A Tina Fey quote to brighten your day

"Every girl is expected to have caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama and doll tits.

The person closest to actually achieving this look is Kim Kardashian, who, as we know, was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes. Everyone else is struggling."

- Tina Fey

Jennie Thunder's feminist adventures in Windsor

I was invited to speak at the University of Windsor as part of their International Women's Day events this year. It was a real honour to be invited to share my knowledge about the representation of women in advertising, plus my experiences as a feminist radio program host and blogger.

Me (left) with Nicole and Meghan, hosts of Milk & Vodka

One of the coolest experiences was being a guest on another radio program. The University of Windsor has a campus radio station much like our beloved CJSW in Calgary. CJAM is smaller, but they do have a feminist radio program - Milk and Vodka. I was interviewed by the fabulous hosts Nicole and Meghan.

It was really fun to be the guest rather than the host, and it was awesome to meet other feminist radio program hosts! We share a lot of similarities regarding our goals and hopes for strengthening the feminist communities in our respective cities.

I gave three presentations while in Windsor, all of which involved ad-busting - my specialty! I taught students how to identify things like sexism and racism in ads, and showed them how advertisements work by making us feel ugly, wrinkly, fat and generally inadequate. The shittier we feel about ourselves, the more we'll spend on products that supposedly make us thinner, more beautiful, less hairy, less wrinkly, and so on. Below is a typical example of what my ad-busting looks like. I've been doing this for about 6 years now and it's so much fun. I like challenging the mainstream messages in advertisements and inserting my own message of empowerment (or maybe just something funny that makes people think twice about the images they're seeing). 

My whole experience at Windsor was thanks to a group of women's studies students who were asked to find a presenter for Women's Day. They wanted a young feminist who was active in her community, and they found me via this blog. As I mentioned, I felt very honoured to be asked to present. Spending time with the students who organized the events was a real treat. They reminded me of myself six years ago - a keener student (I mean that in the most affectionate way!) with a passion for women's issues and a desire to make a difference. 

The students who organized the event: Sapphire, Marianne, Alexis, me and Laura

On my final night in Windsor I attended a button-making event at a local cafe. Tons of students from all faculties showed up to make buttons. I made a few myself - pictured here. This was actually my first time making buttons - hard to believe since that's practically a right of passage for feminists!

Well, that's my trip to Windsor in a nut shell. The best aspects of the whole experience were spending time with other young feminists and hearing feedback from my presentations like, "I learned a lot" and "That was really interesting." I have returned to Calgary with renewed feminist spirit and I'm ready to keep on rockin'!

International Women's Day events in Calgary - March 8, 2012

March 8th is International Women's Day! Here's what's going down in Calgary.

International Women’s Day Fair

Hosted by Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association

Date: Thursday, March 8

Time: 9 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Location: Jack Singer Concert Hall Lobby 205 – 8th Ave SE

Details: Free walk-in event. More details on their website.

Women’s Day Potluck

Hosted by the Calgary Women’s Centre

Date: Thursday, March 8

Time: 5:30 – 8 p.m.

Location: Kery Centre – 1133 7th Ave SW

Details: Free potluck community dinner. Everyone welcome. RSVP at 403-264-1155 or sarah@womenscentrecalgary.org. More details on their website.

Screening of the film Miss Representation

Date: Thursday, March 8

Time: 8 p.m.

Location: University of Calgary, building Science B, room 103

Cost: $10. Purchase tickets through the U of C campus ticket centre, or online at ucalgary.ca/tickets.

Ad-busting L'Oréal's Roller Foundation

Is cleaning the office kitchen a woman's job?

Ever since I joined the workforce I’ve been cleaning kitchens.

No, I’m not a cleaning lady or a nanny. I work in a professional job, and I just happen to be one of the only people at every office I've worked at who cleans out the fridge. In fact, I have never seen a male co-worker clean out a communal fridge since I joined the workforce in 2007.

Where I currently work there are approximately equal numbers of men and women who share the kitchen and fridge. In the past year, only myself and one other woman (let’s call her Nancy) have cleaned the fridge out. I know because there’s a signup sheet on the fridge that says, “Cleaning the fridge is a team effort! Please do your part and sign up.” The “team effort” for the past year has looked like this: Jennie. Nancy. Jennie. Nancy. Jennie. Nancy.

The dishwasher is another point of contention. A few more people contribute to turning the dishwasher on and unloading clean dishes, but by and large it’s done by women. That too has been a trend in every office I've worked at.

This got me wondering, just how widespread is it for women to do all or most of the kitchen cleaning in the office? I’m willing to bet that it’s pretty damn common, and I’m getting a little pissed off about it. Women already do the double shift (work 8 hours in the office then come home to chores, cooking and childcare) – we don't need to make it a triple shift.

Well, it only took us women decades of feminism to get men helping out in the home kitchen... do we have to wait another few decades before they’ll do their part in the work kitchen?

Calgary's Memorial March for Missing and Murdered Women - Feb 14, 2012

The Native Women's Association of Canada has documented over 600 cases of Native women who have disappeared or been murdered over the past 30 years in Canada. Young Indigenous women are 5x more likely than other women of the same age to die as the result of violence.

Every year on Valentine's Day a memorial march is organized to grieve the loss of our sisters and to remember the women who are still missing.

Calgary's 4th Annual Memorial March for Missing and Murdered Women

Date: Tuesday February 14, 2012

Time: 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.

Location: United Scarboro Church (134 Scarboro Ave SW)
Speakers at 6:30 p.m. with the march beginning at 7 p.m. Light meal to follow. Open mic for families of missing loved ones. Check the Facebook event for more details.

A funny, kinda feminist commercial involving mom jeans

I can't believe I just saw a commercial that manages to authentically promote body acceptance and the concept that regular women can be smokin' hot sexy mammas. It's also decently funny too.

Kudos to Real California Milk for making a commercial that celebrates a woman's "bunt cake"!

Just some good ol' fashioned ad-busting

I used to do a lot of ad-busting when I was in university. I even taught ad-busting workshops to teens and university students. I haven't done any in a while and I kinda miss it, so I thought I'd post a few of my favourite busted ads and maybe it'll help inspire me to do more!

Seriously funny ladies make "Shit Guys Say" videos

By now most people have heard about Shit Girls Say - a couple of dudes who tweet and make videos about about... erm, shit girls say. The videos have gone viral for a reason - they're funny. The creators do a good job of poking fun at women without offending them.

Well, hot on the tails of Shit Girls Say is a whole slew of other Shit People Say videos. I watched a few made by women about the shit guys say, and I laughed my ass off. These ladies are seriously funny - check 'em out.  

Shit Guys Say
Canadian ladies Tori Lord and Chanelle Ramsubick mock dudes pretty accurately in this video. Keep your eyes out for the Edmonton Oilers jersey - a nice little Canadian touch.




Shit Black Guys Say
Comedians Robin Thede and Inda Craig-Galván amused me greatly with their popular sayings of black guys.

Feminist film "Miss Representation" to screen in Calgary

This film looks awesome. Miss Representation exposes how mainstream media contributes to the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America. Please come down to The Globe Cinema on Wednesday, January 18 from 6 - 9 p.m. to check it out and meet other feminists in Calgary!

All the details are on the Facebook event - invite your friends.