Tag Archives: Canada

Can You Do Halloween Without Buying Into Excessive Consumerism?

Posted on November 4, 2015 by Kat | Leave a comment

We love Halloween. We love getting dressed up. We love carving pumpkins. We love candy.

There is just so much to love, and this year we jumped right into the fray. We even went on John’s first ever haunted house trip, and I had the pleasure of hearing my husband scream in terror.

None of these guys are John, but the same fear is in their eyes.

Unfortunately, Halloween has also become one of the most consumeristic holidays in North America. Here in Canada the amount of money we dish out for Halloween is only second to what we spend on Christmas. Now that Halloween is over, I’ve started to wonder how we could still participate in this holiday without buying in to all the crap we’re told to purchase.

1. Costumes

Back in 2013, when we were still doing CWR roundtables, Evan, Gordon and I debated how we felt about the over-sexualized costumes that pop up every year at Halloween. This year, I’ve noticed a lot of women and little girls responding to the typical sexy Halloween nightmare by dressing as their favourite feminist hero. Some of my favourite feminist costumes this year have been “The Notorious RBG” (baby version) and mini Frida Kahlo.

Real life hero costumes are a great tribute, and usually they only involve a quick trip to the thrift store. However, I love seeing the creative alternative costumes that up-cyclers have come up with in their effort to avoid store-bought costumes.

When it comes to costumes, I’m not too worried. As long as I have a bit of time and creativity, I will always be able to avoid buying a ridiculous dollar store costume. Continue reading →

We’re Fighting For Our Rights, Not Yours: Suffragette and the Persistence of White Feminism

Posted on October 28, 2015 by Kat | 4 comments

This month I got to go out and cast my vote in the Canadian federal election. I owe this privilege to women who came before me. Women who sacrificed their time, energy, and sometimes their lives because they believed that we deserved the same privileges as men. Because I’m thankful for the sacrifices those women made, I’m ecstatic to see a film coming out this month that celebrates those women and explores what they went through in order to win us the freedoms we have today.

However, if you have been paying attention to the way the film has been publicized, you may have heard about the controversy surrounding one of its marketing campaigns:

https://twitter.com/fariharoisin/status/651076046054367232

By wearing this particular quote on their shirts, these successful white actresses have demonstrated another instance of what many activists and bloggers have begun to call “white feminism”. In her article, “This is What I Mean When I Say ‘White Feminism'”, Cate Young explains that

“White feminism is a set of beliefs that allows for the exclusion of issues that specifically affect women of colour. It is “one size-fits all” feminism, where middle class white women are the mould that others must fit. It is a method of practicing feminism, not an indictment of every individual white feminist, everywhere, always.”

We have seen several recent examples of white feminism play out in our pop culture, like the recent “feud” between Taylor Swift and Nicky Minaj or Patricia Arquette’s Oscar acceptance speech. However, white feminism has negatively affected the lives of women of colour in more than just the pop culture arena. Consider our right to vote, for example. Continue reading →

4 Comments

Posted in feminism, film, news, politics

Tagged 19th Amendment, Audre Lorde, Canada, Cate Young, check your privilege, civil rights, controversy, deviant, discourse, family unit, female, feminism, first nations, gendered, history, indigenous, individualism, intersectionality, male, Nicky Minaj, norm, oppression, Oscar speech, Patricia Arquette, privilege, sexism, slavery, social institutions, Suffragette, systemic oppression, Taylor Swift, U.S.A., vote, white feminism, white feminists, white privilege, women of color, women of colour, women's suffrage

Justin Trudeau Makes Me Cry: The Trouble with Strategic Voting

Posted on October 22, 2015 by CWR Guest Writer | Leave a comment

I love democracy. No bullshit. The idea of “one citizen, one vote” fills me with hope and pride. As a woman, a Canadian, and a self-declared citizen of the world I am acutely aware that voting is a hard-won privilege. People my age (particularly women) have given life and limb to make voting my right. So usually, when I vote, I swell with pride. This year I hated voting. Voting made me so sad. Because this year I voted strategically. In Vancouver South Liberal party candidate Harjit Sajjan is most likely to beat Conservative candidate Wai Young. So I voted Liberal.

Before I get too far I need to note I’m not a right-wing-hater. In fact, I pride myself on being relatively non-partisan (but left). I don’t think that people who vote Conservative have bad hearts. In fact I am sure there is enormous goodness in the heart of your average Conservative MP. Good hearts aren’t hard to come by. I do think that the government, as it is, has gone too far. I believe that Stephen Harper’s once good heart has been corrupted by unchecked power. And that’s why I lied on my ballot.

By Tavis – This is a crop of an image that was originally posted to Flickr as Baitan Nur Mosque Inauguration – Stephen Harper, CC BY 2.0,

Nor am I a Liberal-hater. Like many of his Conservative competitors and coworkers Justin Trudeau has a good heart. Since I was a child I loved Justin Trudeau. He was my political celebrity crush. He was my rock star. He was like the sensitive one from a political boy band.

Photo by Jean-Marc Carisse – CC BY 2.0,

I had so much hope for his solo career. And that childhood crush sort of lingered through until adulthood. I was SO excited when I heard that he (he!) would be speaking at my university (mine!!!). I was going to get to be in the same room as Justin Trudeau! I couldn’t wait to hear what political wisdoms he would impart and what solutions he would offer to the Conservative infestation we seemed to be having in the cabinet. I arrived two hours early and helped set up chairs. Then he started to speak. At first I was confused. Then I got sad. Then his stupid face started to piss me off. Continue reading →

Am I Disablist? 2 Surprising Ways We Still Oppress Disabled People or: How A.J. Withers Changed the Way I Think About Disability

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Kat | Leave a comment

A little while ago, I was chatting with Evan when I made some offhand comment about something being “crazy” or “lame”. Honestly, I can’t remember what the comment was about. I do remember Evan mentioned that he was making a conscious effort to avoid language that helped embed our negative cultural attitude towards disability and mental illness.

At the time I was somewhat dismissive of his comment. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly do believe that our words matter.

But in that moment, I just filled away his comment without much thought.

I wonder if the reason I was so dismissive is because of the social invisibility of disability. As a society, we tend to ignore the voices of disabled people, unless they have a particularly tragic and/or inspirational story to share. We don’t want to hear about the ways our society continues to be stacked against disabled people. And we certainly don’t want to hear that we need to change. Continue reading →

This Post Contains Pictures of Dead Children

Posted on September 7, 2015 by trotskyite | 3 comments

43 years ago, a picture was taken. It captured the moments after a napalm attack on a Vietnamese village. Against a backdrop of smoke a nine-year-old girl runs towards the camera, naked and screaming.

The shock that image’s managed to elicit is credited as having helped end the war, and that photograph has become perhaps the most powerful pictures of the horrors of war ever taken.

Until last Thursday.

That is the body of Aylan Kurdi, 3 years old.

Refugees from the Syrian civil war, Aylans family’s had attempted to escape to Vancouver, only for their application to be rejected by the Canadian government. With nowhere else to turn, the Kurdi family fled to Europe in a final effort to escape. While the Kurdis found passage on a small boat bound for Greece, the vessel was far overloaded with refugees and tipped a few miles off the Turkish coast. Aylan, his brother Galip, and six other passengers (all but one of them children) fell overboard and drowned, their bodies washed ashore to where this heartbreaking picture was taken.

Once again, there are no words. Continue reading →

3 Comments

Posted in Canada, Christianity, Europe, media, morality, news, politics, race

Tagged Assad, Aylan Kurdi, Bashar el Assad, Bryndis Bjorgvinsdottir, Canada, Christian, Christianity, conservative, Galip Kurdi, German, Harper, Iceland, immigrant, immigration, Islam, Jose Mujica, justice, media, middle-east, Migrant, morality, Munich, Napalm, news, photo, photography, picture, politics, Pope Franics, race, racism, Refugee, Syria, Syrian, Turkey, uruguay

Nestlé and BC Water: Why the Problem is Much Bigger than “Not Charging Enough”

Posted on September 2, 2015 by Kat | 3 comments

When British Columbia residents heard that Nestlé was only being charged $2.25 per million litres to bottle up our water and sell it back to us, we were furious.

I, for one, wanted to do what this panda is doing.

We weren’t just angry because Nestlé has a terribly track record in their dealings with developing nations.

We weren’t just angry because B.C. is “renting out” access to our water for far less than other provinces.

We were angry because water is a part of B.C. culture. Continue reading →

3 Comments

Posted in Canada, Economy, environmentalism

Tagged $2.25 per million litres, access, Alberta, Alberta drivers, B.C. residents, bad track record, BC culture, beach, British Columbia, california, camping, Canada, CBC, climate change, commodity, debate, developing nations, drought, Economics, fees, freshwater, furious, ground water, legal, NAFTA, Nestle, North American Water and Power Alliance, pollution, precedent, protected land, provinces, public control, Rocky Mountain Trench, sell, sue, Sum of Us, summer, Sun Belt Water Inc, swimming, threat, U.S.A., water, water access, water control, water exports, water policy, water sovereignty, WTO

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Tag Archives: Canada

Can You Do Halloween Without Buying Into Excessive Consumerism?

Justin Trudeau Makes Me Cry: The Trouble with Strategic Voting

This Post Contains Pictures of Dead Children

Nestlé and BC Water: Why the Problem is Much Bigger than “Not Charging Enough”

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Tag Archives: Canada

Can You Do Halloween Without Buying Into Excessive Consumerism?

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We’re Fighting For Our Rights, Not Yours: Suffragette and the Persistence of White Feminism

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Justin Trudeau Makes Me Cry: The Trouble with Strategic Voting

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Am I Disablist? 2 Surprising Ways We Still Oppress Disabled People or: How A.J. Withers Changed the Way I Think About Disability

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This Post Contains Pictures of Dead Children

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Nestlé and BC Water: Why the Problem is Much Bigger than “Not Charging Enough”

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Recent Posts

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