Home > Our Intern Blogs!

Our Intern Blogs!

Welcome to Danielle’s blog on GirlSpace!  A bit about me - I am student of social work at Ryerson University in Toronto and I’m excited to be doing a field placement at YWCA Canada.  Being an intern here has given me a great chance to view the feminist movement from a national perspective and to see the unique ways that girls and women support each other in different areas of the country.

I’ve always kept a journal, but this is my first blog.  I’m passionate about female reproductive & sexual health, protecting our environment, and social justice.  I’m also pretty keen on food, books, and music, so I’ll post about cool stuff like that if it relates to girls.  I’m interested to hear your thoughts too.  Share your ideas on one of our forums and discuss the topics with girls all over Canada!

May 6, 2010

A world-wide voice for girls at the G(irls) 20 Summit!

Finally a chance for girls to speak about global issues that affect them!  The G20 is a group of leaders from 20 powerful countries around the world.  In June this year they are meeting in Toronto, for a G20 Summit to talk about ways to create a healthy world economy.  They’ll be discussing the ways we trade food, water, energy, and jobs around the world.  Believe it or not, these decisions can have a major impact on girls and young women.

In order to remind these leaders how important girls and young women are, there’s going to be G(irls) 20 Summit in Toronto ten days before the G20 Summit.  The G(irls) 20 Summit will be made up of 20 girls – one each from the same countries as the G20 members.  The idea is that G(irls) 20 will draw attention back to the Millenium Goals created by the United Nations in 2000, and remind the G20 leaders of commitments that were made to eliminate poverty and disease; and improve access to education, gender equality and health care around the world.  Poverty and poor access to education and health care affect girls and women more severely than men and boys.  The G(irls) 20 summit creates an opportunity for girls to put their voices in global conversations that affect them.

The G(irls) 20 website says: “Global leaders have set impressive goals. We need real ideas for how to provide universal education, improve child and maternal health and eradicate poverty so that girls and women can fully realize their potential and contribute to the economic prosperity and stability of their communities and countries.”  What better way is there to get these ideas than to ask girls themselves?  Do you have something to say?  Apply to be a part of the G(irls) 20 Summit!

March 10, 2010

GIRL GAMERS GET NOTICED

It may be surprising to hear that 40% of video gamers are female, although it’s hard to tell based on the content of popular games.  Many of us are furious about the way that women are portrayed in video games.  Women are often background characters, and when they do appear, they are usually portrayed as stereotypical male fantasy objects in tight, revealing clothing.  Grand Theft Auto is particularly notorious because the player can choose to have sex with a woman, and then kill her.  A quick search of YouTube reveals many videos uploaded by fans that demonstrate how to do this in the game.  This type of female representation is alienating to female players and creates the understanding that gaming isn’t for women.  It also reinforces negative stereotypes and attitudes about girls and women for anyone who plays.

So, I was quite glad to read that developers are starting to take notice of women in the gaming market.  Since only 1 in 10 game developers are women, it’s not surprising it took so long.  Perhaps developers started noticing that there are tons of girls’ gamer sites out there.  For example, Pandora’s Mighty Soldiers, or PMS Clan, is a women’s community of developers, designers, and gamers who love gaming and make a point of standing up to men who harass girls in online games.

Feminist Gamers is a site for video game lovers who are also feminists and actively question the content of video games.  It’s awesome.  Then there’s Women Gamers.  It doesn’t take a terribly critical approach to gaming, but it does recognize that sexism is rampant throughout the industry.  The website has a great section for critiques of female game characters such as Lara Croft.  Overall, this website is more for women who just love gaming – and that’s great too.  (You can also check out Game Girl.)

Gaming doesn’t have to be alienating to girls!  If you play video games, check out one of these sites and join a female gaming community!

Feb. 24, 2010

Up and coming high school gender studies courses in danger before they begin

The Miss G project was started by two young university students in order to get women’s and gender studies as a course in Ontario high schools.  When asked “why”, they’ll ask you: “why not?”  In fact, they’ve got a whole list of reasons.  They explain that teens go through high school without ever learning the difference between sex and gender. (Sex refers to the biological differences between boys and girls, while gender refers to the way society tells us girls and boys are “supposed” to look and act.  For example, girls are ‘supposed to’ be caring, have long hair, and like shopping; while boys are ‘supposed to’ be tough and good at building things.)  Miss G also tells us that girls start to lose confidence once they are old enough for high school, and that sexism and sexual harassment are big problems in high schools.

While our provincial government is in charge of education, it’s helpful to talk about gender courses with our friends and teachers too.  According to folks at the Miss G project, the conversation about high school women’s and gender studies courses is happening in a few provinces. Some courses are popping up in schools, but they are not yet widely offered in any province.

In Ontario, a “Gender Studies” course is going to start as an elective for grade 11 and 12 students in September 2011 across the province.  The official course description explains that it helps students to understand femininity and masculinity, and to see how they are affected by television and video games, and play out in our relationships with each other.  This course is an exciting new part of high school in Ontario, no doubt due in part to the great work of the Miss G project. 

I hope this course will continue for a long time, but not surprisingly, people are already against it.  Life Site News reports that a group of bishops in Ontario have recommended that Catholic schools do not offer the course because it goes against the views of the Catholic Church, namely reproductive rights and “homosexual adoption”. 

I know it seems like these courses are necessary and make sense, and it seems obvious that people should learn about gender inequality when they are young.  I mean, many Canadian universities have had Women’s Studies programs for decades.  But lately, even university women’s studies programs are under attack.  Last year, they decided to cut the University of Guelph’s women’s studies program.  A couple weeks ago, the National Post printed a horrifying editorial accusing women’s studies and feminists of ruining our families and destroying relationships between men and women, among other things.  If they’re so upset about women’s and gender studies in university, you can bet they won’t be happy about them in high school.  As far as I’m concerned, the editorial is a great reminder of why we still need women’s and gender studies around.

The best way to support women’s and gender studies is to start talking about it and raise awareness.  Let’s keep our politicians on their toes.  If you’ve heard talk about a high school women’s or gender studies course in your province, bring it up in one of our forums.  Write to your MLA (or MHA, MNA, MPP) about it.  Let’s start a national dialogue about how we need women’s & gender studies courses in our public school systems!