One Woman Army

Safe spaces at risk - or are they risky safe spaces?

2009-06-15T16:16:18-02:30

These days I'm writing about safe space, voice, and transformation. Its amazing just how little academic information there is out there about safe space. No one wants to define it. No one knows how. The term is tossed around carelessly. Its overused in the classroom -feminist academics and those of us in women's studies are sure to have heard it as professors set the "ground rules" for class discussions. But what, really is it? What makes a space "safe" for you? I would argue that a "safe space" is not always the right term - but I can't redefine it...

The blame game in Africa; a tale of discrimination

2009-06-15T11:59:42-02:30

I want to come back now to my earlier post about the forced sterilization of women - particularly the news today about the situation in Africa, where women are being sterilized to stop the spread of HIV without their knowledge. My thoughts kept on in this direction after a lengthy debate about the issue with my partner. Aside from the issue of choice, this points to a much larger issue. That being, women-blaming, misogyny, sexism. discrimination. Yeah, not words thrown around lightly, but also not words that one should be surprised to find me using on this blog. In this...

Musings on choice and birth control; forced sterilization still an issue?!?!?!

2009-06-15T09:33:46-02:30

Lately I've been thinking a lot about forms of birth control. How they control us, how they don't, the costs, the benefits, the pleasure factor - who are they really made for? Does it make me a bad feminist not to like hormonal contraceptives? Yes, they give us the power of choice. I believe in choice. I just don't believe in extra hormones being put inside my body, stopping and changing the cycle of my period, causing all sorts of reactions and symptoms and being made to believe that's "normal". Does that make me a bad feminist? That's just my...

Listen to my story, silence me no more...

2009-06-14T17:28:01-02:30

“And where the words of women are crying to be heard, we must each of us recognize our responsibility to seek those words out, to read them and share them and examine them in their pertinence to our lives. That we not hide behind the mockeries of separations that have been imposed upon us and which so often we accept as our own.” - Audre Lorde I am in awe of the words of women. I sit here alone, in a house on the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the voices of women who I spoke with so long ago. Women...

Writing the good fight...

2009-06-14T17:09:49-02:30

I have taken several self-imposed hiatuses from blogging and writing as of late. So many other projects and activities. Doula-in-training. Activist-oh-hold. Thesis-writer-in-never-ending-progress-and-state-of-unrest. Childcare-worker-to-the-extreme. Occasional-columnist-and-writer. Crafter-and-baker/food-worshipper. Not to mention occasionally having fun and doing things in my private life. So many projects, so little time, everything always in progress or put on hold. Today's site redesign came out of a state of unrest with my thesis-writing. I have spent the last 4 weeks holed up in a remote, far from civilisation, destination on the Atlantic ocean - writing, writing, writing. Editing and rewriting. Reading and analysing and more reading and editing...

Wishlist - pretty please?

2009-01-24T16:35:21-03:30

Loves it. I want one. Hell yeah!! Found courtesy Unapologetically Female.

Obama - change is coming!

2009-01-24T15:40:48-03:30

What a week, oh what a week. I want to take a minute to reflect on this past week - stemming from the amazing hope I feel from the Obama inauguation. Its a week to be remembered, as we saw history be made, and already so many amazing things happen. Where were you on inauguration day? I was listening on the radio, with a couple children trying so hard to be quiet by my side (and not at all understanding the magnitude of what was happening). In my corner of the world, Newfoundland and Labrador, there was much hope, jubilation,...

Sunday morning reading: Empowerment4Women

2009-01-18T11:16:46-03:30

I'm all about promoting fantastic feminist works - writing, art, and inspiration. Today's brainfood of choice - Empowerment4Women.com - a beautiful online feminist magazine. The new issue is now posted online, with beautiful photography by Sheilagh O'Leary, featured poet Malaika King Albrecht, and incredible writing. Not to be missed - Tell Me A Story by Leisha Sagan, and Today's Class Topic: Rape by Jessica Trusiani. This last one in particular moved me to tears - I am in awe of women's story-telling, and this author inspires me. Happy Sunday reading. -Artemis.

My body, my womb

2008-12-20T12:35:10-03:30

My body aches for children. It aches to be pregnant, to have a life held inside my womb. It aches to take care of children of my own. To be a mother. Its an odd place to be for a feminist activist. For a one woman army. My cohort of feminist soldiers consist of women and men who are part of a sexual revolution of free love, body love, independence, socialism - to name a few. They are the women and men who promote safer and happy sex, who support a woman's right to choose - but do not themselves...

Home again home again

2008-12-20T11:54:17-03:30

I have been away for so long. Writing has long been such a part of me, yet over the past year or so it has gradually faded to something likened to a ghost limb. Part of me, but missing, aching, gone, and I am so disabled by it that I know not how to recover anymore. I have no great explanation for this lack of writing, lack of creativity. But I am at a crossroads in my life I feel. Aching for a change, needing to move forward, yet having no idea how to move forward. Or where to go....