sales. Celebrate #ChooseWOMEN on November 28th, by joining the greatest movement to empower women in business. Click here to join

That brings us to the end of our November newsletter. You’ll see a website refresh and newsletter mid-December, 2018, after we come up for air post-EFFs.

VIEWPOINT

That brings us to the end of our September newsletter. The next website refresh and newsletter is scheduled for October 15th, 2018. Did you read something of value in this newsletter?

VIEWPOINT

The answer is in knowing “how to get through a gateless gate“.

THIS WEEK ON LIISBETH

LIISBETH FIELD NOTES

WHAT WE’RE READING

AND FINALLY…IN CASE YOU MISSED IT!

CAN’T MISS EVENTS

VIEWPOINT

THIS WEEK ON LIISBETH

FIELD NOTES

And finally…in case you missed it!

CAN’T MISS EVENTS

VIEWPOINT

THIS WEEK ON LIISBETH

FIELDNOTES

WHAT WE’RE READING

AND FINALLY…IN CASE YOU MISSED IT!

CAN’T MISS EVENTS

CONTRIBUTORS

ABOUT

support us

FEMINIST FREEBIE!
HOLIDAY GIFT FOR THE FEMINIST ENTREPRENEUR WHO HAS EVERYTHING!

LET’S GO TO THE EFFs!
CAUTION: FORUM MAY ADVANCE SOCIAL JUSTICE AND GENDER EQUALITY

That brings us to the end of our September newsletter. The next website refresh and newsletter is scheduled for October 15th, 2018.
Did you read something of value in this newsletter?

The answer is in knowing “h ow to get through a gateless gate“.