F WORD VOL. I

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Welcome to the first edition of F Word, a new feminist publication at McGill. It was created to provide a platform for feminist voices, and works by women, which are underrepresented in our community. Our notion of feminism is not limited to gender politics, but rather extends to all anti-oppressive perspectives. Though we do not align ourselves with one particular feminist perspective, the publication is politically motivated in its aim to discredit the negative stigma feminism has acquired as a deconstructive philosophy. Our mission statement, (featured below), was crafted with a focus on remaining impartial to content, so long as it is constructive. As well as being a platform for our contributors, we hope F Word will evolve to be considered a community resource on current feminist events and opportunities at McGill. We are currently working to partner with other groups and organizations that share our anti-oppressive values and interests. To further our goals, we are in the process of developing our online presence. We hope you will appreciate this compilation of diverse feminist works. Many thanks to all our contributors and everyone who has supported F Word thus far!

Submissions? Send em: fwordpublication@gmail.com Mission Statement

“F Word seeks to explore feminism in its present-day cultural context as a unifying, anti-oppressive, intersectional force. We seek to provide an accessible community resource through inclusive, constructive multi-media content. Through our collective’s non-hierarchical structure, we aim to challenge and move away from existing systems of oppression. We seek to prompt discussion; what does feminism mean to you?�

Juliette Allen Not A Boy Cut http://vimeo.com/60876393


Table of Contents Esra Kayira - Stuck Between

Cover

Welcome and Mission Statement Juliette Allen - Still from Not A Boy Cut Laura Rewucki - Pretty Privilege Ludmilla Ameur - Self Portrait Uma Vespaziani - P.V Nick McKim - Lethe Camille Curi - What My Girlfriend Taught Me About Gender Stereotypes Julie Fader - Indian Nationalism and Devadasi Disenfranchisement Frances Maychak - Three Days of Mourning Kara Katon - Untitled Photographs Ariella Starkman - Love and Sex: How the Virtual Realm is Penetrating Real Life Kathleen Godfrey - My Story Ashley Tardif-Bennett - Feminism Q&A Ayla Dmyterko - Untitled Portraits Ashley Tardif-Bennett - Veiled Sisterhood Catherine Chea - What the “F” Word Means to Me Natalie Liconti - I Am Not Defined by Your Ignorance Resources and Thank You’s Esra Kayira - Untitled

Back Cover


Laura Rewucki Pretty Privilege Girls with scraped knees fall in love the hardest—too awkward to be agile; they don’t get to see the faults in other people the same way pretty people get to Fry-salt stings the paper cuts and random lacerations of working class girls with nothing to lose but a limb and some self-confidence to the masses they’re meant to serve Ugly girls look prettier with a little make up Their chubby cheeks and lumpy noses take up less space when it all swirls together with one spastic brushstroke.

Ludmilla Ameur Self Portrait


Uma Vespaziani P.V


Nick McKim Lethe


Camille Curi What My Girlfriend Taught Me About Gender Stereotypes Women cannot “man-up” and feminine lesbians are not “gay” enough. Such are two of the many blatantly expressed and yet mistaken assumptions society still perpetuates in regards to females. And it needs to change. “You girls are too damn feminine and pretty to be lesbians,” said a guy to my girlfriend while she fixed my dress on the dance floor of a nightclub. I snapped, in ways you don’t want to know. He kept hitting on her despite her consistent efforts to politely make him understand that we were seriously together and that he should stop projecting inaccurate gender and sexuality stereotypes. He followed to say that to “man-up” and respond in such way was not very “ladylike” of her. Again, I snapped. This is merely one of the many examples of upsetting, yet constructive situations we, as many other individuals, have to face in our everyday lives not merely because of identifying as females and/or gay, but because of living under socially constructed stereotypes. Because of not “doing gender” appropriately. I argue that all gender stereotypes are inaccurate and misleading. They are the reason why that persistent guy, like many men and women in society, demonstrate a biased understanding of what it means to be a woman, what it means to be feminine, and what it means to be a feminine woman attracted to other women. When people apply gender assumptions, they perpetuate stereotypes that shape people’s behaviour and preserve the heteronormative gender binary. Generalizations about gender roles and displays are what led such a guy to believe that because we are girls, it made sense for us to be feminine, and because we are feminine, we must be straight. Oh the horror, when she finally made him realize he was mistaken. She made me notice that, to this very day, it is still considered radical to present yourself femininely while knowing that masculinity is still privileged, among both homosexual and heterosexual communities. For instance, my girlfriend is probably the most effeminite girl I have ever met/dated. By this, I am referring to how she dresses, her mannerisms, and her soft voice. Nevertheless, she “mans-up” all the time. By this I mean she has a tough personality, she tends to take responsibility for her actions, to be strong, confident, and behave like a leader. It does not mean she is, nor wants to be, like a man, but rather that the characteristics commonly attributed to males are nothing but a social construction reaffirmed by everyday interactions; such characteristics are actually present in both men and women. If you saw her walking down the street you’d probably agree she unintentionally fits the mainstream definition of ‘feminine.’ Yet, according to our current social standards, she’s not what a girl is “supposed” to be like, and doesn’t behave how a girl is “supposed” to. Do not even get me started on her failure to accurately embody what a socially acceptable lesbian is “supposed” to be. Consequently, what my girlfriend demonstrated to me about stereotypes is that they’re misleading assumptions that need to be deconstructed through our everyday interactions. Thus, next time instead of snapping, one should, as she did, sit down and interact with a mistaken individual. Let them know why they are making inaccurate assumptions. Let them know that correlation does not imply causation; that being a girl is not causally correlated with being intrinsically feminine, and that femininity is not causally correlated to one’s sexual orientation.


Julie Fader

Indian Nationalism and Devadāsī Disenfranchisement

The twentieth century marks an important shift in Indian consciousness. Incipient Indian nationalism was twofold— it was both an adaptation to modern Western materialism, as well as a preservation and, in part, a revivification of ancient Eastern spirituality. The somatic nature of this anti-colonial nationalist discourse resulted in new conceptualizations of the body, gender, and sexuality. As such, the postcolonial state is marked by a highly gendered and dichotomized process of innovation and restoration: a process that clearly demarcates normative spaces for both men and women. Emerging due to anti-colonial sentiment, this form of nationalism had a very particular agenda, systematically excluding certain members of society, including devadāsīs. Devadāsī communities were widely conceptualized as the antithesis of the new nationalist ideal, and though they were never part of mainstream Hinduism’s normative framework, the nationalist agenda further marginalized these groups by exposing them as far too divergent from the revitalized nation state’s new image The term devadāsī is in itself problematic. A modern term coined by British administrators, devadāsī came to represent a wide range of distinct communities with diverse practices, histories, and castes. Here, the focus will be on the devadāsī-courtesans from the Tamilnadu and Telugu speaking regions of South India who largely emerged as eroticized courtly dancers in the imperial city of Tanjarvur in the Nāyaka period. Devadāsīs reflected a deviant lifestyle for women, for they “enjoyed an unabridged right to hold and inherit property and therefore retained control of their wealth” (Tharu & Lalita, 117). Since they possessed a certain amount of intellectual and economic freedom at a time when most women did not, they have always been somewhat socially ambiguous figures. Women from the devadāsī community underwent a ceremony known as pottukkattutal, the tying of the pottu emblem. Pottukkattutal has been commonly misconstrued, especially by colonial administrators and Christian missionaries, as a literal marriage to the deity. However, as Davesh Soneji suggests, “instead of thinking about pottukkattutal as a ceremony that carries the lofty religious resonances of ‘theogamy,’ it is more fruitful to think of the ritual as a way of marking a woman’s inscription into an alternative nonconjugal lifestyle” (Soneji 2012, 40). Devadāsīs were a part of institutionalized, systemic concubinage, often having lifelong relationships with elite men, many of whom were married (Bor, 15). To the British gaze, devadāsīs were the quintessential example of heathenism within Hinduism, and were thus imagined as the locus of immorality. As their performances became increasingly exoticized and sexualized to the colonial view, the idea of the ‘dancing girl’ came to represent a much larger concept: namely, the hideous idolatry which Hinduism was considered to be (Soneji 2012, 75). Due to an increasing concern regarding venereal disease among the British in India, colonialism ushered in a new surveillance of the body, and women in particular were the targets of such supervision. Concerns surrounding devadāsīs began to emerge in this context. Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddi, the first female medical student at Madras University as well as the first Indian female legislator before independence, was the major figure in the commencement of legal interventions in devadāsīs practice. She strongly felt that the ritual of pottukkattutal was dangerous to women and needed to be criminalized. This movement was crystallized in the “The Madras Devadasis (Prevention of Dedication) Act” which was passed in 1947 (Soneji 2010, xxi).


The disenfranchisement of devadāsīs was happening in the framework of emergent Indian na-

tionalism and widespread Gandhian notions of womanhood. In order to participate in the nation and the public sphere, women had to prove or establish their sexual ‘purity’ according to standards of Gandhian morality. In this context, “through the interaction between colonialism and nationalism, the matrilineal, non-monogamous devadāsī figure became reconceived as a commercialized sex worker, a figure to be expunged from the imagined (and idealized) family of nationhood” (Whitehead, 155). This highly gendered nationalism defined the role of women as maintainers of true Indian identity, and upholders of Indian spirituality by preserving, reviving, or reforming certain cultural practices, including dance. Thus, the disenfranchisement of devadāsīs and dance reform were happening simultaneously. A thinly cloaked deviation of the devadāsī’s dance, known as Bharatanātyam, emerged and came to be known as India’s classical and traditional dance (Gaston, 277). The dance was taken out of its supposed inappropriate context so that it could fit into India’s respectable past, and consequently be reappropriated by an emerging Indian middle-class populace. Devadāsīs were disembodied from their art form, and were expected to seamlessly integrate themselves into the new nation-state, as domesticated ex-devadāsīs. Their now extremely low social standing made this integration impossible, thus marginalizing them completely in postcolonial India.

Work Cited Bor, Joep. “Mamia, Ammani and other Bayaders: Europe’s Portrayal of India’s Temple Dancers.” In Music and Orientalism in the British Empire. Eds. Martin Clayton and Bennett Zon. London: Ashgate, 2007. 39-70. Gaston, Anne-Marie. “Dance and the Hindu Woman: Bharatanatyam Re-ritualized.” In Roles and Rituals for Hindu Women. Ed. Julia Leslie. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1991. 149171. Soneji, Davesh (ed.) “Critical Steps.” In Bharatanatyam: A Reader. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010. xi-xl. ---. Unfinished Gestures. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. Tharu, Susie and K. Lalita. “Muddupalani.” In Women Writing in India. New York: The Feminist Press, 1991.116-120. Whitehead, Judith. “Measuring Women’s Value Continuity and Change in the Regulation of Prostitution in Madras Presidency, 1860-1947.” In Of Property and Propriety: The Role of Gender and Class in Imperialism and Nationalism. Ed. Himani Bennerji et al. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001. 153-181


Frances Maychak three days of mourning (on december sixth) three days of mourning fourteen women twenty minutes seven weeks four p.m. one man one rifle one knife fourteen women small game stop everything one man no one moved one shot ordered theruin, ruin, ruin. you’re women not- just women you’re women noyou’re women, you’re going to be, you’re going to bethrough a locked door you were. three days of mourning fourteen women twenty minutes seven weeks four p.m. one man one rifle one knife fourteen women


- and found his daughter’s body twenty-eight shot women, men, women one university fourteen families one man a whole community my love for youI cannot claim your ghosts through memory or the practice of remembrance our bodies never knew each other, and though we never knew we inhabit the same space, the same city that violence which tried to claim you it lives here too so from decades away in a new century which still holds monsters although I cannot claim you cannot speak for you, listen to you know what angers you what calms you or even how to remember you I love you, for three days of mourning

Kara Katon


Ariella Starkman Love & Sex: How the Virtual Realm is Penetrating Real Life

According to The Social Network and trustworthy Wikipedia, the earlier Facebook was predicated on a rating system. A platform where the super nerds of Harvard were ready, willing, and able to pronounce women as hot or (ouch) not. In what was ultimately the most biased form of character judgment, women were considered attractive by virtue of their exterior features. Every time I sign into Facebook, an unconscious act so entrenched in my routine; I forget to breathe a sigh of relief that Facebook’s superficial foundation did not maintain its anachronistic trait. The Facebook we know today is the mother of a small army of social network babies that seek to grab our attention based on a vast black hole of potentials. One of these insufferable offsprings caught my attention a couple of months ago. Her name is Lulu. She is a bourgeoning social media platform that enables women to rate and score their IRL (in real life) relationships – online. Your relationship with a boyfriend, an ex-boyfriend, a best friend, a best friend who is gay, an ex-boyfriend who is now gay, a hook-up, a crush, or family member, because how can we discriminate against a type of relationship when we’re collectively judging them for all of the Internet to see, am I right? Soon I discovered the creators of Lulu were motivated to create an environment that was “a safe and positive space for girls to come and recommend the great guys in their life.” In the app’s debut article in The New York Times, Alexandra Chong expresses that Lulu’s intent came from apprehension around dating. They believe collective testimonials, recommendations, and specific retaliations posited on this website will erase potential anxiety. In fact they believe that having multiple references from strange girls would be great, and if you choose from a predetermined set of values then that is even better. As in, meeting/drinking/eating/texting/sleeping with someone is way too scary without knowing what you’re getting yourself into. I can’t imagine how women did it for hundreds of years before Lulu showed up with pre-conceived hashtags that translate into a score via algorithm. Now she is here, projecting her ideals onto our modern day dating expectations – mystifying as they already are. To Lulu’s creators, their brainchild is a preventive measure against broken hearts, bad sex, bad breath, and bad manners. To me, it is evidence of the changing reality of our digitized dating structures. To think some women will use anonymous reviews with an arbitrary rating system set by the creator's biased criteria to in order determine the potential of actual human relationships. To the Lulu users: why? If we momentarily ignore the gender binaries perpetuated by the site’s rating system, how can you trust what ‘women’ are saying about your crush/fling/ex, etc.? Or even, that it is a woman writing the reviews? While Lulu, much like Facebook, is founded on a physical community of real identities, anyone can join if their gender on Facebook is “female”. I don’t need to spell out the untrustworthy implications this has for the reputations of men unknowingly rated on Lulu’s interface. Naturally, one of Lulu’s shining achievements is total anonymity! This is pretty fantastic for those who revenge-review that #ShittyKisser, or, how terrible, the #MommasBoy is. However, it’s seemingly not so great for the men that have no idea they’re on this site. This feature – a veritable real life infiltrating virtual life– is more problematic than initial discourse surrounding over-sharing on social media. The danger here is that the power is shifted away from those who create the motive. One of the shitty pills that Gen Y needs to swallow is that every “Happy birthday!” wall post, “Fuck me now!” message, and *drunk and barely legal* photo is now the social media’s property.

The creators of Lulu would like users to believe that the app slyly functions as a pejorative retaliation against established hierarchies within hook-up and dating culture. They parade their invention in sorority houses and campuses across North America as if it’s a burning bra in the 1960s – a twisted symbol of female empowerment that strives to be a resource for women. What had me dramatically pacing my apartment was the creator’s insistence that Lulu is a strategy and platform for women to “take back the Internet.” In fact, Chong expressed that it stood in “opposition to revenge porn and anonymous or possibly ominous suitors online.” This twisted logic comes from the origin of a traditional dating, mating, texting, and sexting pecking order whereby women are often labeled as victims because men are ultimately the ones who romantically and sexually activate them. Aka, the guy buys them a drink at the bar, chooses if they want to pursue them further, sends the first text message, and reciprocates feelings of affection or interest at an oh so leisurely pace. But thank god for Lulu, right? This imbalance is corrected by way of women getting ‘even.’ Their judgments form the ultimate peanut gallery. A virtual verdict of pre-determined variables based on whether they lust/ love, loath the guy/his new girlfriend, or whether their review is a joke/an ad for their friends less-than-active sex life. We can only see this as ironic that Lulu’s parents think of her as a feminist ingenue while encouraging an incredibly consuming focus on men. I sit in front of the black and hot-pink interface, curvy letters and a clean format so desperately trying to grab at me – a 21 year old, sexually active female with partners in her past and a serious boyfriend in her present. I scroll down Lulu’s dashboard only to see recognizable faces – a frosh fling, a best friend who happens to be gay, a boyfriend from high school, the boy who took my virginity – as the app gathers men from your physical location. A virtual society focused on digitizing our sexual relations is becoming the norm. In this way, Tinder, Grindr, Pure, and Lulu are interfaces whose dynamics extend to the mandate of consumption, commodification, and desensitization. Lulu is a locus that equates searching for a relationship to shopping for a commodity. The chemistry, background, habits, values, and sexual expectations of each individual are ignored in favor of universality. The hashtags transform unique connections into an arbitrary rating system where potential daters browse like buyers – as if for off-season Halloween Candy at Target or a fucking vacuum at Canadian Tire. Swiping right on Tinder or pressing yes on Pure has transformed into the new sexual compliment. Trouble is, this army of digitized sexual relationship apps is morphing us to believe that superficiality is the new standard. These virtual universes are constructing notions that our potential for unique connections must be rated and judged first. Instead of jeans, phones, or liquor, women consume men’s sexual, social, and physical qualities and performances – then relay that information whether the experience was valuable or not, in hashtags given by the app. And so, our sexual and romantic desires are reduced and desensitized to online interactions – a game where a picture stands in for a person, and a rating for a personality.


Kathleen Godfrey My Story

I was reading an article written by my father, who I never knew because he left this world before I came into it. In terms of biology, the egg had been fertilized, conception had occurred, but it was not until September 18th of the year he died that my brother and I were born. We are twins, my brother and I. Although I always used to say I was older, even if only by three minutes, I have grown to love that we practically are the same age give or take 180 seconds. Back to what I was saying – I was reading an article. But it is not really the article that I want to talk about; it’s the fact that I am just now, at the age of twenty, getting to know my dad. My father, whose pen name was Stephen Burwell, was a lover of the arts. At least that is what I have come to understand after reading five of his newspaper articles and listening to everything my family members can tell me about him. There was something about shaving his beard – THE beard – that was very dramatic and well documented photographically. It looked like a lot of fun and it makes me smile to think that an entire evening, full of friends and wine and food, was centered on the removal of facial hair. There is a framed photo on the third floor of my house that is of my mother and father in a pair of what they called ‘fundies’ – essentially a pair of underwear for two. Interestingly enough, I never thought this to be odd in any way. It seemed to me that they were having a ball being in love. I think my parents’ love looked fantastic. I fear that one day I will be the only one alive who will remember who he was, or at least whom he was from the perspectives of everyone who knew him. I have realized that who a person is, and who others believe them to be are two different things entirely. But I will believe the beliefs, and I will cherish them. I don’t want Stephen the writer, husband, friend, son, and brother to be forgotten. I guess the pictures will stay around, and the archives. On a pillar outside the superstore Honest Ed’s in Toronto, one of my father’s articles is printed – the last time I went to look for it though, I couldn’t find it. This past June, his mother – among the most incredible women I have known – passed away at the age of 98, and with her went many unique and unheard stories about my father. She was one of those classic women: a skilled hostess, conversationalist, a matcher of pants and belts. Despite being very much a woman of her time, she had a little something extra. With the exception of my mother, who I will talk about later, my grandmother was one of the most loving and honest people that I have had the honor of being related to. When I came to university and was not able to see her very often, I used to call her (speed dial ‘M’) whenever I was feeling especially happy with life, and tell her all the recent happenings. She was always inquiring, always supportive, and always ending the conversation with “Love you deary”. The death of my grandmother at this time in my life has given me quite a bit more to reflect on. I wish that I had more of her stories; I wish I didn’t have to regret not using my time with her as well as I perhaps could have, should have. I remember I had a plan to help her write her memoirs as she only completed 18 pages on her first attempt. We never got around to it. Thus far, it seems I’ve really only painted a story of loss, but really, I don’t want to get you down. I only want to explain to you what has shaped me as a young woman. I never had a male figure to look up to; my brother and cat were the men of the house growing up, and they did a fabulous job. Though my father passed away, but months later my mother got news of twins. While I am strictly atheist, I think that there is some sort of magic in the timing of my birth. I am not saying that my brother and I ‘saved’ my mother from a downwards spiral – that was the strong support of friends and family – but I think that rebirth is a very accurate way to describe the situation. I shant get philosophical on you. Instead, I’ll talk about my mother. Born as the youngest of three children, my mum was the baby her whole life, as well as the free spirit. She was theatrical, she was musical, and she was vibrant! You ought to see the photographs of her 10-year old self in a tutu prancing around her living room. My mum is still all of these things. She is all of these things after her husband committed suicide, after being married to an abusive second husband, and after essentially raising two children alone (although of course, again I must stress the presence of countless friends and family members who supported her through it all). I remember many years of unease and fear in our house, and know that my mother shrunk inwards during that time. It was hard, but I know that the second marriage came out of a place of vulnerability and desperation: she didn’t want her children to grow up without a father. I shall never blame her for that. I am in awe of her strength to kick him out of the house, and to raise my brother and I on her own for the last 11 years. Quite simply, I am paralyzed by the love and respect that I have for my mother. I think about my mother, who I know, my grandmother, who I knew, and my father, who I never knew and will never know. I think about these people nearly every day because not only am I a genetic mash-up of them, but also because they are such a huge part of My Story. How strange is it to think that my father can shape the way I see the world and who I want to be in that world without ever really being in my life. Physically, that is. How strange, too, that with the death of a loved one we lose access to stories that we don’t even know exist for certain. And lastly, how strange it is that I can’t confidently say I would have had my life play out any other way. I can long for something I never had, but who knows who I would be right now if the events of my past (and before my beginning) had not taken place? I certainly don’t.


Ashley Tardif-Bennett

Feminism Q&A What do you know about my feminism? A feminism stripped of its privilege from watching a mother pawn off her engagement ring to make the mortgage payment A feminism whose whiteness is bleached by dating a devout Muslim man What do you know about my feminism? A feminism who signed its name at the bottom of a police report, testifying an assault at the hands of two classmates, while their girlfriends cheered them on A feminism who saw its own reflection for the first time in the bottom of a toilet bowl, after purging a second slice of birthday cake What do you know about my feminism? A feminism that gets drunk on Fridays and sings along to Wrecking Ball if it comes on A feminism that feels more comfortable wearing a bra, but not waxing its legs What do you know about my feminism? A feminism that learned to speak in HTML codes and CSS A feminism muted for years by a father’s fist What do you know about my feminism? A feminism that runs marathons, but hides its medals in the bottom of a box in a closet A feminism that kisses girls, but doesn’t know how to react after its sister’s coming out What do you know about my feminism? A feminism crippled with guilt at wanting to be one of the boys, but not wanting it any less A feminism that travels South hoping to shed its Western skin What do you know about my feminism? A feminism that doesn’t want to be questioned anymore.


Ayla Dmyterko “In Ukrainian culture, there is a springtime tradition practiced by unmarried women surrounding the vinok, or wreath. A girl crafts her wreath from flowers and branches, places it upon her head and walks down to a river. It is cast down the tide, in hope of its retrieval by a future lover; a future husband. Addressing this absurdity, these portraits entertain where the vinok would realistically be today. They question and consider.�


Ashley Tardif-Bennett Veiled Sisterhood


Catherine Chea What the “F” Word Means To Me It is worrisome to me when people, especially women, say they do not associate themselves with the concept of feminism. It may be that self-proclaimed feminists are regarded as being too abrasive, unfeminine, self-contradictory, or condescending of men and even women. Perhaps, feminism is regarded as irrelevant within modern liberal societies. In spite of all these claims, I believe that feminism is often portrayed in such a way that does not successfully reflect the core of its ideal, which is equality for humanity. When I think of what constitutes genuine gender equality, I believe it is when people are valued fully as individual human beings, regardless of their gender. I find that the barrier for many women in all parts of society is when their subjective experiences and values are not acknowledged or respected. Within liberal western and non-western cultures, many women find themselves and their identities confined and constrained by societal standards. The main issue of women’s continued objectification that denies their humanity is evaded when we are blinded by our proclivity towards judgment based on cultural differences. In modern liberal societies, it is clear that many women are under the pressure to conform to subtle societal norms of beauty. For instance, in the Victoria Secret fashion shows, fashion and sports magazines, E! Entertainment, and other media advertisements of the like, women’s bodies are used to market brands and to provide entertainment. These venues can be regarded as objectifying to women. People are objectified when their subjectivity is denied…when their uniqueness, values, and perspectives are not recognized and respected. The image advertised in these medias is one of desirability and implied fertility. People who do not conform to such conventions are often disparaged. As well, I want to point out that the discrepancy between people’s gendered attributes should not determine how an individual is valued. Societal norms when it comes to gender present obstacles for women and men alike. It is unjustifiable to demean a person for exhibiting (or not exhibiting) certain gendered attributes. For me, a fully valued individual being includes philosopher Diana Meyers’ notion of feminism. This involves respecting people as autonomous agents that are self-determined and can attribute meanings, irrespective of their particular choices and cultural background, to their lives. They attribute meaning in a way that requires the development of introspection and self-discovery. In the end, freedom and human equality involves valuing people’s individuality as human beings. Feminism is still relevant and necessary today if women and men alike are not fully emancipated and are constrained by societal conventions.


Natalie Liconti


Check out some great events and groups at McGill and in Montreal! Archives Cannibales is a multidisciplinary installative exhibition that presents a collective project of reflection on the La Centrale archives. The artists were inspired by the exhibition of the centers past forty years to produce artworks that celebrate four decades of feminist art.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014, 12:30-2:00pm
 IGSF Seminar Room
 Isabel Arredondo
Brown Bag Lunch Seminar Introduction to her book on the representation of mothers in feminist Mexican film Wednesday, April 2, 2014, 7:00pm Leacock 132 RED LIGHT GREEN LIGHT screening and Q&A with documentary makers. $4 Red Light Green Light presents the findings of Hope for the Sold’s research on Canadian prostitution laws Tuesday, April 1, 2014, 12:30 pm
 Bobby Benedicto
 Andrew W. Mellon postdoctoral fellow, Art History and Communication Studies The Queer Afterlife of the Postcolonial City: Dictatorship Architecture, Transgender Performance, and the Place of the Dead Thank you to our contributors and sponsors!

And a big thanks to the dedicated team who helped in creating F Word! Editors:

Sarah Claydon, Milica Kosanovic, Mathilde Augustin, Marfisia Bel, Caroline Copeman, Lilian Giacoma, Sula Greene, Lina Martin-Chan, Frances Maychak, Ashley Tardif-Bennett

Layout and Design: Sara Kloepfer, Elisabeth Sulmont

Administrative: Jacqueline Boily, Kathleen Bradley, Alyssa Gartenberg, Maral Mehran, Kristen Pye, Rachel Winer



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