Tag: Feminism

A Conversation with "WE WERE FEMINISTS ONCE" author Andi Zeisler

Post author By Margaret Webb
Post date September 17, 2016
3 Comments on A Conversation with "WE WERE FEMINISTS ONCE" author Andi Zeisler

On September 20th, 2016, Andi Zeisler, author of “We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to Covergirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Movement,” spoke at LiisBeth’s first-ever salon (sold out). Just prior to the event, Liisbeth’s Managing Editor, Margaret Webb, interviewed Andi.
LiisBeth: Your brilliant critique argues that feminism has been high jacked by neoliberalism, giving us what you call marketplace feminism, where women are engaged with individual choice and empowerment rather than the hard work of tackling and fixing systemic inequality. I want to start where your book leaves off. What kind of feminism do we need going forward in order to make meaningful change?
Andi Zeisler: Something that I hope is clear throughout the book is that I don’t think that marketplace feminism has replaced systemic, boots-on-the-ground feminism. I absolutely think that’s always been happening and will continue to happen. Marketplace feminism just happens to be the most amplified version of feminism right now. All the feminism work that’s been going on over the past decade is absolutely having an effect on things and that will continue to happen. I have seen feminism become much deeper, much more intersectional, much more enmeshed in people’s everyday lives and that’s the kind of feminism we need going forward. It’s not an activist project they need to take time out of their lives to do but it is their real lives and part of their everyday life.
LiisBeth: In your critique of choice feminism — whatever a self-declared feminist chooses is feminist is feminist — you argue that there has to be a “line in the sand,” that surely feminism has to stand for something. What is that?
AZ: It has to stand for equality and the autonomy and freedom of all women, not just women who can afford to make consumer choices that prop up their sense of empowerment or sense self actualization. It has to be about supporting women’s equality in every way, whether that’s financial, body, social, as a parent or whatever. It really does have to be about real equality and not a facsimile of it.
LiisBeth: You offer great examples of how feminism has been co-opted by neoliberalism and capitalism, for instance with femvertising, which is using feminism to sell things. How is this harmful to women?
AZ: Anytime a political and social movement becomes excessively individualized and made to seem that it’s something you can choose and has no impact on everyone else, that is harmful. A good example is the so-called mommy wars that has being going on for the last couple of decades, where women who opt out of the workforce because they can afford to…and talk about it as if that’s a choice versus something that’s coerced out of them by a capitalist system that’s still based on having a stay-at-home parent as an anchor. That’s damaging. It makes it seem like it’s a choice and has nothing to do with how we value women in society and in the workforce. It’s like saying that the framework of capitalism has nothing to do with people’s choices and, of course, it does.
LiisBeth: Given that we exist in this neoliberal world of capitalism, how should feminists engage with it? Are there areas or ways we can co-opt or exploit capitalism to move the feminist project forward?
AZ: I’m not saying this is an ideal form of activism but it’s one we have that seems to work well and that is public shaming — calling out companies when they stereotype women in advertising, when they make really gross gender generalizations. Or calling out TV shows when they use slurs or stereotypes. All of these things threaten to hit corporations and pop culture products where it counts, which is in the chequebook. When a critical mass of people tell them what they are doing is wrong and threaten their bottom line, that tends to get their attention.
LiisBeth: How do you think we can engage men in feminism?
AZ: This is one of those questions that I find bothersome, the very idea that men have to be invited to engage in feminism. If men care about feminism, they should not have to be invited…. (Their role) is to take feminism into spaces where they already have the ears of their peers or superiors and make change there. We absolutely need men advocating for gender equality. But if they are men who are going to wait to be invited, they are probably not the people we need. We need the people who are already on our side and willing to do the work in their community
LiisBeth: Okay, put another way, how can men gain from feminism?
AZ: Feminism has always been, by extension, about men because it’s about decimating the idea there’s a gender binary, that there are certain things women do and certain things men do. Of course, feminism has already had men in mind when we talk about things like child rearing, emotion and sexuality. That women should not be constrained by centuries of stereotypes that are often based on nothing applies to men too. When women are liberated from constricting ideas of gender, so are men and that can be really powerful.
LiisBeth: Bitch has grown from a zine into a business with a website, a lecture series, a feminist curriculum for the classroom, a lending library, a writing fellowship. How do you promote or maintain feminist values in your business?
AZ: For a long time, it was really hard because we are a nonprofit running on a shoestring and there were definite issues around the amount we were able to pay people or that we weren’t able to pay health insurance for a long time. Part of the reason we moved (from San Francisco) to Portland 10 years ago was so we could have an organization that could live its mission of being feminist. That means paying everyone a fair wage; paying health insurance for everyone, including part-time employees; having family leave policy; having a generally hierarchical but respectful staff structure. As a nonprofit, we talk about mission and visioning a lot. We talk about communication and the importance of communicating respectfully, listening to people, being open to discussion, being open to dissent. It’s not necessarily enforced in a structural way, but it’s an important organizational value.
LiisBeth: How do you practice feminism in your personal life?
AZ: I accepted a long time ago that you can be a feminist, you can advocate for feminism, but it’s impossible to live every bit of your life in what other people might consider a feminist way. For instance, I was married for almost 16 years, but I would never argue that marriage is a feminist institution or that as a feminist getting married, I made it feminist. Whether it’s where you live or how you live, what you wear, whether you shave legs — when we start talking about whether x or y is or isn’t feminist (that) gets us into that individual unhelpful place where feminism is no longer an ongoing ethic but this idea of a personal choice that can be weighed on the scales of goodness and found acceptable.
LiisBeth: You have said that feminism is not supposed to be fun or cute or sexy. It’s a movement about changing a system and changing values and that’s really hard work and demands hard conversations and conflict and confrontation. Are you bitch slapping feminists to get back into the streets to hold meaningful protests? If so, what kind of protests would you like to see?
AZ: I don’t think there’s any lack of protests. They just don’t look like they did 40 years ago. A lot of activism now happens online, which is a much more inclusive way to do activism when you think about it. Consider how many people couldn’t participate in those protests in the ’60s and ’70s because they were working in factories or their religions didn’t permit it or whatever. I think there’s much more acceptability in how we collectively practice activism and understand activism now. Feminist activism needs a range of people. Some are going to put their heads down and write policy; some will be out in communities talking to and mobilizing people. The way activism is understood now, there’s a lot more for people to do according to their strengths and what their skills are.
LiisBeth: What makes you optimistic about feminism?
AZ: There’s a lot that makes me optimistic. A lot of it is going to universities and seeing that young women are so very immersed in and involved in feminism and politics and thinking deeply and critically about media and economics and gender roles and things like that. I never understand when older feminists say, where are all the feminists? I just think they’re looking in the wrong place or they’re looking at a much narrower range subjects than today’s feminists are actually focusing on.
LiisBeth: Do you think your work at Bitch will change as a result of immersing yourself in this look at feminism, or your views of feminism will change?
AZ: I’m not sure if I can answer that. A lot of things that I wrote about are still happening and in some ways becoming more pronounced. I also think that marketplace feminism is not necessarily going to remain at the kind of tenor it is now. It’s like environmentalism 10 years ago, which was really embraced by Hollywood and advertising and at some point it was no longer the new lens to promote things. That didn’t mean people stopped caring about environmentalism. It just became less overt. I don’t think that feminist activism has ever stopped or will ever stop as long as things are the way they are. When marketplace feminism is no longer a culturally amplified thing, there will still be a ton of feminist work to be done and a ton of feminists doing that work.

Related Media:
A Conversation with Gender Capitalism Expert Sarah Kaplan, by Margaret Webb
How to Embed Feminist Values Into Your Company, by Valerie Hussey
Why We’re Feminists, by Valerie Hussey
Confessions of a Bad Feminist, Roxanne Gay’s Ted Talk, by LiisBeth Curator
CBC Here and Now Interview with Andi Zeisler (audio)
Rotman School of Management Talk Video Clip

Tags activism, andi zeisler, Bitch, Bitch Magazine, Bitch Media, equality, Feminism, feminist entrepreneur, freedom, margaret webb, marketplace feminism, neoliberalism

Activism & Action Our Voices

A Conversation with “WE WERE FEMINISTS ONCE” author Andi Zeisler

Post author By Margaret Webb
Post date September 17, 2016
3 Comments on A Conversation with “WE WERE FEMINISTS ONCE” author Andi Zeisler

LiisBeth: Your brilliant critique argues that feminism has been high jacked by neoliberalism, giving us what you call marketplace feminism, where women are engaged with individual choice and empowerment rather than the hard work of tackling and fixing systemic inequality. I want to start where your book leaves off. What kind of feminism do we need going forward in order to make meaningful change?

Andi Zeisler: Something that I hope is clear throughout the book is that I don’t think that marketplace feminism has replaced systemic, boots-on-the-ground feminism. I absolutely think that’s always been happening and will continue to happen. Marketplace feminism just happens to be the most amplified version of feminism right now. All the feminism work that’s been going on over the past decade is absolutely having an effect on things and that will continue to happen. I have seen feminism become much deeper, much more intersectional, much more enmeshed in people’s everyday lives and that’s the kind of feminism we need going forward. It’s not an activist project they need to take time out of their lives to do but it is their real lives and part of their everyday life.

LiisBeth: In your critique of choice feminism — whatever a self-declared feminist chooses is feminist is feminist — you argue that there has to be a “line in the sand,” that surely feminism has to stand for something. What is that?

AZ: It has to stand for equality and the autonomy and freedom of all women, not just women who can afford to make consumer choices that prop up their sense of empowerment or sense self actualization. It has to be about supporting women’s equality in every way, whether that’s financial, body, social, as a parent or whatever. It really does have to be about real equality and not a facsimile of it.

LiisBeth: You offer great examples of how feminism has been co-opted by neoliberalism and capitalism, for instance with femvertising, which is using feminism to sell things. How is this harmful to women?

AZ: Anytime a political and social movement becomes excessively individualized and made to seem that it’s something you can choose and has no impact on everyone else, that is harmful. A good example is the so-called mommy wars that has being going on for the last couple of decades, where women who opt out of the workforce because they can afford to…and talk about it as if that’s a choice versus something that’s coerced out of them by a capitalist system that’s still based on having a stay-at-home parent as an anchor. That’s damaging. It makes it seem like it’s a choice and has nothing to do with how we value women in society and in the workforce. It’s like saying that the framework of capitalism has nothing to do with people’s choices and, of course, it does.

LiisBeth: Given that we exist in this neoliberal world of capitalism, how should feminists engage with it? Are there areas or ways we can co-opt or exploit capitalism to move the feminist project forward?

AZ: I’m not saying this is an ideal form of activism but it’s one we have that seems to work well and that is public shaming — calling out companies when they stereotype women in advertising, when they make really gross gender generalizations. Or calling out TV shows when they use slurs or stereotypes. All of these things threaten to hit corporations and pop culture products where it counts, which is in the chequebook. When a critical mass of people tell them what they are doing is wrong and threaten their bottom line, that tends to get their attention.

LiisBeth: How do you think we can engage men in feminism?

AZ: This is one of those questions that I find bothersome, the very idea that men have to be invited to engage in feminism. If men care about feminism, they should not have to be invited…. (Their role) is to take feminism into spaces where they already have the ears of their peers or superiors and make change there. We absolutely need men advocating for gender equality. But if they are men who are going to wait to be invited, they are probably not the people we need. We need the people who are already on our side and willing to do the work in their community

LiisBeth: Okay, put another way, how can men gain from feminism?

AZ: Feminism has always been, by extension, about men because it’s about decimating the idea there’s a gender binary, that there are certain things women do and certain things men do. Of course, feminism has already had men in mind when we talk about things like child rearing, emotion and sexuality. That women should not be constrained by centuries of stereotypes that are often based on nothing applies to men too. When women are liberated from constricting ideas of gender, so are men and that can be really powerful.

LiisBeth: Bitch has grown from a zine into a business with a website, a lecture series, a feminist curriculum for the classroom, a lending library, a writing fellowship. How do you promote or maintain feminist values in your business?

AZ: For a long time, it was really hard because we are a nonprofit running on a shoestring and there were definite issues around the amount we were able to pay people or that we weren’t able to pay health insurance for a long time. Part of the reason we moved (from San Francisco) to Portland 10 years ago was so we could have an organization that could live its mission of being feminist. That means paying everyone a fair wage; paying health insurance for everyone, including part-time employees; having family leave policy; having a generally hierarchical but respectful staff structure. As a nonprofit, we talk about mission and visioning a lot. We talk about communication and the importance of communicating respectfully, listening to people, being open to discussion, being open to dissent. It’s not necessarily enforced in a structural way, but it’s an important organizational value.

LiisBeth: How do you practice feminism in your personal life?

AZ: I accepted a long time ago that you can be a feminist, you can advocate for feminism, but it’s impossible to live every bit of your life in what other people might consider a feminist way. For instance, I was married for almost 16 years, but I would never argue that marriage is a feminist institution or that as a feminist getting married, I made it feminist. Whether it’s where you live or how you live, what you wear, whether you shave legs — when we start talking about whether x or y is or isn’t feminist (that) gets us into that individual unhelpful place where feminism is no longer an ongoing ethic but this idea of a personal choice that can be weighed on the scales of goodness and found acceptable.

LiisBeth: You have said that feminism is not supposed to be fun or cute or sexy. It’s a movement about changing a system and changing values and that’s really hard work and demands hard conversations and conflict and confrontation. Are you bitch slapping feminists to get back into the streets to hold meaningful protests? If so, what kind of protests would you like to see?

AZ: I don’t think there’s any lack of protests. They just don’t look like they did 40 years ago. A lot of activism now happens online, which is a much more inclusive way to do activism when you think about it. Consider how many people couldn’t participate in those protests in the ’60s and ’70s because they were working in factories or their religions didn’t permit it or whatever. I think there’s much more acceptability in how we collectively practice activism and understand activism now. Feminist activism needs a range of people. Some are going to put their heads down and write policy; some will be out in communities talking to and mobilizing people. The way activism is understood now, there’s a lot more for people to do according to their strengths and what their skills are.

LiisBeth: What makes you optimistic about feminism?

AZ: There’s a lot that makes me optimistic. A lot of it is going to universities and seeing that young women are so very immersed in and involved in feminism and politics and thinking deeply and critically about media and economics and gender roles and things like that. I never understand when older feminists say, where are all the feminists? I just think they’re looking in the wrong place or they’re looking at a much narrower range subjects than today’s feminists are actually focusing on.

LiisBeth: Do you think your work at Bitch will change as a result of immersing yourself in this look at feminism, or your views of feminism will change?

AZ: I’m not sure if I can answer that. A lot of things that I wrote about are still happening and in some ways becoming more pronounced. I also think that marketplace feminism is not necessarily going to remain at the kind of tenor it is now. It’s like environmentalism 10 years ago, which was really embraced by Hollywood and advertising and at some point it was no longer the new lens to promote things. That didn’t mean people stopped caring about environmentalism. It just became less overt. I don’t think that feminist activism has ever stopped or will ever stop as long as things are the way they are. When marketplace feminism is no longer a culturally amplified thing, there will still be a ton of feminist work to be done and a ton of feminists doing that work.

How to Embed Feminist Values Into Your Company, by Valerie Hussey

Why We’re Feminists, by Valerie Hussey

Confessions of a Bad Feminist, Roxanne Gay’s Ted Talk, by LiisBeth Curator

CBC Here and Now Interview with Andi Zeisler (audio)

Rotman School of Management Talk Video Clip

Tags activism, andi zeisler, Bitch, Bitch Magazine, Bitch Media, equality, Feminism, feminist entrepreneur, freedom, margaret webb, marketplace feminism, neoliberalism

Featured Our Voices

Don’t "Think" in a Vacuum: Create a Decision-making Framework

Post author By Valerie Hussey
Post date August 30, 2016
No Comments on Don’t "Think" in a Vacuum: Create a Decision-making Framework

Establishing a framework for decision-making isn’t meant to put you in a straightjacket; it’s intended to help you stay focused on the purpose that you’ve set for yourself — to create a successful business. Most of the time, there are alternative solutions to problems; the challenge of choosing the right one will force you to dig deep into your goals, motivations and values.
A decision-making framework guides your response to problems and solutions. It’s how you live the values that you determine are important to you, your business and even your product; and it ensures that those you do business with adhere to these same values. You will need to constantly test decisions against the values you want expressed by your business. It may sound like a lot of work, but we do some of this naturally all the time. Our values guide us instinctively.
What if your only goal is to maximize profits?
All businesses need to make money, but having that as your singular purpose would guide your decision-making framework. You would pay the lowest wages possible and rent the least expensive space you could find, regardless of its comfort for employees. You would escalate pricing and source the least expensive materials available, regardless of their impact on the environment. You would locate your business in the least expensive jurisdiction available. Indeed, you would make all your decisions to ensure one thing only: the best profit margin. Your employees and the quality of your product would be secondary to making money. You would not think about your clients and suppliers as partners, nor consider how your business impacted their business or your community. For most of us, this is an extreme example.
What does a sustainable business decision-making framework look like?
LiisBeth founder Petra Kassun-Mutch launched the first Platinum Leed certified dairy in Canada in 2008, to produce award-winning, cave-aged cheese. Petra decided her company — Fifth Town Artisan Cheese in Ontario’s Prince Edward County — would not only make excellent cheese but also be a sustainable business, applying a sustainability lens to every aspect. She aligned her personal values with her business goals in her framework for decision-making, and those guided her every step of the way.
Petra partnered with all of her suppliers, learning enough about the business of supplying goat or sheep milk to understand what she could and could not ask of her suppliers. She understood the seasonality of milk production, how farmers built up supply and what it meant if their milk wasn’t purchased. She didn’t ask farmers to do things that would hurt their business for the benefit of her own.
She not only made the manufacturing process sustainable, she also sourced sustainable, organic, raw product, and extended that to elements not obvious to clients and consumers such as the cotton in staff uniforms (organic and sourced through fair trade suppliers); and the packaging, wrapping paper and containers (organic inks and labels adhered with environmentally safe glue). For every aspect of the business, Petra considered and found the environmentally sustainable solution.
What was the impact of her approach? Fifth Town became the number one destination for tourists in Prince Edward County. In its first full year of business, sales hit $1.2 million. People loved the cheese, but they also travelled to experience the entire operation and environmental commitment that Petra had made.
There was a time when sustainability in business was a fringe concept, dismissed as unnecessary or unaffordable. That’s no longer the case, but Petra was ahead of the curve, and she had to keep herself on track, as there was no established path to follow. Creating a decision-making framework ensured everyone who worked with her knew the direction they were going and that taking shortcuts was not acceptable.
Can Feminism be a decision-making framework?
If we recognize that there is now greater comfort in embracing sustainable business practices, what can we extrapolate about embracing equity in the workplace as a decision-making framework? Is it just a matter of time until businesses realize the need for it? Would avoiding the misunderstood and maligned term “feminism” help more businesses adopt the framework for decision-making that could help them achieve more equitable workplaces?
There is no question that feminism is a more difficult decision-making framework to develop and apply, as it’s not simply a matter of sourcing different glue for labels. In fact, it is the glue. It will advance cohesion in the workplace and ensure the greatest contribution by everyone to your business and the economy. Why that isn’t the primary goal of all business, especially those that want to maximize profits, is confusing. Happy employees are the best employees. Happiness comes from having some autonomy in your work, being respected, treated equitably and seeing that the people around you are respected and doing work that is meaningful.
So why is there resistance to even talking about feminism? Perhaps it’s because people think of feminism as an ideology. But wasn’t environmentalism once considered an ideology? Today it’s understood as a practice. Would it really be that difficult for principles of equity to become universal practice? Perhaps there are other barriers to change that we’re not willing to call out. For example, feminism politicizes the process of gender analysis, and politics has yet to become a comfortable and inclusive domain for women.
Plus, applying an expressly feminist lens to your thinking makes you think harder about everything. Next time you make a decision, ask yourself if that decision impacts women differently than men? Is the price of the haircut in your salon higher for women than for men, for a similar cut? Is the cost of a massage the same? Is the cost of tailoring the same for a woman’s jacket as for a man’s? In fact, are alterations included in the price of a suit, as they typically are for a man’s and rarely for a woman’s? Are dry cleaning costs the same?
These are obvious consumer-based examples, but considering them will lead you to more difficult issues, such as pay equity, access to advancement, and mentoring, to name some of the most obvious that we need to discuss openly. Is the government supporting economic development practices that ensure women and men have equal access to capital, for example? Are government programs designed to advance the types of business that attract a higher percentage of men? If so, why? And what can be done to provide equitable support to the business initiatives of women? What’s driving the decisions that lead to inequity?
Learn to question assumptions. In this era of hi-tech, certain kinds of businesses are privileged as being more scalable and global and therefore more valuable. In that environment, how would a disposable diaper be viewed today or maybe a new girdle for women? Spanx, anyone?
Once you’ve put a framework for decision making into place, you’ll discover yourself using it for all sorts of things beyond business. I warn you, though, that will open your eyes to social, economic and political patterns that you probably won’t like. But as a citizen, you’ll then want to push others — government, organizations, and families — to develop an equity decision-making framework too.

Tags decision making, entrepreneur, Feminism, feminist enterprise, feminist entrepreneurship, framework, Leed, purpose, women in business

Activism & Action Our Voices

How To Embed Feminist Values In Your Company

Post author By Valerie Hussey
Post date May 24, 2016
No Comments on How To Embed Feminist Values In Your Company

Core values influence everything you do in life if they’re truly core to who you are. You don’t need to embed them when you live them. Still, there are lots of outside influences that may challenge those values, and developing the radar to question what may parade as a feminist value—but isn’t—is an important skill.

Recently, Gregory Cowles, who writes for the New York Times, had this to say about The Rainbow Comes and Goes, a book by the celebrity mother and son pair, Gloria Vanderbilt and Anderson Cooper: “Vanderbilt is frank and sometimes salty, as when she confides that she faked all her orgasms until she met Howard Hughes.”

You may be thinking, what is the connection between faking orgasms and embedding feminist values in the operation of your company? It’s about speaking the truth. I was struck by the idea of “faking an orgasm.” What does it mean when a woman fakes an orgasm rather than telling her partner what she needs to achieve orgasm? There are layers of possibility: She doesn’t want her partner to feel inadequate; she doesn’t yet know how she can orgasm; she doesn’t enjoy sex with her partner; she’s uncomfortable with her own sexuality. Why can’t she speak the truth and tell her partner that she hasn’t or doesn’t orgasm but would like to, so can they work on it together?

Until we are able to speak up, speak out, and speak our truth, we will be barred from full equality. Women are frequently characterized as worrying more about being liked or coming across as too aggressive. We are not encouraged to claim credit for our own ideas, or claim the space to speak and be listened to. These behaviours are influenced by socialization. Temperament plays a part, but men and women with similar temperaments are socialized differently, with different encouragement and outcomes. When Sheryl Sandberg urged women to lean in, she was encouraging us to claim our space and use our voice. Desiring satisfying sex and knowing how to achieve it may have similarities to building a successful business.

Developing a feminist understanding of what is going on around you means observing, listening, and constantly questioning. That is how you build the confidence to speak up and find the voice that expresses your truth. Ask yourself who is speaking, whether they have a bias, and what it might be. Examine it and ask yourself why. Don’t assume that the person who speaks most is the most expert, that the person with the strongest opinion is the smartest, or that the most experienced person has the best connections. Questioning leads to uncovering the truth. It takes time and experience to develop the skills and the courage to question effectively.

I don’t think it’s possible to effectively embed values you don’t live by into your work. If you believe in equality, then you’ll be uncomfortable in a situation that is unequal. You’ll know because you’ll feel it. The felt sense is not just what’s in your head, but what’s in the pit of your stomach, which is a telling indicator. How do I know something is out of kilter? My breathing changes. I used to ignore it, thinking only what I think is important. Then along came EQ, or emotional intelligence, and the recognition that the most effective leaders have both intellectual and emotional intelligence. What used to be dismissed as women’s intuition is now recognized and validated as an essential component of being effective. Now I pay as much attention to what my body tells me. It’s the felt sense that often triggers the most critical analysis of what is going on around me.

Embedding feminist values into your life, and therefore your business, will involve challenging the status quo.

There are lots of things going on around us that are highly discriminatory, but sometimes you have to scratch the surface to discover them. Have you ever worked in a business environment where there is a cone of silence around salaries? Have you wondered why? The inference is that someone else isn’t getting the same salary as you, so don’t blow your advantage. But whose interest is it in to encourage people not to share their salaries? Not yours if you’re the one being discriminated against. Employees who accept being silenced are buying into inequity.

When information is open and shared, and everyone knows what it takes to get to a particular position or level, then there is no need to be secret. Silence reinforces secrecy, and secrecy encourages people to see themselves as winners or insiders. If you’re an insider, it means someone else is an outsider. And at any moment the tables can turn. Sometimes women covet the insider position, having long been denied it, but by being silent they actually advance inequality while believing they have broken through it.

Not every decision you make for your business will be overtly feminist. You may select a supplier because they have the best reputation. But if you accept that at face value, the business landscape will never change. Bringing feminism to your business may be as simple as checking your assumptions and questioning the common wisdom. When is the last time you intentionally checked to see if there were any women in your sector who could be a supplier? Perhaps there’s a supplier who has newer businesses just like yours and has not yet built up a long-standing reputation, but they know their stuff. You could help each other break through some of the “old club” barriers. The pie will only get bigger if you’re willing to roll the dough out farther. Just as your openness might benefit another woman’s business, the same could hold true for yours.

If you are a woman running a trucking company, I can guarantee that you will face barriers just because you’re a woman—and not because you can’t do the job. Take the time to check and see if you’re making, or accepting, any assumptions that men are better at the job because they’ve been doing it longer. Challenge yourself to think independently. Being passive in your decision-making is about as satisfying as a faked orgasm.

The only lesson I repeat again and again is to remember that we have all had a helping hand at some point along the way in life and business. For some, that help is big and obvious. For others, it’s so small that the person may not have realized it at the time. But no one does “life” alone. It’s important to remember that for yourself and for others. And if you do, then you’ll have embedded an important feminist value in your practice and beliefs.

Tags entrepreneur, Feminism, feminist entrepreneur, feminist values, Gloria Vanderbilt, orgasm, Sheryl Sandberg, The Rainbow Comes and Goes, women

Activism & Action Our Voices Systems

Why We're Feminists

Curling up with the Sunday New York Times is a ritual that goes back to my teen years. A couple of weeks ago on February 21st, I pulled my favourite sections—the magazine, Book Review, and Sunday Review—and headed to a coffee shop to pass a few hours.
In that one issue of the New York Times, I read four pieces that show how far women still have to go to achieve equality. When people say that the feminist struggle was yesterday’s battle, I want to know how they’ve drawn that conclusion. Who told them that? What advantage does that person have in perpetuating this lie?
I feel strongly about feminism. Even the word is important to me. It has been manipulated and hijacked, as women’s issues often are in the mainstream. But we would do well to remember the simple dictionary definition of feminism: “social, political, and economic equality for women.” There’s hardly anything radical or threatening in that definition so I don’t understand why most people wouldn’t be comfortable being a feminist under that banner. But the term is used in so many ways that have little to do with addressing inequality and a great deal to do with undermining the principles of equality by distracting, labeling, and demeaning women (and men) who call themselves feminists.
I have tried to understand younger women who say they need to define feminism for themselves, to claim it and make it their own. But I don’t really understand. I agree that younger women—or any individual, really—should be able to define for herself how she wants to live her life, and the great thing about democracy is that we can each do that to a large extent. But what would the new definition of feminism be that would suit younger women, if not social, political, and economic equality? Those fundamentals capture virtually anything that someone might want to claim as their definition of feminism, no less fairness.

And for women who say they’re humanists but not feminists (they’re not mutually exclusive), it’s not an adequate response because humanism doesn’t address political and economic equality.

The idea that “power can be taken, but not given,” a quote attributed to Gloria Steinem, concludes with, “The process of the taking is empowerment in itself.” The operative element in this is action. If women are coerced into believing that it’s unattractive to be a feminist, they are relinquishing their own power. Hillary Clinton’s attempt to become the first female president of the United States is complex and complicated by the men around her, starting with Bill. Whether you like her or not, this woman is undoubtedly the most qualified candidate running for the office, but look how her campaign is being dissected and deconstructed in ways that a man’s would not.
Consider the piece “Why Sexism at the Office Makes Women Love Hillary Clinton” by journalist and lawyer Jill Filipovic. She shines a clear light on some of that complexity as it is playing out with younger women who are supporting Bernie Sanders. The irony is that Sanders advocates for all sorts of things that he could not deliver on, but the sheer fact of expressing himself garners support. Clinton contains herself to what a president could accomplish, with an eye to addressing the systemic barriers that women still face. Yet she’s criticized for being status quo. What Clinton understands are the systemic structures that need to be disassembled, and she knows that women need to take action to disassemble them. Men may do it with us, but not for us.
If Clinton doesn’t make it to the White House, I don’t expect that I will see a female president in my lifetime. There are many countries that have elected female leaders, and they espouse as wide a range of political views as men. But amid the hypocrisy of the US—land of the free, built on the Horatio Alger myth of success—ultimate success appears to be reserved for Horatio not Hermione. Women are not part of the national mythology. Isn’t that reason enough to be a feminist?
It’s important not to confuse feminine with feminism. One doesn’t cancel the other. You can be a feminist and be as feminine as you like. But if you want to understand what it means to have a paternalistic hand define your femaleness, then read the piece in The New York Times Magazine titled “Over Bearing” by Emily Bazelon. This fascinating—and frightening—piece is an excellent example of inequality being paraded as protection for women. Why is a women’s right to choose and have control over her own body being challenged and distorted in Texas and many other US states? This is not about protecting women; it’s about controlling women. It’s an attempt to remove a fundamental right from women under a guise that is not applied to other medical procedures because those don’t involve control of self. Abortion, more than anything, is about control.
Another piece, “It’s Not Cute To Be Scared” by Caroline Paul, focuses on girls and had me nodding in recognition and agreement. My father wouldn’t buy me a bicycle in 1958 because he couldn’t afford insurance (he probably couldn’t afford the bicycle either) and was afraid that if I fell off and hurt myself, he’d be unable to “protect” me. That was the same reason I couldn’t ride a horse or swim in the ocean. He projected all his fears onto me, his little girl. He had a pony when he was a little boy and he survived a broken arm when he fell off. He had a near-drowning incident, which forced him to become a good swimmer. And when he finally brought home a rusty old bike, he rode it down the street, sitting backwards on the handlebars. Who knows what provoked that prank? But he survived living, which most of us do, even when he took risks.
I doubt he would have been so afraid for me if I had been a son. When my own son was born, I promised myself—for him—that I would not let my fears hold him back. I explored the natural world without fear and encouraged him to explore it too so he would not assume girls were perpetually scared. I ran and played ball with him. We built a fort and a tree house together. I was the best Lego-assembler mom around. I’m still not a strong swimmer, but I took him for lessons when he was a baby.
The last New York Times headline that caught my eye, “The Female Pilots We Betrayed” by Sarah Byrne Rickman, is required reading to understand why feminism is important. It will break your heart while inflaming you with rage. Sometimes injustice is so raw that its reasons are hard to comprehend, and this is one of those cases. If any of the men with whom these women served could speak from their grave, would they deny their female comrades the dignity of recognizing their accomplishments? I somehow doubt it because their reasons would be ruled by meaningful experiences, not by ideology, policy, and prejudice. Read the article and then answer the question: are you a feminist? Do you believe in social, political, and economic equality for women? If you say no, then you will be indifferent to the women who served as pilots alongside men in World War II and the fact that the US Army prevents them from having their ashes laid to rest alongside their fellow veterans. If you can withstand the blatant unfair sexism and not feel enraged by the treatment of these heroes, then you really aren’t a feminist. And how sad for you.

(Publishers Footnote: Over the past week, LiisBeth attended several women’s events in downtown Toronto, with audiences of 500+. During question period, I asked the speakers, all women in executive roles, and many who attended, if they identified as feminists. One said yes, and the rest said categorically said no. I was genuinely surprised followed by deeply disappointed. If Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau can call himself a feminist, why do so many Canadian women, especially those in positions of significant corporate power and influence find it difficult to do so? Some of the explanations, including “because I have two boys at home” or “its an outdated idea” reads uninformed at best. Perhaps Margaret Wente in March 8th’s Globe and Mail has the answer? We think its time women entrepreneurs and their corporate sisters unlearn, re-learn, and re-connect with feminism. It remains the worlds only large scale, international, yet multi-faceted movement that ultimately works for equality and inclusion. Can you be supportive of equality and inclusion and not call yourself a feminist? Sure. But what’s the point. When you say feminist, you are really saying you are part of something bigger than yourself. When you say feminist, you also say you are actively engaged in making a difference on these issues).

Tags bernie sanders, empowerment, equality, female pilots, Feminism, hillary clinton, humanism, inequality, international women's day, Sexism

Allied Arts & Media

Canadian Illustrator Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant

Post author By LiisBeth Curator
Post date December 16, 2015
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Hark-A-Vagrant-Kate-Beaton-wonder-woman — Wonder Woman by Kate Beaton on harkavagrant.com

Kate Beaton makes comics about Mary Seacole, Marie Curie, Susan B Anthony, The Brontës, Canadians, superheros, fat ponies, and more. Beaton lampoons historical and literary figures across the board. Her lively drawings and sharp wit have us laughing our way through our midweek. She launched her website Hark! A Vagrant in 2007, which according to the Paris Review receives more than a million hits each month.
More about the illustrator, in her own words:

Kate Beaton was born in Nova Scotia, took a history degree in New Brunswick, paid it off in Alberta, worked in a museum in British Columbia, then came to Ontario for a while to draw pictures, then Halifax, and then New York, and then back to Toronto. Maybe the moon next time, who knows.

The latest Hark! A Vagrant collection, Step Aside Pops is available as a convenient paper bound package. For everyday fun make sure to follow Kate Beaton on Twitter.