Feminist Fare Friday: Edition #20

Feminist Fare Friday is bought to you today by the inimitable Ms. Gloria Steinem.

Happy 80th Birthday Gloria!

For all the work you have done, for all the torches you have lit, and for all the ways we need to keep our torches lit, and keep working to light even more. We thank you.

I thank you.

~~~~~~~~~~

1. Liz Gumbinner at MOM-101, wrote this great post in honour of Ms. Steinem's birthday. Go and read it. And in case you miss it (it's one of the links in the above post), please read this post from Liz as well, from way back in 2006 (which is, like, the stone-age of blogging! Ha!) in which Gloria Steinem talks about the stay at home mother and feminism.

"To say that homemakers “don’t work” is a form of semantic slavery. Actually, homemakers work longer hours, for less pay, under worse conditions (more violence, depression, drug and alcohol addiction etc.) — and less security (more probability of being replaced by a younger worker!) — than any other class of workers in the country."

~~~~~

2. The fine people at Makers.com put together a nifty little infographic of Gloria Steinem's life. It highlights what we know about her and what we may not know and is a great insight into her life and her legacy.

~~~~~

3. This week was also the week that CBC radio and Jian Ghomeshi really stuck their collective feet in it when they aired a debate about rape culture on Ghomeshi's popular radio show Q. (Your first clue here should be the word "debate".) Folks, the fact that people who are witnessing a rape can't even identify it as such (think Steubenville case) shows us how much of a problem this is. The social media outrage and response to the myriad of rape apologists was witnessed in the #rapecultureiswhen hashtag and outlined in this PolicyMic post from Danielle Paradis. 

~~~~~

4. My little Kindergartener has been having a colour-a-day theme going on at school this past week and yesterday was pink day. It was also her celebration of learning day and parents were encouraged to also wear the colour of the day. My daughter has A LOT of pink in her wardrobe. She likes bright colours and is not afraid to mix and match. Finding something for her to wear yesterday was not an issue. In my wardrobe on the other hand, I have one pyjama top and one sports bra that are pink. That's it. I am not opposed to the colour pink, it's just not a colour that I gravitate to when choosing my garments.

Pink has been in the media again this week (the colour, not the singer!) and my friend Avital Norman Nathman very aptly expresses the "problem" with pink in this post over at The Mamafesto.

Pink is a cool color – I get it. Flamingos are pink and flamingos are awesome. What’s not to love? And many, many girls love pink. Also awesome. But when all we offer them is pink? That’s when the trouble starts. By taking “boy” toys (Legos, Nerf guns, etc…) and turning them pink in order to sell them to girls, we’re offering up two messages – the first is that the default for toys is that they’re for boys. The other message is that the only way to get girls to play with them is to drench them in pink. 

~~~~~

Have a wonderful weekend everyone. Keep fighting the good fight!

N~