Feminist Current

Emily Witt’s recent essay, in which she describes traveling to San Fransisco, where she watches a BDSM porn shoot for a Kink.com series called Public Disgrace, which depicts “women bound, stripped, and punished in public,” inspired a number of responses. Despite my, probably obvious, criticisms of both porn and the BDSM genre, in particular, the piece [...]

This article was originally published on Karen Ingala Smith’s blog and is cross-posted with permission from the author. A couple of weeks ago, The Independent ran an article on male victims of domestic violence. There were some factual inaccuracies in the report along with the use of the statistic that one in three victims of [...]

The Women’s Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution, a pan-Canadian coalition of equality-seeking women’s groups, has, as of today, been granted leave to intervene in the Bedford case, scheduled for hearing on June 12, 2013 at the Supreme Court of Canada. The Court will decide whether or not to keep the current prostitution laws (which [...]

Rad Fem 2013 is a radical feminist conference set to happen in London, on June 8th and 9th of this year at the London Irish Centre. When Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs) caught wind of the conference, they staged a demonstration, pressing the London Irish Centre to cancel the booking. I spoke with Nic Nesbitt, one [...]

Someone messaged me yesterday asking my perspective on Game of Thrones; wondering if I had any feministy links or insights to share with him. I stopped watching GoT early in the second season, after Joffrey forces one prostitute to beat another unconscious in a horrifically sadistic and gruesome way. I’d already been having a hard [...]

The latest from A Voice For Men’s “activism” files is a smear campaign against a protester they are calling “Big Red.” “Big Red” (nothing sexist about that name) is a woman who dared to speak out (USING SWEAR WORDS, OH NO) against Men’s Rights Activists’ anti-feminist agenda. For those who are unfamiliar with this situation, [...]

When Sunsara Taylor and her activist group, Stop Patriarchy, attended the annual CLPP (Civil Liberties and Public Policy) conference this past weekend at Hampshire College, they never thought it would result in their being escorted out by police. The 27th annual conference for student and community activists was focused on reproductive freedoms, called: “From Abortion Rights [...]

A piece published in the Toronto Star over the weekend may have led you to believe it would, as the headline: “Feminists take opposite stands on prostitution” alludes, explore different feminist positions on prostitution and prostitution law. The author, Rosie DiManno (“one of the Star’s best and most prolific writers“!), immediately trips all over herself [...]

I was a guest on Vancouver Co-op Radio’s The Rational on Tuesday evening talking about rape culture, Steubenville, masculinity and an article I wrote recently: The Steubenville rape case: This is masculinity. Thanks to Riaz Behra, who interviewed me. You can listen to the full interview here:   Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Tom Matlack, who I’d pretty much forgotten about because, well, because he’s irrelevant, is at it again. And by “at it” I mean, of course, whining about the mean, mean feminists. It’s his thing. Some history on me and Tom: Back in January, Matlack, who is the co-founder of MRA-lite site, The Good Men Project, [...]

This article was originally posted at Manyfesto and has been republished with permission from the author, Taryn Fivek. No one proposes ending war by unionizing arms manufacturers. Proposing to end violence against women in the sex trade by unionizing them is likewise untenable. The best way to end violence against women in the sex trade [...]

Prostitution is a gendered issue, but it’s also an issue that is very much tied to class and race. Canada’s history of colonialism is not something to be ignored when looking at both causes of and solutions to prostitution. In this episode, I speak with Cherry Smiley, co-founder of Indigenous Women Against the Sex Industry [...]

It’s time for me to come out of the metaphorical closet, friends. I’m afraid this secret has been weighing on me far too heavily, for far too long. The truth is, I’ve been in bed with Harper for the past year. Literally and figuratively. It all started with this (I’m the one on the far [...]

Cool. Earlier his week, The Gloss featured old photos of prostituted women in order to highlight the fact that being poor and having to service nasty-ass dudes in the early 1900s also involved wearing cool tights. A comment left on the post reads: “Well, I’m obviously going to be an old school sex worker for [...]

An article was published recently in The Independent looking at the Nordic model in Sweden. The journalist, Joan Smith, took a ride in a squad car to see how a model wherein the buyer is criminalized and the prostitute is decriminalized actually worked. What she found will likely be met, by any progressive, intelligent, feminist [...]

Is it just me, or have we all been drinking the post-feminist Kool-Aid? You know, post-feminism — the idea that women are empowered enough to read Playboy. I can’t help but cringe when I see news reports about the relatively new Ukrainian “activist” group, FEMEN — composed of attractive, thin, young women who protest topless. [...]

 Iceland has been called the world’s most feminist country. Ranking first in the 2012 Global Gender Gap Report, the country sucessfully banned strip clubs, adopted feminist legislation around prostitution, decriminalizing sex workers and criminalizing the men who buy sex, and have legislated against printing and distributing porn. Now, the progressive country is considering banning hardcore [...]