solidarity Archives - LiisBeth

LiisBeth & rabble.ca Have Merged

PK Mutch — Sun, 10 Sep 2023 15:07:55 +0000

Word doesn’t always get around evenly, so in case you missed it, here’s the scoop!

In April 2023, LiisBeth Media, a leading feminist media publication focused on feminist enterprise practice merged with rabble.ca, Canada’s longest running (founded, on April 18, 2001) online, award-winning, lefty, independent, community-driven news outlet.

Since then, we have been on quite a journey. But lovin’ every minute! Mergers, or in this case, mind-melds between two indie, under-capitalized entities with long to-do lists is like travelling on a cow path versus a super highway. We are diligently taking it one kilometre at a time.

About rabble.ca

Cofounded by Tonya Surman (Centre for Social Innovation), Mark Surman (Executive Director, Mozilla Foundation) and Judy Rebick (Canadian feminist activist, journalist) in 2001, rabble.ca is one of the first digital journalism organizations in Canada, and the first to incorporate as non-profit. rabble.ca has been at the forefront of reporting on national politics with a credible progressive lens that centres on issues of social movements, labour, and grassroots activism. Feminist journalism has always been part of the editorial focus. With LiisBeth in the house, their coverage of the feminist economy will increase.

On LiisBeth

LiisBeth was launched in 2015 by pk mutch and grew to serve and inform over 30,000 unique annual readers and 2700 newsletter subscribers. The media enterprise also co-launched the Entrepreneurial Feminist Forum, the Feminist City Walk and sponsored feminist initiatives like VenusFest and The Don’t You Want Me Campaign. The goal of the feminist media upstart was to raise awareness and interest in the feminist enterprise space, support feminist enterprises in whatever form, and connect feminist entrepreneurs globally.

LiisBeth and rabble.ca began working together in 2021. It was soon clear that coming together would benefit both readership communities.

On the Merger

pk mutch, founder and publisher of LiisBeth is excited about how this “exit in community” will evolve.

“The LiisBeth board and team are all super proud of this merger which took a lot of care, thought and planning for a year to bring to a close.”

The overarching goal? Continue to invest in great feminist economy reporting and bring these ideas and stories to a larger, all gender audience. Plus, bring more feminist enterprise content, to more people; strengthening and amplifying our collective culture making work.”

Mutch adds “To be clear. We did not “sell” LiisBeth. LiisBeth is a community and a living system. You can’t sell a living community. But you can successfully bring communities together when everyone involved cares about the same things. It’s an exit in the community–versus an exit of economic extraction.”

To find out more, and meet the rabble.ca team, we invite you to watch the two-minute video (above) which explains how it will all work.

What’s Next for pk?

This is the third time mutch has transitioned an enterprise she created with friends and aligned supporters.

“My relationship with LiisBeth was a loving one. And it’s hard to put your lover into the arms of another. But like sci-fi writer Octavia Butler says, “What you change, changes you. Change is the only constant. God is Change.” When it’s clear there is a new and better path forward for your enterprise and the ecosystem connected to it, you have to get out of the way. Liisbeth needed a bigger mother tree to nourish and grow it from here.”

pk mutch plans to focus on teaching, writing and nourishing her other enterprise, Highwire Collective, which has been starving for attention in the last two years.

“I can’t help but seed and build out ventures. I love creating. I believe revolutionary feminist and post-capitalist enterprise work is what all entrepreneurs should be learning about today. It’s a niche form of political and economic norm-busting form of activism. It’s also a deeply creative, transformative craft. I am thinking of going super dark for a year to open up more blank space. I want to plunge into Mariana Trench of post-capitalist economics and new socialism conversation and learn how to put theory into practice at an enterprise level.”

What’s Next for All of Us?

Over the next several months, pk mutch, Kim Elliot, publisher of rabble.ca and the rabble.ca team will continue to work behind the scenes to develop and launch a new editorial plan and strategy to lift up and amplify feminist economy writing and reporting.

One of the first initiatives executed right out of the gate is the integration of a weekly LiisBeth fieldnote into rabble.ca’s weekly roundup.

In the meantime, as work behind the scenes continues, all of LiisBeth’s seven years of content and archives will remain live on this site. There are over 480 articles here to explore.

You will begin to see more changes on our home pages over time.

Meanwhile, note that our monthly newsletter has ceased production.

All queries are now being reviewed by rabble.ca’s editorial team.

Updates to the site and posting of new content will be sporadic until the new plan is in place.

We appreciate your patience as we go through a bit of a bumpy period as we continue to evolve the plan in the coming months.

That said, to make sure you don’t miss a beat, we invite you to sign up to rabble.ca today (it’s open access) for updates.

It was yet another one of those high energy, motivational entrepreneurship conferences held in a large, carpeted conference hall at a slightly dated mid-town hotel.

The post LiisBeth & rabble.ca Have Merged appeared first on LiisBeth.

Is Coalition Building a Lost Art?

Judy Rebick — Fri, 19 May 2023 12:42:56 +0000

Over my 50-year experience as an activist, I have found that the most effective way to win a battle is by making connections across differences. We are doing that less and less these days in a time of polarized, denunciating politics but we have never needed it more.

One of the most successful coalitions that I was part of was the National Action Committee (NAC) on the Status of Women, the largest feminist group in Canada from 1972 til the early 21st century. I was the President of NAC for three years in the 1990’s during which we elected a diverse executive, with Indigenous, Black, immigrant, 2SLGBTQIA+ and disabled representatives probably the first in the country. But NAC began in 1972 with a politically diverse coalition. Young women, like me at the time, wanted revolutionary change and looked with disdain at older more conservative women like Laura Sabia, who was a Conservative councillor in a Toronto suburb. We may have recognized how rare it was to have a woman in this position but honestly we didn’t care, we wanted a revolution and to be completely equal with men. It was Grace Hartman, then a rare female President of a union, CUPE and Madeleine Parent, a working-class hero from Quebec who was charged by the neo-fascist Duplessis with treason for her union organizing, who convinced us to make an alliance with Conservative women who wanted an independent women’s group against Liberal women arguing that it be advisory to the government. NAC became the most effective women’s group in the country and perhaps in the world. It was a cross class, cross political party organization.

Another example of an effective coalition was the pro-choice movement that won abortion rights in 1988, making abortion a medical procedure like any other. A group of birth control providers and feminist activists in Toronto decided to try and set up an illegal abortion clinic like Dr. Henry Morgentaler did in Quebec. It’s a long story but the part of it I want to tell here was the coalition we built. From the group we contemptuously called the Rosedale Ladies, who raised money for the defense fund, to the labour movement, who taught us how to defend the clinic from anti-choice protesters to the church women who made sure we debated abortion issues on many Sundays, we built a very broad coalition.

The toughest challenge was the alliance between the Canadian Association for Repeal of the Abortion Law (CARAL), mostly middle-aged, middle of the road women who had been lobbying the government for decades to repeal the restrictive abortion law passed in 1969 and the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics (OCAC), a younger, more radical group. They thought we were crazy and thought we would ruin everything with our more radical tactics. Nevertheless, we worked together even if we didn’t like each other so much. It came to head when the Catholic Church called out their troops, including Catholic schools, to protest in front of the clinic every day for a week. Up until that point the church had been doing their lobbying behind closed doors. They had a 1,000 people a day in front of the clinic on Harbord St., Monday to Thursday. The OCAC decided to organize a counter demonstration at Queen’s Park in front of the legislature on the Friday. CARAL opposed it. “We can never out mobilize the church,” they argued. “It will show our weakness.”

We considered their opinion, and we weren’t sure if we could out mobilize the church but what we did know was that it would demoralize all the people who had worked so hard to keep the clinic open on the streets and by building support in their workplaces and neighbourhoods. We decided to go ahead but then I learned something very important about coalitions. CARAL was furious with us, but they decided to do everything possible to build the biggest demonstration we could. They didn’t go off in a huff and denounce us. The movement is what mattered, and they did everything to build that demo even if it proved them wrong.

The media reported the Church demo’s every day. At the end of their report they said “and on Friday the pro-choice groups will be organizing a counter demo at Queen’s Park.” I will never forget standing on the steps of the Legislature, you could do that back then, and watching the waves of people emerging from the subway. It was huge. At least 15,000 people covered the grounds around Queen’s Park. It was a turning point.

Another example of an extraordinarily broad coalition was the Action Canada Network that formed to fight the free trade deal with the U.S, basically to fight neo-liberalism. The co-chairs were Maude Barlow, the leader of the Council of Canadians and a former Liberal and Tony Clarke who at the time was a senior staff person with the Conference of Catholic Bishops. This was during the pro-choice struggle and yet we managed to build a coalition against free trade at the same time as we were fighting each other in the streets over abortion rights. It must be said that Tony himself was pro-choice and later was fired by the Conference of Catholic Bishops for his activism. We won a majority of votes against the Free Trade Agreement but the free trade Tories won because of our undemocratic electoral system. By the time the Liberals came to power, they supported neo-liberalism even though they opposed it in 1988.

Publishers Note: This article was initially published in rabble.ca.

IS FEMINISM DEAD-AGAIN?

PK Mutch — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 22:10:35 +0000

Feminists everywhere are buzzing about Michelle Goldberg’s recent op ed column published by the New York Times, ‘The Future isn’t Female Anymore’.

I circled it three times. Then took the bait.

Goldberg suggests feminism is fizzling out—along with puffy sleeves and tie-dye sweatpants. And provides reasons for believing this to be true.

I too can see what she sees.

But only if I use a pair of American opera glasses and focus on an American feminist stage (Note: I sincerely grieve for our American sisters). The thing is feminism exists in hundreds of countries around the world. And sure, as a Canadian feminist publisher who monitors trends, I see why American Gen Z, Millennials – ‘Me-lenials’ (a distinct subgroup), are losing faith and yep, even the over-55 comrades in arms are tired. But what they are tired of, in my opinion, is marketplace feminism, #girlboss feminism, and the big one – white feminism.

The thing is, feminism is not just a soprano performance – it’s a whole global opera. And just because the star spangled soprano leaves the stage—or messes up an act, doesn’t mean the whole show is over.

Yes. Bitch closed. The news knocked me back too. But feminist media is a fierce hydra. Capitalism’s axe can and does routinely chop of a Bitch of a limb here and there. But only fair-weather feminists would conclude that that this means feminist media, or feminism on the whole is losing the battle. There remain thousands of feminist zinesters, newsletters, micro publishers, podcasters, and bloggers ready to serve and continue the work of their newest ancestor.

So no, from what I see, feminism is not retrenching. It is, thank Goddess, once again, evolving. Like a dragon fly, coming out of its nymph stage after seven years under pink water.

Feminism is not a chartable Fortune-500 trend. It is a diverse, living, indeterminate, mycelial-like being. It lives, breathes and thrives mostly underground creating the conditions for deep change. Branches of it need to die so that others can grow.

With the worrisome erosion of democracy everywhere (bad for women and all marginalized folks) and the alt right movement’s growth, it’s about time individualistic girl boss power and corporate-led representational feminism– itchy protuberances that have dominated media, preoccupied elites and North American policy makers over the last 10+ years– gives way to something more relevant for the coming times.

What I see happening now, in my feminist world, is a long overdue revival of radical, socialist, solidarity and grassroots organization-led, feminism; The kind that has marathon legs, knows when to rest, and how to pass a baton because no one or organization or celebrity, no matter how big, can run this race alone.

This feminism prioritizes big picture revolutionary change versus seats at the table.

For lack of a better, term, let’s call it solidarity feminism.

Solidarity feminism is prepared to protect its past wins and ready to work collaboratively for new ones like defunding the police, abolition, gun control and ending racism. This feminism is quietly mobilizing millions of progressive micro entrepreneurs, resourcing the experimentation and discourse needed to nourish the emergence of a post-work, post growth, accessible, post capitalist and planet-first economy. Such an economy will enable all to thrive in accordance with their personal or community’s cultural definition of thriving; A peaceful pluriverse.

Solidarity feminism is hella intersectional, inter-movement, and international, because as the pandemic made clear, the fight for gender justice and liberation is all interconnected.

The new, emerging take on solidarity feminism understands that this work moves in sync with natural cycles. A pause from organizing global marches is simply wintering—reflecting, recharging–not the end of a movement.

For me, the future is not – was never – female. It is, and always was, feminist.

There is a difference. You see, feminism does not equate to female. Feminists come in all genders–and to fight what’s coming, and to birth real liberation, we will need all feminists, all grassroots and large feminist non-profits, for profits and NGO’s in every nation, on well funded front lines.

If Susan Faludi looked beyond U.S. borders, I think she might agree. Feminism isn’t retrenching. It’s morphing. Wisely shedding what is no longer useful; A more relevant kind of feminism for a world facing the triple threat of Covid, climate and conflict is about to take off and fly.

A part of feminism may indeed be dying. My kind of feminism is just getting started.

This Op. Ed. was written and published by pk mutch, founder and publisher of LiisBeth.com.

Tired of just reading about feminism? Looking to practice feminism? Or a like minded, feminist community to be part of? Check out the Feminist Enterprise Commons here.

Recommended Readings:

Transforming Power by Judy Rebick
Demanding Equality: One Hundred Years of Canadian Feminism by Joan Sangster
For more recommended books, visit our bookshelf.

(Got another? Please share in the comment section!)

What Pipeline Protests Tell Us

Sabrina Dias — Tue, 25 Feb 2020 04:09:28 +0000

Wet’suwet’en supporters on the bridge over the Wedzin Khah river, Wet’suwet’en territory.

A few years ago, I asked an Indigenous female economist how she views the environment in the context of building a strong economy for Canada. She was speaking at a business conference to an audience of female entrepreneurs. Her response: “For the Indigenous peoples, the environment is our family. Non-Indigenous cultures may see the environment as a commodity,” she said, “but Indigenous peoples view the environment as our family, and we treat and protect it as such.”

Whoomp. I felt her statement reverberate through my body. I always saw the environment as important, but at that moment, I realized my view was in an abstract and disconnected way. The environment is family—this concept has been colouring my view of the world ever since.

And so, I have been watching the Coastal GasLink pipeline protests in British Columbia through the lens of Environment = Family. Would I be taking the same action if my family was at stake? I look at my son and think, “Yes, I would.” In a heartbeat.

Yet, the current protests of the Wet’suwet’en in British Columbia and the Mohawks of Tyendinaga in Ontario over a natural gas pipeline project and land access in Western Canada seem to be coming across to some in the public—including media, political leaders, RCMP, and Coastal GasLink—as irrational, selfish, and even hysterical. As a woman of colour, I am familiar with that tune. Angry women, like angry Indigenous groups, make people uncomfortable. I have been called irrational, selfish, and stubborn—at times when I simply felt that I was right.

But everyone has varying perspectives on what is right.

Coastal GasLink, the corporate proponent of this multi-billion dollar megaproject, believes its pipeline project is right for its business, its shareholders, and Canada’s economy. It feels that its consultations with First Nations have been sufficient and complete. It has ticked the consultation boxes and secured the permits, so Coastal GasLink believes it is technically right to move ahead with construction.

Wet’suwet’en believes they are right to protect their lands, their history, and their family—the environment. They feel that they were not consulted sufficiently and that they did not give consent for the pipeline to pass through their lands, and they have the right to protect their lands and the environment—their family.

Both the company and the Wet’suwet’en view each other as irrational and unfair. Reaching mutual understanding and agreement will be a significant challenge when neither can view the other party as fair and reasonable.

Community consultations for mega projects can take years—even decades—for a corporation and its stakeholders to reach a place of mutual understanding and agreement. When such consultations involve marginalized groups such as women and Indigenous peoples, there are additional layers to work through, starting with how we are perceived as stubborn, irrational, and ungrateful. Colonization of Indigenous peoples, patriarchal dominance over women, and commodification of our natural environment by primarily Western cultures are not dissimilar.

Indeed, they may be so closely linked that making progress in one area requires progress in all areas: ending colonization of Indigenous peoples, dismantling patriarchy, and protecting the family that nourishes us—the environment.

Coastal GasLink’s pipeline project has been in the works for years. The company has spent approximately six years conducting impact assessments and consulting stakeholders, including First Nations communities, along the pipeline route. It has secured all the correct government permits. In spite of this, Wet’suwet’en people continue to demonstrate against the pipeline, bringing construction to a standstill and the country at large to their attention.

I have no connection to the Coastal GasLink pipeline or the stakeholders involved. I am a fellow Canadian watching another complicated and sensitive standoff with Indigenous people regarding a resource extraction project.

But I am a professional in the mining industry. I have been in the field, at mine sites and in local villages, facing angry and fearful people opposing mining projects in faraway places such as New Caledonia, Madagascar, and Papua New Guinea—all as geopolitically and socially complex as our country.

I have listened to hopeful community leaders who hold expectations that a mine will bring good, prosperous jobs and lift their community members out of poverty. And I have listened to tearful mothers and fathers from remote regions where economic opportunity is almost non-existent, heard their hopes that we (the mining company) will help clothe, feed, and educate their children.

I have seen companies choose to keep local communities at “arm’s length,” refusing to truly engage and find ways to share benefits of the mine equitably. I have seen some companies barrel through community protests and local unrest, hire their own security, or call in the local army to forcibly remove local citizens and bulldoze local villages, with devastating consequences. These companies never garner local support and often face involuntary shutdowns due to community blockades, attacks, and other forms of protests that drive project costs into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

I have also seen companies completely halt the development of their own multi-billion dollar projects, putting the project on a care and maintenance program (the purpose of C&M is to just have enough funding to “keep the lights on” at site), while continuing to invest corporate money into public consultations, local relationship building, community investments, and forward regional planning—even when the commodity may have tanked in markets. And then, when the price of that commodity rebounds and the project is re-started, that company is better-positioned thanks to the stronger community relationships it has built, garnering trust that a project goal is of mutual benefit for all stakeholders.

A truly sustainable mega-project will aim for a win-win outcome for the local stakeholders and the company. The Coastal GasLink pipeline project seems to be heading for a win-lose. Perhaps the company’s intention was win-win, but somewhere along the way, its stakeholder engagement program failed to recognize and fully engage all the stakeholders involved.

Coastal GasLink may have ticked all the government-required consultation boxes, it may even have gone beyond government requirements, but clearly, that was not enough to mitigate today’s protests resulting in costly equipment sitting idle, the layoff of hundreds of workers and contractors, and a huge economic domino effect across the country with passenger and cargo rail shutdowns.

Many are insisting on government action. But, ultimately, it is Coastal GasLink’s responsibility to do better. It is always the responsibility of the project proponent to know all possible stakeholders and their degree of support or disagreement with the project, recognize and respect the varying hopes and fears, and engage all stakeholders in thorough, comprehensive, and culturally sensitive dialogue and consultations. It owes this due diligence to its business, shareholders, investors, and the country.

There is still a window of opportunity here. As the oil sector is not performing well and the company is bleeding money due to the blockades (not to mention incalculable damage to its corporate reputation), Coastal GasLink could press the pause button on project construction, dismiss the RCMP, and re-engage with its stakeholders. It could listen closer, try to understand each other, search for a common goal of mutual benefit. It may take months or even years, but we need to accept that this is okay, that investing time and energy into building strong relationships in order to help us build more sustainable megaprojects is better for everyone—local communities, the economy, businesses, future generations, and the environment (our family).

Sabrina Dias is the founder and CEO of SOOP Strategies Inc.

Publishers note: On Feb 20th, LiisBeth Media staff and advisory board voted unanimously to support the Wet’suwet’en community and their right to assert control of their land as upheld by Wet’suwet’en law and governance. The rule of law argument to applies to both Canada and the Wet’suwet’en nation. Members of the Wet’suwet’en community, led by the five hereditary Wet’suwet’en chiefs, have not given their free, prior, and informed consent to the current state of the Coastal GasLink project.

We urge the Government of Canada to engage in authentic dialogue with a view towards reaching a withdraw RCMP presence in a way that both maintains surrounding community safety and upholds their commitment to action truth and reconciliation, and to uphold the obligations laid out by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). UNDRIP Article 10 expressly condemns forced removal, including under coercion, and further condemns the use of extra-state actors like corporations.

Anything less is an assault to peaceable coexistence and reconciliation between settlers and Indigenous Peoples in Canada. You can download our full statement here.

For more information on how to support the Wet’suwet’en community, click here.

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The post What Pipeline Protests Tell Us appeared first on LiisBeth.

solidarity Archives - LiisBeth

LiisBeth & rabble.ca Have Merged

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