What if we could rank cities according to how desirable they were for women and gender minorities to live, work and play? And 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?  Consider:

• Safety in all areas of a city, during day and night.
• Refuge sites and high quality support for victums of gender violence. (or better yet, declining numbers)
• A thriving diverse women-led entrepreneurship ecosystem.
• Equal wages (Ontario has a 31% gap).
• Equal gender representation on corporate and non-profit boards as well as city council.
• Affordable and accessible daycare.
• Vibrant, inclusive mentor networks.
• A five block feminist and social justice centered enterprise district.
• A thriving feminist art, music, media and culture scene.
• Subway stations and main streets re-named after prominent women and gender minority leaders.
• Subsidized feminist summer and March break camp programs-for all genders.
• Plenty of green space for recharging and connecting root chakras with Mother Earth.
• Progressive attitudes towards women in all sectors including civic affairs, the legal system, and reproductive health.
• A self-identified feminist Mayor.
• (Add your idea here)

Sounds attractive? Welcome to The Feminist City.

Why The Feminist City?

We bet women (and their families) from around the world would flock to The Feminist City—to live, work, invest, and thrive. And we bet men would gain too. As would gender nonconforming folks and others from diverse backgrounds.

In addition, the economy would experience a much needed spark. There is a strong business case (jobs, tourism dollars, quality of life) behind the idea that The Feminist City would produce incredible economic development opportunities—cities could do themselves (and us) a big favour by trying to become one.

Progressive Politics Produce Economic Benefits

At the turn of this century, when cities were looking for a competitive edge or ways to save enfeebled economies, urban theorist Richard Florida, extending the brilliant work of urbanist Jane Jacobs,  seemed to provide the answer: Find ways to attract the “creative class” who were deemed to be the force capable of reviving rusting, industrial age economies. Creative-class infused cities would later become the economic heroes of the times. The Harvard Business Review hailed his book, The Rise of The Creative Class, as the major breakthrough idea of 2004.

Who comprised this creative class? The “super creative” ten per cent epicentre of this class or worker included scientists, engineers, university professors, poets, novelists, artists, entertainers, actors, designers, and architects”. (Note: All male-led fields). But essentially, the bulk of the creative class folk were primarily socially marginalized people considered to be dreamers, sketchy or undesirables in prior decades. Florida proposed that cities that invited diversity and were were more tolerant of outliers were and would continue to be, more economically resilient and successful. At that time, his indicators for tolerance was measured by how friendly a city was towards “unconventional people – gays, immigrants, artists, and ‘free-thinking bohemians’.”

Florida did not consider gender equity as part of his original creative class formula. In fact, he didn’t consider the health of the local feminist ecosystem as a key driver of economic success in subsequent updates of his theory—that is, until 2012.

Now, with gender inequality persisting and mother earth being pummelled to breaking point (Coincidentally? We think not!) Feminism has remerged from the deep like Godzilla (who is female by the way) to level the field and fight the dark blue scourge. Florida took notice and reflected this in his most recent work. As did others interested in saving economies gasping for air. Advancing women has suddenly become the neoliberal capitalist equivalent to trading bitcoins—perceived huge potential for outsized returns and fast.

Today, many national governments and multi-national corporations are betting that advancing equality for women and girls will fuel new economic growth. Consequently, more people than ever before in history are working to advance gender equity in all sectors. However, the idea that progressive pro-women urban development policy can attract high-growth, next-gen industries, new tourism dollars, and make our cities more livable/visitable for all genders is only just now starting to catch on at the municipal level.

Buh-bye Creative Class? Welcome The Feminist Class!

As evidence, progressive female urban planners are increasingly organizing and working together on about at how to make cities better for women and girls. Their tactics include getting more women involved in urban planning, shaping policies that advance gender justice, and designing more inclusive, safe public spaces. In step, progressive economic development officers are working on strategies to attract high-growth, women-led enterprises.  In other words, they are talking about criteria and strategies for creating a feminist city.

The media has also jumped on the idea by writing about what cities are best for women. In 2014, Bustle, a U.S. based feminist magazine, identified the eight best cities for women to live in in the United States. Editors considered factors like the gender wage gap, laws related to reproductive health, and the depth and “breadth of the city’s historical foundations of progressive feminism in the city.” The list of cities included San Francisco (CA), Austin TX), Philadelphia (PA), and New York City (NY). While these cities have earned a reputation as being female friendly, local governments don’t market themselves as such nor do they demonstrate any specific commitment to gender equity or the advancement of women and girls. They still have a long way to go to being truly feminist cities.

A Tale of Two Cities

Across the pond, Spain’s capital of Madrid is actively marketing their commitment to gender equity and feminist ideals in an attempt to boost tourism—and their annual growth rate in that sector already generates hot green envy amongst peers.

The Mayor and City Council of the city of 3.6 million has declared straight up, loud and proud, that Madrid is a feminist city. And they back it up with action. Just over a year ago, the City Council created the Department for Policies of Gender and Diversity “in order to coordinate efforts to eradicate the perverse effects produced by our patriarchal society.” Says Mayor Manuella Carmena Castrillo: “It is a task that involves all branches of government, even if these are themselves fueled by such a culture.”

Madrid’s effort to advance equity and inclusion is multi-faceted. The “Espacios de igualdad” (“Spaces of Equality”) are 13 projects located in districts around the city that “act as a place of reference for citizenship.” The “spaces” offer workshops and activities to raise awareness of how a culture transmits inequality. They have legal, psychological and professional development initiatives to train all citizens on how to promote gender equality and transform the culture.

The city has also launched two extra-curricular educational programs — “Escuelas de Empoderamiento (“Schools of Empowerment”) and Escuelas de Igualdad (“Schools of Equality”)—that “raise awareness and mobilize the population around issues of equality by disseminating the great contributions brought about by feminism and implications around the concept of gender.”

We could go on. But let’s stop and think about how such initiatives might fly in North American cities. In LiisBeth’s hometown of Toronto, a city similar in size and scale of influence to Madrid, it’s nearly inconceivable to imagine the current mayor or council, both conservative leaning, seizing on feminism as an opportunity.

Toronto’s mayor, John Tory, recently spoke at Move the Dial, a big-budget, Silicon Valley style event to promote women’s participation and advancement in STEM sectors. In a fireside chat with Canadian tech entrepreneur celebrity Michelle Romanov, Tory boasted about his team’s success in luring another hollywood-style bro-owned and led tech conference-Collision–which featured Eva Longoria (acress from Desparate Housewives) as a draw in 2017-to the city for the next three years. He said that a big attraction for organizers was Toronto’s diverse talent pool in STEM. In fact, he mentioned Toronto’s diversity—we counted five times—as a primary draw for people and companies who come to Toronto. Because Toronto is home to people from some 230 different nationalities who negotiate life here, eat each other’s cuisine, and live side by side largely peacefully.

But the city is far from being a beacon of a gender equity progress. Step one in creating a feminist city is making cities safe for women and girls and every six days, a woman is killed by her intimate partner in Canada—Toronto, as Canada’s most populous city, shares this burdensome stat. Only 30% of Toronto’s new city council are women. Toronto’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion website lists 10 specific equity initiatives—but not-a-one related to gender equity.  None of Canada’s TSX top 60 companies—the majority headquartered in Toronto-are headed by a woman. There are only two independent women-led entrepreneur co-working and incubator spaces in existence within city boundaries. Rather than working to shore up women’s entrepreneurship ecosystems, especially in the human-centered economy sectors, the city closed EMBER, the city’s only women-led/women-centred startup incubator program, in 2016. If you type the word “feminism” into the City of Toronto’s website, you get two hits (Madrid=3020 hits).  As a result, Toronto’s tourism and economic development strategy (Read: tech, tech, more tech, nothing but tech. Did we say tech?) looks like it is stuck in the 1990s—the decade the internet went mainstream. All this is unfortunate and dated if Madrid is any indication. Time to run toward where the ball is going-not where it’s been.

The city of Madrid is not perfect. But it takes action. In April, thousands across Spain took to the streets to protest the lenient sentencing of five men in the violent, video-taped “wolf pack” gang rape of a teen attending a bull running festival in Pamplona. Thousands of men and women across Spain took to the streets to protest. The ruling was seen as especially out of touch with the Madrid’s feminist leaning societal values. Madrid responded by banning the men from travelling to Madrid (where the victum was from), and stepping up initiatives to ensure the safety of women and girls in its streets. This included setting up “puntos violetas” purple coloured posts during city festivals where anyone feeling unsafe could get help or advice. The city has also funded a new hotline and specialized network to respond to gender violence. The “Neighborhoods for Good Treatment” initiative includes signs and door hangers for businesses and homes to signal they are safe spaces.

How a city responds to gender-based violence says a lot.

Last spring, Toronto also experienced a high-profile horrific case of gender-based violence—a man driving a van intentionally veered off the road and onto a sidewalk, targeting women. He managed to kill 10 people, eight of whom were women. On social media, the 25-year-old van driver had declared himself an incel (involuntary celibate) and was angry at woman for not wanting to have sex with him.

Torontonians held emotional vigils and flags few half-mast. But there was no follow on city funded initiative launched to advance safety for women and girls or promote gender relations dialogue in response. Surprisingly, Toronto has only one rape crisis centre for a city of 2.7 million. People wait for up to 18 months to get help. Furthermore, its meager funding is currently on the line.

That’s chilling, really.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. And lack of action around ensuring safe cities for women might soon hurt those municipalities who continue along a similar path. It’s not a situation a feminist city would accept.

Going Forward?

Move over creative class. It’s 2019. Today’s activists, still closeted intersectional feminists of all genders are the new  transformational urban “undesirables”. And listen up L.A., Berlin, Tokyo, London, Melbourne, Cape Town, and Toronto—embracing feminism and working to elevate gender equality can supercharge your economy—and more importantly, transform the lived experience of your citizens, in amazing, positive ways previously unimagined.

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.

#womenaresafehere #transpeoplearesafehere #genderqueerpeople are safehere. 

Additional Reading:

https://www.liisbeth.com/2019/09/24/feminist-in-the-city/

The post Creating a Feminist City: We Rise by Lifting Others appeared first on LiisBeth.

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An Alternative model of whiteness painted by Golnaz Golnaraghi

I am a first-generation immigrant woman from Iran, standing in a room comprised of mostly white folks. I had a paintbrush in my hands and found myself creating art that represented a model of whiteness, an alternative model.

I was participating in a workshop that was part of the White Privilege Conference – Global, held recently in Toronto. “Whiteness without White Supremacy,” was facilitated by Dr. Dori Tunstall, Dean of the Faculty of Design at OCAD University — the first black dean to hold such a post in North America.

What emerged in my art conveyed my vision of a model of whiteness with a strong and rooted core grounded in love, power sharing, co-creation, empathy, iterative-learning, equality, and belonging.

I hadn’t considered writing about the conference — until after, when I felt compelled to share my reflections. But first, a bit of background.

The conference was hosted by Ryerson University’s Office of Equity and Community Inclusion, headed by Vice President Dr. Denise O’Neil Green. It followed on the heels of the 2016 White Privilege Symposium hosted by Brock University. The WPC was founded in 1999 in the United States and brought to Canada by Dr. Eddie Moore Jr., a diversity, privilege and leadership consultant and educator who also founded The Privilege Institute.

At a Ryerson Soup and Substance Session held prior to the WPC, Dr. Moore explained that when he was a practitioner working towards a PhD and attending and presenting at conferences, he felt that diversity was the one topic that seemed stunted at a basic level, without a growth process. “We would never accept that if our kids stayed in math in the same course all the way through their high school.” So, he set out to make the WPC the Calculus course for diversity. The conference, utilizing what he calls an “inclusive relationship model,” offers a space for deep dialogue and solutions-based action around systems of supremacy, privilege, power, and leadership.

Walking into the theatre hall on my first day of the conference, I felt a palpable excitement in the room. There were more than 500 participants—one of the most diverse I’ve ever experienced—from a range of genders, races, religions, and sexual orientations and hailing from a broad mix of sectors, most notably education and non-profit.

The quality of the seven keynote speakers (four women and three men) was impressive—all accomplished thought leaders, educators, and activists from Canada and the United States. The conference also featured 65 workshops, a Youth Action Program for youth in grades 6-12, a marketplace of more than 20 vendors, and the 10^th annual Viola Desmond Awards & Banquet Dinner, named for a Black business woman who challenged racial segregation in Canada but was only recently recognized, becoming the first woman on Canadian currency.

For me, to attend this conference with hundreds of people (many white) eager to learn, explore and talk about diversity at the deepest levels, with a spirit of curiosity and respect, was a moving experience. I was inspired by the keynote speakers who dedicated their lives to social justice, despite potential risks of becoming targets of backlash.

At the Soup and Substance Session, Dr. Moore explained that risk: “What I’ve learned doing this conference is if you’re really good at this work, people will put your life in danger.” He said that was a significant threat, as the father of two young children. But he vowed never to let fear hold him back from taking action.

That is no easy thing. In her book So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo cites retaliation as the number one concern for people of colour engaged in racial justice work. Activists face harassment on social media, protests at public events, and threatening emails, just to name a few threats. The WPC in Toronto was no exception as protesters held a public rally on the last day of the event, calling a conference on white privilege “racist.”

But as Oluo aptly reflects in her book, “Conversations about racism should never be about winning. This battle is too important to be simplified. You are in this to share, and to learn. You are in this to do better and be better.”

The purpose of the conference was not about blaming a group of people but, instead, acknowledging the systemic causes of oppression and inequalities—and their effects. Ultimately the goal was to move us towards meaningful conversations, solutions and change, in societies and ourselves.

The conference explored many rich concepts, far too many to cover in one article. What I seek to share are themes from the keynote speakers that stood out for me.

We must reject talking about white privilege in a disembodied way

We cannot talk about white privilege without speaking about white supremacy, so said Toronto-based social activist and freelance journalist Desmond Cole. He emphasized that white supremacy is a system of power that designates value to individuals based on the perception of skin colour and ethnic ancestry, creating a racial hierarchy with notions of whiteness at the top. And, that white supremacy gives rise to white privilege.

Ritu Bhasin, an advocate for authenticity, inclusion and empowerment, defined white supremacy as the “ideology that white people are better, more valuable, more deserving, more competent, more able than people of colour and indigenous peoples; how it shows up and how it manifests is by way of power and privilege.”

Cole called on us to reject conversations that speak about white privilege in a disembodied way, as if white privilege were not connected to the history of colonialism, slavery, capitalism—a white privilege “that just exists, ‘cause it exists, ‘cause it exists and is sad and unfortunate, but that’s just the way it is. Heck, can you even change it? Maybe it’s a force of nature!”

Cole pointed out the ways white supremacy plays out in the policing system. Cole, himself, was arrested at a police board meeting where he took the microphone to speak out about Dafonte Miller, a Black teen who was allegedly severely beaten by an off-duty Toronto police officer and his brother. As a prominent voice and critic of the Toronto Police, Cole was also part of a successful effort to remove police presence at Toronto public high schools.

We must recognize privilege and how it affects us, in different ways

In basic terms, privilege is a set of benefits, advantages or ‘perks’ afforded people who fit into a particular social group. We hear about male privilege. But what about straight privilege? Ability privilege? Class privilege? White privilege? It may be difficult to recognize our own privilege while we are enjoying the perks, but we must seek to understand them based on different aspects of our identity such as race, gender, class, sexual orientation, religion, physical ability, etc.

We can be privileged in some aspects of life while experiencing oppression in other areas. To underline this point, Sian Ferguson’s White Privilege 101: A Quick and Dirty Guide offers an example of white people who believe they don’t experience privilege because they are of modest means. Being poor can be an oppression but does not negate the benefit that comes with being white. Cole drew an analogy of a 100-meter sprint: “Some people are starting at 70 meters and some people are starting at zero. And some people are going to get arrested as soon as the shot gun goes off to start running, so that they have to be put back to the beginning.”

For those who may struggle with seeing their own white privilege, Dr. Adrien K. Wing, Associate Dean at University of Iowa and editor of Critical Race Feminism, suggests a read of Dr. Peggy McIntosh’s 1989 article “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” McIntosh, a white woman, offers a personal account of taking a closer look at her own daily experiences with white privilege, which she once took for granted. These are some of her observations:

• I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
• If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.
• I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to “the person in charge,” I will be facing a person of my race.
• I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys and children’s magazines featuring people of my race.
• I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared.

Wing reminded us of recent incidents that might extend the list—Going to Starbucks While Black and Dozing at Yale While Black. “Every single day another one of these episodes happen and for some of you it can be like ‘Wow that’s sad,’ but for those of us subjected to that potentially every day, this is no joke.”

We must look at Allyship as not a noun that we are, but an action we do

That powerful comment, from one of the conference MC’s, captured the essence of the conference for me.

Cole urged the audience to stop using the word “allyship” and, instead, to consider, “Are you my friend? Cause my friend would see me being harmed and would stand in front of me to protect me…I want you to be my friend and I want you to be, ideally, if we can get really close, my family.” What I took from Cole’s message? We must move beyond talk, beyond calling ourselves allies, towards taking action—with courage and heart.

Dr. Jane Fernandes, President of Guilford College, and the first deaf woman to lead an American college or university, has also been active in addressing critical race justice issues. Growing up as a deaf white woman, she experienced a structure of hierarchy in the deaf community that mirrors the hearing community, with whiteness also at the top. “If we share an oppression with people of colour, like deaf black people and deaf white people, we share deaf and then we’re fighting for deaf rights, and we can forget that we are white.” But by understanding what goes on in the intersections, we can begin to dismantle and transform the system. Doing so makes our advocacy more inclusive and effective.

“Our choice when we know about our white privilege and we understand all these things about how it was created,” she said, “is to use it in such a way as to dismantle our system (of oppression).” That starts with small acts. “If everyone here disrupts the system a little bit five times a day, every day, that’s massive.”

We must be self-empowered warriors to make change

Dr. Shirley Cheechoo, who achieved a double first—first female and first Aboriginal Chancellor at Brock University—is also an award-winning artist, actor and filmmaker. She shared a moving account of her eight years in the residential school system where she experienced harrowing emotional, physical and sexual abuse. She turned to drugs and alcohol to blunt the pain—until she decided to quit, cold turkey, and turn her life around. She recalled her grandfather’s advice: “Forgive but never forget about it. Shirley do not let anyone choose your path in life. You have to let go of the old self. Self is not something already made. It is through your choice of actions that you create your best self.”

Cheechoo chose not to forget her past, but to stop being a victim of it. “We cannot wait for the next generation to make a difference. We are responsible, and we have the opportunity to make change.”

Motivated by a deep passion to serve indigenous youth, by helping them live their potential, she founded De-ba-jeh-mu-jig Theatre Group (the only professional theatre company located on a reserve in Canada) and Weengushk Film Institute (a film and television training centre unlocking the creative potential of indigenous youth). “For years I have asked as a mother, as a woman in my community, how long, how many more years are we going to leave the children and the youth in the hands of unemployment? How many more people will have to fall into the trap that steals and butchers lives, dreams, and hopes of our next generation to come? We must learn to defeat the system and fix the problem now, and we must do it together. The Third World Country is right here, in our backyards.”

We must take the bridge on the path forward

Dr. John A. Powell, an internationally recognized author, speaker, and Director and Chancellor’s Chair at Hass Institute at UC Berkley, gave a rich talk on “Rethinking White Privilege in the Age of White Supremacy and Ethnic Nationality.”

Powell explained that when we talk about white privilege and ethnic nationalism, “We’re talking about a process of ‘othering,’ we’re talking about some people claiming that they belong, and those same people claiming that other people don’t belong.” He suggested that this process of ‘othering’ is a problem that has gained power into the 21^st century and is happening all over the world.

Othering, Powell said, can be thought about as “the way we marginalize people, the way we distribute resources, the way we recognize consciously and unconsciously as well as structurally, people’s humanity. You can ‘other’ someone without necessarily having a conscious animus towards someone.” And that can be based on a variety of dimensions—gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion and on and on.

“The opposite of ‘othering’ is not ‘saming,’ it’s belonging,” he said. “When you think about integration, inclusion, you think about people coming into your space, but it’s still your space. You can ask them to leave.” But belonging, he pointed out, is saying “It’s not your house, it’s not my house, it’s our house. When people really belong, they co-create the thing they belong to.” According to Powell, this is done through a process of bridging, listening, engaging, organizing, and love.

Ethnic nationalism, he pointed out, has become more explicit because of migration patterns and increased diversity, specifically that of the ethnic ‘other.’ That reminded me of narratives reflected in the 2016 elections in the United States, the global refugee crisis, the US travel ban, the US migrant crisis, as just a few examples.

He offered two dominant stories in society available to us: “One is breaking, which is stories about the fear of the ‘other,’ in some way threatening or taking something away from who we are. And the other is a bridging story, which is that we are actually going to enlarge the ‘we’ and the ‘other’ will be a part of that new we.” Bridging takes us towards a path of human connection and belonging.

Powell also talked to the changing demographics in Canada, citing Joe Friesen’s Globe and Mail article that said, “By 2031, one in three Canadians will belong to a visible minority. One in four will be foreign-born, the highest proportion since the end of the last wave of mass immigrantion that began around 1910.” Powell asked the audience to consider what Canada’s story might be and who will tell that story? “And so, will we bridge? Or will we break?”

We must move forward

And so, I left the conference with my painting of what an alternative model of ‘whiteness’ might look, realizing that it’s a ‘we-ness’ we must strive for, rooted at the core, grounded in love, power sharing, co-creation, empathy, equality, belonging. And the call to me, to take the bridge forward through action, translating that painting into all the narratives that shape our lives: schools, teams, workplaces, boardrooms, business models, advisory groups, government. And on and on.

For more information about the White Privilege Conference in Toronto, click here. For more information about the 2019 White Privilege Conference in Iowa, click here.

Additional Resources:

To watch recordings of the keynote speakers at the Ryerson White Privilege Conference, click here.

The post What We Are Talking About When We Talk About White Privilege: Themes From the White Privilege Conference in Toronto appeared first on LiisBeth.

https://www.liisbeth.com/2017/08/31/honouring-labour-day-playlist-pushes-boundaries/

September is here, an ambivalent time of the year for many. Summer is winding down, along with its warmth, weekend getaways, and all the friendships and romances that emerged from the woodworks in those expansive months. But September, in this annual cycle, has always been a time to dig in. We come back to our initiatives, our priorities, and we reconnect with the people in our lives who are part of our structures and commitments. We land back into our communities and routines.

For the team at Venus Fest, September is the culmination of our work. We’ve worked on structures and priorities that we can be proud to land back into and that support a feminist, intersectional, and thriving ecosystem for our social future. This is how we will repair a lost sense of connection in our communities and a more welcoming space for everyone.

The following is a playlist of songs from artists that are showcasing at Venus Fest this year, artists who are repairing these connections and sharing a vision of feminism with their followings and communities.

Zola Jesus, “Siphon”

This song is a beautiful call to life. Zola Jesus sings of remembering the light in someone’s eyes and insists that “we won’t let you bleed out.” The lyrics are like a redemptive poem that speak of our ability to find connection, to remain connected, and to lift each other up through this connection.

Vallens, “Devour”

Vallens have delivered twisted grunge rock to Toronto’s music scene for several years. Singer Robyn Phillips brings moving themes to her lyrics with commentary on consent, the male gaze, and in the case of “Devour,” she’s given us a beautiful contemplation on cultural concepts of beauty that time might devour as we mature.

Maylee Todd, “Downtown”

Maylee Todd has been a pillar of Toronto’s music community for over a decade now, from her lush disco soundscapes, to her Ableton Live workshops geared towards women and artists of colour, to her virtual womb installations and much more. “Downtown” is a perfect showcase of Maylee’s style: shimmering melodies over a fully costumed scene with a healthy dose of the bizarre.

OSHUN, “Parts”

Brooklyn natives OSHUN, named after the goddess of water, have been making soulful music for years but recently released their first LP to well-deserved reception. The video shows the duo continuing to elevate and honour their goddess nature even when confronted by the confusion of others.

Moor Mother, “By The Light”

Moor Mother has had a long history in her career of powerful rap music built with an earthy feel and a deconstructed honesty. I imagine “By The Light” to be a connecting piece between the binding chains and ancestral pain in the song and the light that still exists within each person, a light that keeps us going and connects us all.

Bully, “Guess There”

This is a video about your average lonely, suburban snail. “I guess there could be something I’m missing,” sings frontwoman Alicia Bognanno in a nod to the isolation and lack of connection inherent in Western culture. It’s an honest look at the monotony of routines that we can get trapped in and the disconnect it causes.

Partner, “Play The Field”

If there’s a Canadian band right now that brings connection to every show it plays, it’s Partner. They have an amazing ability to relate to their audience and as a result, their music brings a lot of warmth to listeners and the community that gathers at their shows. Here’s a funny song about a cute woman that makes them want to “play the field.”
bully gue

Ora Cogan, “Moonbeam”

Ora Cogan’s “Moonbeam” video seems to be the perfect visual representation of her unique sound: ethereal and soul stirring with a sense of longing and a wash of darkness. Ora has been building her craft over several years and has created a healthy handful of albums with a true DIY spirit that pioneers her path in music and her relationship to her audiences.

TiKA, “All Day All Night ft. HMLT”

This powerful song by Toronto/Montreal artist TiKA is a prayer to freedom in the face of a constant threat against Black lives. “All day all night, I have to fight to keep my balance but I’m right here,” she sings, answering to a world where oppression still exists all day and all night, alongside the truth of her personal freedom.

Isla Craig, “Gregory (Live)”

You may recognize Isla Craig’s soaring voice from having graced the albums of Jennifer Castle, US Girls, and many more. Her own music has always been a treasured, albeit rare presence in the Toronto scene. However, Isla has returned this year with her album The Becoming, a testament to the strength of a local artist who has built community and connection around her music, and can re-emerge after several years with something entirely fresh and inspired.

Did you enjoy this playlist!  Good news!  Good news!  We have more! You can also find LiisBeth on Spotify! 

https://www.liisbeth.com/2018/03/15/a-change-makers-playlist/

https://www.liisbeth.com/2017/08/31/honouring-labour-day-playlist-pushes-boundaries/

https://www.liisbeth.com/2017/07/11/summer-reset-playlist-feminist-entrepreneurs/

https://www.liisbeth.com/2017/02/13/cure-chaos-playlist-feed-heart-mind/

The post LiisBeth’s Fall Playlist: It’s Time to Soar appeared first on LiisBeth.

The post Woman is Wolf to Woman appeared first on LiisBeth.

During a dark period in Katrina McKay’s life many years ago, she visited a temple in India dedicated to Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of prosperity. The only visible foreigner, and unfamiliar with local religious customs, she was overwhelmed. When she reached the temple’s altar to offer some crumpled bills, two poor women handed her flowers and treats to leave instead. “I felt so loved and so connected,” McKay recalls.

A thought occurred to McKay: “I want to be a living Lakshmi.” At the time, she didn’t know how she would accomplish this, but she was determined to create some kind of abundance for others.

Today, the serial feminist entrepreneur and founder of Uplevel Solutions, a provider of outsourced business services for startups and emerging companies, is on her way to fulfilling her mission. She has created sustainable employment primarily for women in the Philippines, while helping entrepreneurs in Canada and other developed countries grow their own enterprises.

The Path to Entrepreneurship is Rarely Straight

I met with McKay at The Spoke Club, a private club in Toronto, to talk about her entrepreneurial mission. The 35-year-old CEO nestled into a chair beside a sunlit window and looked, well, decidedly anti-corporate: long black hair, a nose ring, and the word “Sisu” (Finnish for “will”) tattooed on the back of her neck. Indeed, she describes her path in business as circuitous.

Her start was rather traditional, however. Grew up in a prosperous family in Mississauga, a city just outside Toronto. Attended Appleby College, a private school. Looking back, she says she was always an entrepreneur at heart. “I know that’s super cliché,” she says, adding that even as a kid, she was always trying to create value in the world, starting an environmental club and organizing charity fundraisers at her school.

Yet, she steered clear of business, pursuing a degree in French literature and philosophy at the University of Toronto, graduating in 2005. At the end of her first year, she took another unexpected detour, falling in love with an Australian who was in Canada on a holiday visa. “I didn’t have little girl princess dreams of being in a white dress,” McKay says. She married at the age of 20 so her boyfriend could stay in Canada. She also thought she could help him overcome his mental health challenges. “I believed I could love him more than he hated himself.”

After graduation, McKay worked in various fast-paced and demanding marketing roles in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). “I was bright and inexpensive,” she says. When her bosses had an idea, she ran with it. Looking back, she says, “I was living entrepreneurship. It just wasn’t my company.”

But as McKay’s husband deteriorated mentally and physically, she decided to join a major Canadian health charity in 2009. It was a conservative, bureaucratic environment for a progressive go-getter like McKay, but it provided her with a steady salary, benefits, and predictable hours. This allowed her to fulfill her “strange role as housewife and also breadwinner.”

Despite her efforts, McKay could not save her husband. He died by suicide a year later. “Super dark,” she says of that time. “There is no playbook for being a widow at 27.”

She also struggled in her job, which had become “soul sucking,” especially since the sole reason she was in it was gone. She thought, “I refuse to be stuck.”

So McKay started to moonlight.

Creating Your Own Opportunities is Key

In 2010, McKay launched Ohhh Canada, an online shop for sex toys and apparel. This entrepreneurial venture, she says, was about celebrating life after what had become a sexless marriage. “Sexual empowerment is a big part of healing,” she says.

She also started freelancing as a marketing consultant for SMEs. However, she didn’t quit her day job just yet. “There is this idea among some entrepreneurs that you are only a real entrepreneur if you burn those bridges, cut those ties, and put things on a credit card,” she says. But McKay is pragmatic; she knew the value of a steady paycheque to finance her dreams.

But by 2011, the juggling of a salaried position and her side businesses became too much. McKay fell into a loving, stable romantic relationship (they’re still partners). There was no personal care-taking involved but she regularly worked 100-hour weeks at her various ventures and was exhausted. “My partner would ask, ‘What do you want for dinner?’ and I would burst into tears.”

What little time she had to herself was quickly filled with invitations to lunch from marketing clients and people in her network who noticed the sudden growth of Ohhh Canada. They wanted to pick her brain about how to fix their own company or launch an e-commerce business. She said sure for a while then realized, “Wait a minute. What I’m actually doing is coaching.” So she expanded her marketing consulting business and added business coaching to help entrepreneurs realize their entrepreneurial vision.

But McKay became desperate for any help to lighten her load. She tried hiring locally but found it difficult to attract and retain talent as a small business. “It was expensive for my little fledgling business when I was trying to put money aside to quit my full-time job.” People would quit and she would be back to square one. “It’s a gig economy,” she says. “How much loyalty will they show you when another employer offers more hours or money, and a more enchanting opportunity?”

That’s when the idea of hiring a virtual assistant dawned on her. She had trained virtual teams in India before for a client in the conference marketing industry. She thought, “Why am I not doing this for myself?” She advertised for Ohhh Canada on an outsourcing site. Metchell Jackson, a Filipino woman in her early 30s living in Dumaguete City, answered her call.

Jackson, an IT graduate, was doing outsourcing work in the call centre of a large retailer at the time but says her “brain cells were dying.” She was intrigued by the opportunity to work with a female entrepreneur, especially one working in the sex business. “I’m very open-minded,” she tells me via Skype. “I have a different view than regular Filipinos. They view [sex] as taboo and bad.”

McKay conducted a job interview with Jackson via Skype and the two said they loved each other instantly. “It sounds so cheesy but it’s true,” McKay says.

When McKay asked her to work full-time, Jackson jumped at the chance. “I believed in her mission.” Jackson initially provided customer service for Ohhh Canada then became McKay’s executive assistant for her coaching business, interacting with clients virtually. Soon clients began to ask McKay, “How can I get access to people like Metchell?”

McKay realized her clients faced the same business challenges she had in finding competent, reliable help that they could afford. That’s when yet another entrepreneurial idea hit McKay.

Creating Opportunities for Others is Good for Business

In 2013, McKay launched Uplevel Solutions. By then, she was doing well enough to bootstrap the non-profit on her own.

It helped that Jackson was her “boots on the ground” in the Philippines, sourcing talent there. Uplevel currently has more than 30 team members, mostly women in the Philippines. It also employs a handful of people in Toronto, led by McKay, who focus on strategy development and management of the business.

McKay has now brought all of her ventures (outsourced business services, marketing consulting, and business coaching) under the Uplevel Solutions banner. She says Ohhh Canada is currently on “hiatus” as she repositions it. Typical clients of Uplevel bring in revenue ranging from $250,000 to $1.5 million. “This is our sweet spot,” says McKay.

Her clients are mostly headquartered in Canada, the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. They pay US$5 an hour for virtual administrative support, which generates about 70 per cent of Uplevel’s revenue. The other 30 per cent is comprised of more strategic services such as marketing consulting, public relations, and business coaching (at $2,800 per day).

Half of Uplevel’s clients are female entrepreneurs. Shannon Crane, the founder of Brass Vixens in Toronto, turned to McKay for business coaching when she opened the first of her four pole dancing studios in Toronto six years ago. Back then, she says she was doing everything (“I cleaned the bathrooms, I was answering the phones, I was teaching classes”). She had struggled to find good help since she couldn’t offer predictable hours. Some weeks required 20 hours, other weeks only two. “People weren’t banging down my door [for work],” she says. And as a self-described “control freak,” she struggled with the idea of outsourcing, which requires sharing sensitive information such as passwords with people she had never met. But she trusted McKay and decided to give it a shot.

She was initially surprised by the low rates. Before signing on, she sought confirmation that Uplevel’s employees are paid fairly and the company helps women be successful in their communities. “It’s important for me to align myself with other businesses who are not only like-minded but are also very female positive,” she says. Now, Crane relies on Uplevel for administrative support such as webmaster services.

McKay says that many of her clients would not be able to afford help at all while starting their businesses, even at minimum wage rates in Canada. In the Philippines, Uplevel is able to pay well above that country’s minimum wage, which McKay says varies between rural and urban areas. Her company also pays for training during probation, which is less common in the Philippines. Jackson, McKay’s original hire, is now a manager, earning almost five times what she made in her previous call centre job.

It’s not just the ability to afford help that makes outsourcing attractive to Uplevel’s entrepreneur clients. They often don’t have the time or inclination to find the right talent, invest in training, and deal with thorny HR issues such as performance problems. “I love leading and training people,” McKay says. “And in some cases [entrepreneurs] just don’t have the time to do that. It’s a hassle they don’t really want to be adding to their life or their business.”

As McKay says of many Uplevel clients, “They need to pass some of [the work] off so they can go out to do what they do—continue to grow their empires.”

Staying True to the Mission Takes Work

McKay acknowledges that a stigma has developed around outsourcing due to the exploitation of foreign labour, poor work quality, and the perception that it takes jobs away from Canadians. She says her company has to work hard to overcome that stigma. To her, she sees outsourcing a little differently; it’s a way to give women a leg up in developing countries.

“There aren’t a lot of opportunities for brilliant and talented women,” she says, pointing out that many Filipino women move to Dubai or Canada to work as nannies and send money home to support their own small children. “It’s heartbreaking.”

Jackson, who does most of the recruiting, has a bias towards hiring women. “Because in the Philippines, it’s like they are stuck to be like a wife, nothing more,” she says. “I want to change that.”

One of Jackson’s recruits is Edna Viola, a neighbour. The 23-year-old single Filipino mother had dropped out of teacher’s college after becoming pregnant. “I imagined myself teaching,” she says. “I so loved children.” Instead, she returned home with dim prospects to her parents, who worked as subsistence farmers.

She was considering taking a job at a call centre but it entailed risky night travel. “There are a lot of robbers and bad guys out there,” she says. She was relieved when Uplevel offered work. Though she has to work similar hours, from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. to coincide with North American business hours, she is able to do so safely from home, which also allows her to be close to her son. She also saves on the cost of travel and work clothes.

Viola, like all new hires, started with non-client-facing work. Her skills and attitude were assessed during an eight-week paid probation period, then she was given a development plan, which involved meeting with McKay or another senior manager to discuss past performance and future aspirations. Viola is now a team leader. When McKay first approached her to take on the role, Viola said, “Oh no, I can’t do that. Can you assign to other people?” McKay was adamant. “No, you can do it; we believe in you.”

For McKay, investing in people is important. While all new hires have to be competent in written and spoken English, Uplevel offers internal coaching to support advancement and external resources such as English teachers to help managers communicate with greater professionalism. Employees can receive paid time off to volunteer in the community as long as it is not for political or religious organizations.

Perhaps what is most unusual for a virtual company is the sense of team McKay strives to create. She makes quarterly video calls with everyone in the company. “The team loves that,” says McKay. She also travels to the Philippines annually to bring people together in face-to-face meetings. “We ask how people are feeling and we actually care. Don’t get me wrong, we get on to business; we talk numbers; we talk progress reports and spell out KPIs but we are a people-based business.”

She encourages employees to talk about their life mission at every meeting. McKay takes pride in how people’s missions have changed since joining Uplevel. At the start, Viola’s was to support her family and afford a birthday party for her son. Supporting her family remains her priority but she has begun to dream bigger, setting a goal to travel to Paris. “Her experience and understanding of abundance has changed dramatically,” McKay says.

Uplevel distinguishes itself from other companies providing offshore talent in a key way, according to David Creelman, a corporate consultant on human capital management and co-author of Lead the Work: Navigating a World Beyond Employment. He says not many companies leveraging technology to build virtual teams invest in people the way Uplevel does. “I would say this is unusual,” he says.

Creelman explains that the more standard practice is for North American employers to treat people as dispensable freelancers—even though investing in creating a stable team and a high-involvement culture is a high-performance model. “It’s an interesting competitive strategy that McKay is adopting because we do know if you can pull off a high-involvement work culture, it’s very productive. There is good research on that.”

But Creelman adds a cautionary note: “The evidence also shows that [a high-involvement culture] is hard to sustain and most companies that try it eventually give it up.” Short-term financial pressures often cause managers to lose sight of longer-term strategic benefits. “They start cutting back on training, take career pathing less seriously, and find ways to cut back on compensation and benefits.”

McKay is determined not to let that happen. She says she is not in this business for a quick win. A key part of her mission since her encounter with the Hindu goddess of prosperity so many years ago has been to create abundance for others, though she admits Uplevel was an unexpected way to go about it. “I did not set out to create a business-support services company,” McKay laughs. “How unsexy is that? Yawn. I go from sex toys and lingerie to business support services?”

But her mission continues to fire up business. Uplevel’s top-line revenue has grown steadily, about 25 per cent annually. In the next twelve months, McKay anticipates doubling that, in part by partnering with other service providers to expand Uplevel’s range of services. She wants to be the “go-to company for entrepreneurs looking to grow their company.”

She also wants to live up to the ideals of another hero, Richard Branson. “He always says he takes care of his employees first and then relies on employees to take care of clients,” McKay says. “I feel the same.”

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The post Get (More) Shit Done: Outsource to Level Up Your Entrepreneurial Game appeared first on LiisBeth.

VIEWPOINT

This year I ended up celebrating the winter solstice at Kensington Market in Toronto for the first time with new friends.  Paul, the initiator, described it to me as a sort of “mini-burning man”. It was an apt description. After a brief parade of giant puppets, pagan costumes and a few hundred urban revellers of all ages carrying homemade lanterns, the colourful, lit collective gathered with others in Alexandra Park, where a 20-foot high purpose-built sculpture was thereafter set on fire. The red embers floated up towards the sky while white snowflakes fell. There was drumming, dancing, and hot drinks.  The diverse crowd cheered while also stamping their feet and rubbing their mittened hands together for added warmth on this dark, minus 20 centigrade December night.

While watching the flame devour the papier-mâché and chicken wire animal god sculpture, I noticed the togetherness that the fire aroused in all of us. I was also struck by the fact that while the source of holiday light varies for different cultures and backgrounds—Christmas trees, menorahs, lanterns—there was a certain universality to how people practice the season; It almost always involves acts of generosity, goodwill, healing, and reconnection. Participating in the season in this way leaves you with a sense that renewal is not only possible-but on its way.

It was a welcome feeling that night.  And it still persists on this New Year’s Eve day.

THIS WEEK ON LIISBETH

Winter Solstice Playlist: Beginnings, Endings, and Bridges

LiisBeth is pleased to bring you this smoldering, contemplative and appropriately named new year playlist curated by Aerin Fogel, Toronto musician and founder of Venusfest, a Toronto-based feminist music festival.

The collection features some well-known artists like Bjork, as well as emerging artists like Lido Pimienta (below), a Columbian-Canadian musician and human rights advocate who won this year’s Polaris Music Prize for her album, La Papessa.

The Polaris Prize is based on artistic merit without regard to sales history or label affiliation. Winners are selected by  “a Grand Jury of 11 music media professionals drawn from the greater Polaris jury pool of almost 200 writers, editors, broadcasters, DJs and personalities from across the country.

You can listen to the playlist by clicking here.

It’s here!  The LiisBeth 2018 Feminist Entrepreneur Reading List!

After the entrepreneurial feminist forum in November, many attendees asked for a list of recommended readings to help them dig deeper into the concepts and topics introduced at the November 11 forum held in Toronto at the Ontario College of Art University.  We thought “Good idea!”  So here is the list which includes 20 books and five readings.

You can download it here.  Oh, and I think it goes without saying, don’t try to read them all at once!  S–p–a–c–e it out.

We hope it will give your feminist business practice what you need soar in 2018.

LiisBeth is Now on Patreon!

You may not realize this, but LiisBeth runs on passion diesel and volunteer time, plus the paid contributions of over 20 freelance contributors, editors, and visual artists.

Grants are hard to come by given what we do. (Feminist business practice is for some, still too niche or too scary to contemplate!). We are working on recruiting angel investors who are passionate about the cause. No luck yet. But we’re not giving up!

In the meantime, it’s really up to us, entrepreneurial feminists, to keep this conversation going and growing. 

This is our humble ask: If you have read, benefited from, shared, attended one of our events, heard us speak at a conference, or talked about LiisBeth’s work at least once, we would love to see you deepen your engagement with us by supporting this work not only with your attention and praise but with donations as well. 

We have lots of options. Our subscriptions range from $3 to $10 per month. Or, you can make a one time $5 or $100 donation. It’s up to you to determine what level of support works for your budget.

LiisBeth is open access regardless of how much you donate—and will remain so.

If cash is not an option, you can support us in other ways:

• Share this newsletter with five friends and encourage them to sign up for our newsletter themselves.
• Like our Facebook page. Follow us on Twitter.
• We are also interested in any in-kind hours of support in areas like social media production, volunteering at events, donated photos or artwork for articles, copyediting, and proofreading.
• We are also very interested in speaking to audiences to help more people engage with feminism at work and entrepreneurial feminism. If you need a savvy, energetic feminist entrepreneur speaker or panelist, drop us a line.  We know many of them and are happy to recommend!
• If you would like us to help promote your next event, let us know!  We charge $50.00-$100.00 per website listing plus social media support.

To donate now, please click here or visit our Patreon site here. We are sincerely grateful for any and all types of support.

Are We Making A Difference?  Is Our Work Helping to Advance Gender Equity and Equality?

We have published over 129 articles and have hosted over 500 people at our various events, salons, and forum since we began in February 2016.

But are we having an impact?  Are we contributing to advancing gender justice through our work?

In December, LiisBeth decided to take stock, reflect and publish our findings.

You deserve to know if your contributions are helping us make a difference.

We need to know if we are using our resources in an optimal way given our mission.

Watch for the final report in early January.

In case you missed it!

• Five Startups Disrupting the Gender Problem in Tech by Allison Averill, published in the New Yorker.  It’s a satirical piece.  But woah, you could kind of see it happening for real. Scary.
• In early fall, Toronto’s Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship held a design-led workshop with 25 women entrepreneurs and asked them how they would like to see $450K in provincial funding spent on supporting Ontario women entrepreneurs.  They just released their report.  You can find it here.  And watch for the call for proposals early in 2018. here.

CAN’T MISS EVENTS

• Jan. 20: Innovation in Craft & Design
  A talk presented by Interior Designers of Canada.
  3:00PM–5:00PM, C536-43 Hanna Avenue, Toronto. Free. Register here.

• April 10–11: Diversity Procurement Fair
  Presented by The Canadian Aboriginal and Minority Supplier Council (CAMSC), Beanfield Centre, 105 Princes’ Blvd., Toronto

That brings us to the end of our last newsletter for 2017

Again, we hope you enjoyed it as well as our deeper reads at www.liisbeth.com.

Again, we could also really use your support. Please consider a donation, either as a lump sum ($5, $10, $100, anything will make a difference!) or monthly subscription between $3 to $10 dollars. Remember 100% of our dollars goes towards paying writers, editors, and creators a living wage rate for their work. You might even know a few of them!

The next newsletter is scheduled for mid-January.

Until then, we wish you a very happy, prosperous and generous new year.

Petra Kassun-Mutch
Founding Publisher, LiisBeth

The post LIISBETH DISPATCH #39 appeared first on LiisBeth.

In a city like Toronto where there is no shortage of fun things to do in the evening, it’s hard to imagine anyone would want to spend three hours in a spartan meeting room, volunteering to help two feminist entrepreneurs identify and pin the geolocation of more than 10,000 women-led and majority women–owned enterprises in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).

But people did sign up—and they showed up. City of Women founders Mellisa Shaddick and Christine Gresham are working to create the first online, mobile-friendly feminist enterprise city map in Canada. They kicked off the workathon with a short introduction of the project, some instructions and, with bowls of Jujubes for fuel, the volunteers got to work.

Each volunteer chose a neighbourhood they lived in or were familiar with, then checked businesses listed on Business Improvement Association (BIA) sites (there are 21 BIAs in Toronto) to identify potential enterprises, and researched each company to determine which were women-led or majority women–owned. So far, City of Women have verified and mapped more than 95 enterprises. An additional 200 enterprises self-identified and registered through their website, which will then get verified before being added to the map.

Shaddick and Gresham went to university together but didn’t reconnect until a few years ago when Shaddick returned from a seven-year stint in Australia. Their entrepreneurial “click” came after they were frustrated over how difficult it was to find a woman-identified bike mechanic for an event they were holding. Says Shaddick, “There had to be a better way for people to source products and services made by companies run by and owned by women.” Once she read Rebecca Solnit’s October 2016 New Yorker article titled “City of Women”, the solution became obvious to her.

The City of Women Initiative

In that poignant article, Solnit, who has also published several books and urban atlases, calls out the gendered nomenclature of our cities where the vast majority of our streets, subway stations, buildings, and parks are named after prominent men. She writes, “I can’t imagine how I might have conceived of myself and my possibilities if, in my formative years, I had moved through a city where most things were named after women and many or most of the monuments were of powerful, successful, honoured women. “

To address the “manscape,” Solnit created the first “City of Women” map, which alters the existing New York City subway map and makes visible the history and contributions of women who shaped New York by renaming the subway stations after them.

While they loved Solnit’s concept, Shaddick and Gresham decided to take a different approach. Shaddick explains: “The Solnit approach is wonderful and heartwarming and contemporary and impeccable. For us, it is much more of an artistic statement, and we are not artists! We are time-poor feminists who are interested in creating something that we can use in our daily lives—to locate, support, connect and hopefully inspire women-identified, small-business owners.”

Though Shaddick and Gresham are passionate about the idea, they are also realistic about the time it will take to complete the project. “It’s a lot of work, and we can’t do it alone,” says Shaddick.

A Tightly Curated List

Before they add an enterprise on the map with a custom pin and a link to its website, the group verifies that the company meets the criteria of having women-led, majority-women ownership. They usually do this with a phone call. Says Gresham, “So often, we assume an enterprise is owned by a woman because she seems to be the face of the business. But often we find the enterprise is 100% or majority-owned by a male, typically a boyfriend, husband, or sometimes even a father.”

A New Zealand study titled “Critical Yet Invisible: The ‘Good Wife’ in the New Zealand small firm”, authored by Claire Massey at Massey University, found that of the 250 firms surveyed, a surprising number of women played lead roles in small enterprises that were entirely or majority-owned by significant others, leaving the women’s contributions unacknowledged legally or in research about entrepreneurs.

Abigail Slater, a volunteer in Toronto, says that’s exactly why City of Women’s entrepreneurial mapping research is so important. “Not only will it make it easier for enterprises looking to advance women entrepreneurs by genderizing their procurement policy, it also gives visibility to the issue of ownership. Too many women play lead roles in startups or small and medium enterprises and are CEOs, COOs, or co-founders in name only. They have no ownership stake, which means their contributions are both at risk should the relationship dissolve, and their contributions to the entrepreneurial economy goes uncounted.”

Interested in Helping Out?

The next City of Women mapping event is Wednesday, September 23 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Centre for Social Innovation at 215 Spadina Ave. To register, click here.

If you run a feminist enterprise and would like to get pinned, register your business for inclusion on the map by clicking here.

The post MAPPING FEMINIST ENTERPRISE IN TORONTO appeared first on LiisBeth.

VIEWPOINT

Last week, The Economist released “The World in 2017“, its annual collection of opinionated predictions for the year ahead. This 31st edition advertised forecasts from some personalities of note, including Justin Trudeau and member of the Russian female protest group Pussy Riot, Maria Alyokhina. It also includes predictions from George Clooney. (Oooh la la! I hoped his prediction came with a photo!)

In last year’s edition, The Economist predicted that 2016 would “be summed up in three words: woes, women and wins”. The woes referred to the worsening situation in Syria. The wins noted were sports and tech-related. And, the part about women referred to the impact of women coming into powerful roles for the first time, like Hillary Clinton’s bid for the White House (the 2016 cover featuring future world leaders didn’t even include Donald Trump-they assumed she would win), Janet Yellen’s work at the Federal Reserve, and how Angela Merkel will respond to the migrant crisis.

Turns out they were not entirely wrong in their prognostications -except for the Hillary Clinton part. Looking back, the 2016 edition was also light on predictions regarding the future for 50% of the planet’s population, women and girls. In fact only one out of the 100+ predictions that related to the role and state of women and girls on the planet; ­A piece on the importance of educating girls. In the world’s poorest countries, still, only 20 percent of girls complete Grade 8 education.

The 2017 edition, however, is markedly different. First, it includes not one but seven predictions out of 100+ that speak to the fight for gender equality, including one with the actual word “feminism” in the title. And second, the predictions related to the advancement of women this time are more about broad social shifts, versus an emphasis on a handful of individual women-in-power ‘firsts’.

Social and culture gender-related predictions noted include the increasing acceptance of a fluid approach to gender, the rise of “nuanced feminism”, 2017 as a breakthrough year for women in the boardroom due to quotas and public opinion, and the advent of “marketplace diversity and inclusion”. Andi Zeisler describes in We Were Feminists Once how companies have increasingly used feminism in their advertising to sell us stuff while their overall company leadership and policies continue to show they are at their core, un-feminist, or worse, “unwoke”. In a similar way, this same trend is being seen across other areas of diversity and inclusion.

Out of the seven predictions related to gender equality, a piece worthy of both further note and criticism is “A Feminism for All” by millennial writer Louise O’Neill (also the author of Asking for It, a novel examining gender and sexism). First, it’s great to see feminism included in the predictions at all. And we agree with O’Neill when she writes feminism today is for “women of all races and religions, it’s for transgender people, it’s for men, it’s for straight, gay people and everyone in between.” We also agree with O’Neill’s idea of “nuanced” feminism, which says feminist issues are complex and not given to simple answers. However, with her emphasis on how individuals embrace feminism today,  O’Neill misses the opportunity to underscore that feminism is not just a mindset; it’s also about actively working for change, and in particular, systems change. We found that oversight disappointing.

If feminism is about working for deep-seated social change, then it will require much more than a countable increase in the number of “woke” fan girls (or fan guys, and everyone in between) posting selfies of their feminist selves. I guess one could argue that this is at least a start, but for feminism to truly matter, it will eventually need people who are prepared to really dig in, unlearn media’s skewed representation of feminism, relearn the movements’ real history and roots (including it’s issues i.e. white feminism), read everything they can about feminist thought leadership today, and engage meaningfully in efforts to power system and institutional change.

But then again, posting a selfie is easier.

Overall, as a long-time Economist reader, I was pleased to see these topics make the 2017 prediction list. And I hope the curators are as close to right about their forecast as they were with their 2016 list.

As for George Clooney, sadly, there was only a small illustration of his head beside the article, mostly written by someone else.

THIS WEEK ON LIISBETH

This week, we interview Dimple Mukherjee, founder of Whole Self Consulting, an advocate for the benefit of women-only spaces, and creator of the Bindi Parlour experience.  The Bindi Parlour is described as a “girls night out at home”, an idea we thought was timely given the approaching holiday season.

We loved Dimple’s very personal, and grassroots story about how she came to entrepreneurship. We hope you do as well. You can find the article here.

52FEMINISTS

Sometimes you just gotta love Twitter.  For without it, I would not have been introduced to so many fabulous feminist entrepreneurs over the past few months who by chance, saw our feed and decided to reach out because of common ground.

Who is this fab woman? Meet Eileen Scully, an accomplished woman in tech, founder of The Rising Tides, a diversity and inclusion consultancy based in Connecticut, and creator of a fabulous sideline website called 52feminists.com.

The website profiles at present, 52 feminists and the list is growing.  I asked Scully why she started this initiative. Scully explained in an emailed response that “In July 2016, it began to feel as though so much of the progress we had made towards advancing the rights of women were slipping away. Every day I work with businesses helping them achieve gender parity, but I needed an outlet for the social and political aspects of women’s equality. 52feminists is a platform to expand the definition of what is a feminist, through the stories of ordinary people. Each week features a different feminist on each of our feeds, and to our subscriber base.”

To check it out, visit 52feminists.com and submit your profile! You can also join her twitter feed @52feminists.

DO QUOTAS HELP OR HINDER?

Check out Sarah Kaplan’s (Director, Institute for Gender & the Economy, Rotman School of Management) timely new research brief “The Debate About Quotas” where she explores both sides of the gender diversity quota debate.  The brief notes that “Policy makers and organizations have been working toward achieving gender diversity for many decades, but progress has been slow and is perhaps even stagnating.”

Are quotas the answer? Learn about the pros and cons here.

THE CANADIAN WOMEN’S MARCH ON WASHINGTON

It was freezing cold Toronto’s City Hall on Wednesday, December 11, but we showed up anyway.  The occasion? A photo shoot arranged by Toronto march organizer Marissa McTasney (Founder of Moxie Trades).  The purpose was to join other communities around the world doing the same–showing support for the Women’s March on Washington event planned for Sunday, January 21st, the day after the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th POTUS (President of the United States). To see similar photos from around the world, use #whyimarch. You can also watch “Why I March” declarations here.

To check out the Metro News article on the gathering, click here. Yes, and by the way, NONE of us are soccer moms (they are making a correction).

The January 21st event promises to be a historical event by all accounts. All across Canada, and around the world, women (and men) are preparing to participate in the march as a show of solidarity for diversity, equality, and inclusion. To find out about a march near you, visit http://canadianwomenmarch.ca/local-marches/.  To get a seat on one of the buses departing from Toronto for Washington, visit http://canadianwomenmarch.ca. Tickets are $150.00 per person.

MEET SOPHIA

LiisBethian Vicki Saunders (Founder, SheEO) sent us a link to this incredible article titled “Selfless Devotion” by Janna Avner on why engineers are giving robots “feminine” personalities. And what this says about how femininity is perceived in our society.

Janna Avner is a creative technologist living in Los Angeles who recently co-created Femmebit, a yearly digital new media festival celebrating women artists. Janna graduated from Yale in 2012, and is currently a gallery director who curates shows, exhibits paintings, and writes as much as time permits.

In the article Avner provides us with insight in the humanoid development space.

Avner writes “Sophia,” created by Hanson Robotics, is one of the several fair-skinned cis-appearing female prototypes on the company’s official website. She possesses uncannily human facial expressions, but though she may look capable of understanding, her cognitive abilities are still limited.”

Further on, Avner also notes “Looking at female humanoid robots shows me what the market has wanted of me, what traits code me as profitably feminine. Like a Turing Test in reverse, the female bot personality becomes the measure of living women. Is my personality sufficiently hemmed to theirs? This test might indicate my future economic success, which will be based on such simple soft skills as properly recognizing and reacting to facial expressions and demonstrating the basic hospitality skills of getting along with any sort of person.”

Believe me; it’s worth the time read.  Thanks, Vicki!

CAN’T MISS EVENTS

• Does your plan for 2017 include launching a social enterprise? The Community Innovation Lab has just launched their 2017 Social Enterprise Accelerator program. This early stage, co-ed incubation and training program will run from February 2017 to June 2017 and aims to support and enrich the learning experiences of social entrepreneurs in Durham Region, Northumberland, and the Kawarthas.  Learn more here. And to apply click here. Only 25 spaces are available.
• Women on the Move presents “Entrepreneurship on a Shoestring: Where to Spend your Marketing Dollars, Wednesday, January 11, 2017 from 1:00-2:30pm.  Register here.
• The Institute for Gender & the Economy presents Sallie Krawcheck, Co-Founder and CEO, Ellevest Digital Investment Platform; Chair, Ellevate Network; former CEO of Smith Barney and Merrill Lynch Wealth Management; former CFO, Citigroup; Author, January 12, 5pm-6pm, Desautels Hall (Second Floor, South Building) | map Rotman School of Management, U of Toronto, 105 St George Street.  Tickets are $36 and include a copy of Sallie’s book “Own It: The Power of Women At Work“.
• Feminist Art Conference (FAC) is a hidden gem of an event. This year it will be from Jan. 10 to Jan. 21, 2017. Tickets are free but space is limited. Register here. Note:  LiisBeth is also moderating a panel on Gender & Entrepreneurship. 
• If you want something to look forward to in the New Year after the mad rush of celebrations and resolutions, consider joining Dimple Mukerjee’s 10 Day Morning Rituals Challenge in February 2017. It’s quite the ride, and there’s absolutely no right or wrong way to do it. You’ll connect with other like-minded people, and maybe even plant another seed for your wellness, just waiting to sprout and grow. Click on the link above to get a heads up when it gets closer.

That’s it for the December newsletter. And we are also taking a short break from our publishing schedule so all can enjoy the holidays.

We will resume our newsletter and monthly publishing schedule on January 17th, 2017. What’s ahead? We kick things off with a inspiring article by Margaret Webb about a group of “Bold Betties”  in Colorado, a rousing video interview with Dr. Patricia Green (Paul T. Babson Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies and Academic Director Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses and 10,000 Women) on feminist entrepreneurship, followed by an interview with Dr. Candida Brush (Babson professor of entrepreneurship and Vice Provost of Global Entrepreneurial Leadership) about the need for more relevant curriculum for women entrepreneurs.  In January, we also feature Katelyn Bourgoin, founder of a very cool online network of female entrepreneurs called Vendeve.  And of course, there will be much more.

In case you feel like a LiisBeth fix during our break, and in case you missed them the first time around, we recommend checking out our 2016 most-read articles (according to Google) by category:

Service articles:
1. Invasion of the Brain Pickers: 9 Ways to Deal with Requests for Free Advice, by Rona Maynard
2. How to Embed Feminist Values In Your Company, by Valerie Hussey
3. Why We Need Diverse Approaches to Start Up Incubation, by Priya Ramanujam
4. Bridge Over Tricky Waters: Love, Business and Good Governance, by Sue Nador

Activism:
1. When Those Who Lead Fall Behind, by Petra Kassun-Mutch
2. Who Erased Claudia Hepburn, by Petra Kassun-Mutch
3. Entrepreneurs by Choice; Activists by Necessity, by Cynthia MacDonald

And finally, for most read profile, check out  All Jacked Up, by Margaret Webb.

All in all, we published 55 original articles in 2016 plus 22 newsletters.

Regardless of web statistics, we are super proud of the work created by all contributors, illustrators, and freelance editors.  Big hugs to each and all. We will see more of their work along with the introduction of new contributors in 2017.

If you have not subscribed to LiisBeth, but have valued our work, please help us continue by signing up as a paid subscriber here.

In the meantime, dear readers, subscribers and LiisBeth website visitors, have a terrific holiday season.

See you again on January 17th. And as always, if you have comments, thoughts, story ideas or tips to share, please send them our way to [email protected].

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

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When co-founder of Women on the Move Heather Gamble introduces herself to me following a networking workshop at the Dundas Street West co-working space, she describes how she “climbed up the AT&T corporate ladder” before the age of 35 because she “could sell any early adopter technology.” After leaving her roles in sales and marketing at the company, she launched her first business with Eva Gooderham in 2004. In her first year with their business-to-business marketing firm SalesFuel Inc., she won a $1-million contract with Shaw Communications. Her story sounds to me like a well-rehearsed sales pitch, which I imagine her delivering hundreds of times.

An unapologetic saleswoman, Gamble knows the value of a good story. She insists that every entrepreneur needs sales skills to survive. Gamble models this commercial spirit in her work. Unlike many other organizations geared to female entrepreneurs, she points out that Women on the Move is a for-profit enterprise. “We don’t believe that if we’re teaching women entrepreneurs to make money that we should be non-profit. That’s hilarious,” Gamble says. “You cannot build a business on government grants and loans. If you really want to build a business, we can start you off. And we start you off by saying sales is number one.”

This approach to business makes some women uneasy. After opening their business accelerator (a co-working space, business training program, community network and venture capital fund) in January 2015, Gamble and co-founder Nicola Morgan discovered their biggest hurdle has been changing women’s negative connotations with sales. “This is what we see: women in particular have an aversion to selling,” Gamble explains. “The stigma is [that] in sales you have to be aggressive, you have to be manipulative.” Morgan suggests the solution to this problem is to make the medicine taste good. “The way we have overcome it is by showing them it’s not what they think it is. Sales is a transfer of enthusiasm.” The two longtime friends met at Carleton University back in 1981. Between Gamble and Morgan, a former Arthur Murray Dance Studio franchisee, they have accrued around 35 years of experience training people in sales. As Gamble explains it, she observed a market need for their endeavour, and, being a serial opportunist, decided to take advantage of the opening. “I saw more women going into entrepreneurship, and I saw more women not being successful, and I saw more women going back to that job they didn’t like.”

Data collected by Statistics Canada shows that women small business owners had less revenue growth than men (57.7 per cent compared to 62.4 percent) between 2009 to 2011. According to Forbes Magazine, only 2 percent (4 percent in Canada) of female-owned businesses in the United States reach $1 million in revenues while male-owned businesses were 3.5 times as likely to do so. Gamble lays the blame more on women’s own inhibitions than on systemic discrimination, noting that women tend not to speak up when men are around. “I felt it was imperative to give women their own place and space for them to say what they really believe, come up to the table and be fully engaged participants,” she explains. In terms of preparing students for the reality of life outside of the training, Morgan says they assess what skills each individual might require and focus on helping them understand and sell effectively to both male and female buyers. While women often take a more complex approach, when men are doing business, “it’s just business,” says Morgan. “We do work with women to (help them) understand how men think and that they do think a little bit differently than we do. So, really, it’s all about understanding your buyer, whoever that buyer may be,” she explains. “Men don’t really care how you feel,” but women, generally speaking, are much more focused on their feelings, according to Morgan.

Women on the Move member Michelle Isocianu and co-owner of Board Again Games happened upon the space when she was searching for a location to rent out for board game nights and ended up registering as a student in the She Factory business training program. She says the course has taught her “basic business 101 stuff” and how to apply that specifically to her own enterprise.

But it has been the support of fellow participants and the instructors that has benefited Isocianu most. “It’s nice to know that other people are going through the same thing,” she says, adding that the course has helped her to increase revenue and make wiser investment decisions. “I think going back every week and Heather being like, ‘You’re perfect and you’re great,’ – as cheesy as it may be – it does give you the confidence,” she says. “I certainly have gotten the confidence to put a value on what I do.” Isocianu admits that at first she was intimidated by the “all women kind of approach,” but now sees the critical need for such a place.

The She Factory is an intensive training program that runs weekly from September to June. Although students can be anywhere in business development, from just starting out to two years in, Morgan urges women to enlist sooner rather than later. It incorporates elements of sales and business education for women entrepreneurs, with individual classes starting at $40 and personalized coaching that is tailored to individual budgets.

Gamble’s initial mission was to train 10,000 women by 2020 and position them each on their “$1-million path” within three years. One of their first students, a business consultant in the mining sector, saw her business jump from $400,000 to $2-million in revenue after just one year. But their latest training session, which ran from September to June, brought in just 25 women. “It takes time to build a business,” admits Morgan, explaining they pour whatever financial resources they have into rent rather than marketing, which she notes can also be costly. They hope to increase their numbers by taking their business on the road — or rather the train — for a cross-Canada tour that aims to connect and train women entrepreneurs. In June, Women on the Move rolled out its “Save Our Sales” service, an app that offers access to a branding specialist, sales specialist, writing specialist and interpersonal personality specialist. The personality specialist can help business owners understand how to sell to different personality types by communicating and connecting with them more effectively.

Don’t expect their training to include tackling the systematic barriers to equality that women entrepreneurs often face. Morgan herself claims that she has never personally experienced sexism as an entrepreneur; however, she acknowledges that inequality does exist and that women deserve equal opportunity. But she and Gamble choose to focus their efforts on helping women work within existing structures to boost sales and revenue.

“I don’t know that I have to put myself into any particular category,” says Gamble when asked if she would call herself a feminist. “I categorize myself as one thing and that’s a woman on the move.”

Publishers Note: Gamble and Morgan have also launched a new workshop series called Accelerate Your Success. It is held on Wednesdays from 12 – 2 p.m and includes a one hour workshop plus an hour of networking and a catered lunch.  The focus is on developing effective sales and marketing skills with an emphasis on using social media to increase sales and find prospects. Tickets start at $40. You can learn more at www.womenonthemove.club.

SheEO: A peer-based venture capital fund for women;
Shecosystem: A community that holds weekly co-working events with a focus on wellness; and
Ember: A co-working space with mentorship opportunities for women.

For a more complete list of supports for women entrepreneurs across Canada, visit http://weoc.ca/ or download their eco-system diagram Womens-Entrepreneurial-Ecosystem_2016_03_01_weoc (1).

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