gender

By Dave Oswald Mitchell
Briarpatch Magazine
March/April 2008

Planning and producing the gender issue each year has to be one of the most challenging and most enjoyable parts of my job. Of course, Briarpatch always seeks to connect theory and practice in its coverage, but in my experience, there is no issue that is at once so theoretical and so practical, so simultaneously personal and political, as gender. Grappling with that complexity is what I find so challenging and so enjoyable.

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Feminist home-schoolers are creating new ways of living and learning

By Becky Ellis
Briarpatch Magazine
March/April 2008

I am a feminist. In fact, most people who know me would say that feminism informs practically everything I do: what I read, how I relate to people, what forms of political action I undertake-everything, some might say, except my decision to home-school my children.

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By Barbara Barker & Tyler McCreary
Briarpatch Magazine
March/April 2008

In June 2007, following generations of non-recognition, and 16 years of intensely personal battles with bureaucrats, governments, and the justice system, Sharon McIvor, a member of the Lower Nicola First Nation, successfully challenged sex discrimination in the Indian Act in British Columbia’s Supreme Court.

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An interview with Chanelle Gallant, founder of the Feminist Porn Awards

By Nikko Snyder
Briarpatch Magazine
March/April 2008

When I first learned of the Feminist Porn Awards, I wasn’t surprised to discover that Good For Her was behind them. An independently owned and operated sex shop in Toronto, Good For Her’s feminism is as explicit as its inventory, so it seemed fitting that they were the ones to spearhead an annual awards ceremony celebrating filmmakers intent on subverting mainstream pornography.

But, I kept wondering, what on earth is feminist porn, anyway? In an effort to answer that question, I tracked down Chanelle Gallant, the former manager of Good For Her and founder of the Feminist Porn Awards. A past sex columnist for Chatelaine and an unapologetic pro-sex and pro-sex-worker feminist, Chanelle is currently in Southeast Asia writing about issues facing sex workers internationally. Before she left, I called her up to discuss what, if anything, allows feminism and porn to coexist.

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By Calvin Sandborn
Illustrations by Daryl Vocat
Briarpatch Magazine
March/April 2008

Men’s social conditioning takes a tremendous toll on not just their relationships, but also on their health. Those who want this to change, Calvin Sandborn argues, will have to come to terms with the concept of patriarchy-and with their own emotions.

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By Nikko Snyder
Briarpatch Magazine
March/April 2008

Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity
By Robert Jensen
South End Press, 2007

In Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity, Robert Jensen asks readers to look unflinchingly at contemporary, mainstream, heterosexual pornography and reflect honestly on what it says about the culture we live in. Jensen argues that porn represents a masculinity so toxic that conforming to it requires men to sacrifice their very humanity. He points out that as mainstream pornography has become more degrading towards women, it has simultaneously become increasingly normalized in our society, a paradox that leads to his conclusion that we live in a “rape culture.” He is careful to clarify, “That doesn’t mean the culture openly endorses rape, but it does endorse a vision of masculinity that makes rape inviting.”

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[In light of our latest issue's partial focus on media in war zones, this article serves as an important reminder of the many ways that reporters can be silenced. -D.O.M.]

By Judith Matloff, Columbia Journalism Review
June 7, 2007

The photographer was a seasoned operator in South Asia. So when she set forth on an assignment in India, she knew how to guard against gropers: dress modestly in jeans secured with a thick belt and take along a male companion. All those preparations failed, however, when an unruly crowd surged and swept away her colleague. She was pushed into a ditch, where several men set upon her, tearing at her clothes and baying for sex. They ripped the buttons off her shirt and set to work on her trousers.

“My first thought was my cameras,” recalls the photographer, who asked to remain anonymous. “Then it was, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to be raped.’ ” With her faced pressed into the soil, she couldn’t shout for help, and no one would have heard her anyway above the mob’s taunts. Suddenly a Good Samaritan in the crowd pulled the photographer by the camera straps several yards to the feet of some policemen who had been watching the scene without intervening. They sneered at her exposed chest but escorted her to safety.

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By Jesse Invik, Suzanne Mills and Tyler McCreary
Briarpatch Magazine
November 2005

What does it mean to be transgendered? If you are born in a body that fits your internal idea of who you are and what your gender is, you have probably never thought about it. But more people than you might imagine face this issue. Someone you know and care about may be struggling with it today. Alternating between the journalistic and the personal, drawing on the experiences of a female to male transgendered person, we hope this article will facilitate greater understanding of the struggles that transgendered people face.

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