If you're feeling like it's been a while since your last dose of post-punk, queer, feminist culture, then you'll be happy to hear that this Wednesday, The Power Plant (Toronto's leading contemporary art gallery) will have your fix. They'll be screening selections from the oeuvre of avant-garde, DIY filmmaker Sadie Benning. Benning, who was one of the founding members of the seminal band Le Tigre, made her first film at the tender age of fifteen,......

Today is a Valentine's Day that Kathleen Wynne will never forget. The Miss G___ Project is encouraging Ontario residents to contact the current Minister of Education today and politely demand that a Women's and Gender Studies (WGS) program be added to the Ontario Secondary School curriculum. The Miss G___ Project for Equity in Education has been fighting for three years for a WGS program in Ontario high schools. Kathleen Wynne called the project "the most......

1963 was basically the Year of the Fly: think Warhol, The Beatles, The Feminine Mystique and all kinds of awesome. If you're into free love and feminism (or cool feminist girls), join McClung's magazine for 1963 at The Social tonight, January 15, at 9 p.m. The retro-groovy party celebrates the launch of the Ryerson student publication's winter issue (and raises funds for the spring edition) and will feature rad DJ duo Camp So Chill.......

Antonia Zerbisias is back! After the fade-out of Azerbic, the smart, entertaining and well-loved blog she wrote for The Star, she's just recently returned with a new blog, Broadsides. For those who are uninitiated in the ways of this fierce and funny columnist, she is a regular contributor to The Star's Living section. Now, it's irksome that the topics she regularly discusses––which typically include current issues tied to women's rights and freedoms––are relegated to......

Photo of Julie Doiron courtesy of Jagjaguwar. Feminism means different things to different people—and for many people it means something negative. From the angry feminist stereotypes to news outlets simply ignoring it, feminism is an important movement that's gotten a bad rap. Ladyfest Toronto is aiming to change that by throwing a festival that proves feminism can be both fun and political. The festival kicks off next Thursday (the 27th) with a party at......

Unlike our hetero male friends, a lot of women just don't get aroused by mainstream porn. You know, the kind where silicone-padded girls are used as receptacles for bodily fluids? Thankfully, there is a growing market for porn for women by women, which has been dubbed "feminist porn." For porn to be considered feminist, three criteria must be fulfilled. First is that the women are shown experiencing real pleasure and real orgasms. Secondly, women should......

Carolee Schneemann is an artist whose work refuses a tepid response: in a career that has addressed contentious topics such as American imperialism and the implications of living in a sex-phobic society, Schneemann has solidified her position as a pioneer in what is now known as multi-media/disciplinary art. Schneemann began her career as a painter in the late 1950’s and later applied the medium's physical properties to installation, performance, filmmaking, the written word, and assemblage.......

March 8th marks International Women's Day each year, though it's sadly not yet a national holiday in Canada, as it is in a few countries. But official holiday or not, there are still a tonne of events happening in Toronto to mark the occasion. Here are some of Torontoist's best bets for celebrating feminism this week: Today The National Film Board and Amnesty International present a free screening of Killer's Paradise, a documentary about the......

Today marks the 16th anniversary of 1989's tragic Montreal Massacre, when Marc Lepine entered the Université de Montréal's École Polytechnique and opened fire on the women in the building, killing 14 of them and injuring 8 others, all the while raving psychotically about how feminism had ruined his life. Geneviève Bergeron Hélène Colgan Nathalie Croteau Barbara Daigneault Anne-Marie Edward Maud Haviernick Maryse Laganière Maryse Leclair Anne-Marie Lemay Sonia Pelletier Michèle Richard Annie St-Arneault Annie Turcotte......

The "period" is a routinely used punctuation mark to signify the end of a written thought. Many languages employ the period millions of times over during an average day, without giving it a second thought. Now, with the gains of modern medicine, the word "period" carries a different meaning. In addition to being an important aspect of sentence structure, "period" is also meant to signify a biological phenomenon called "the menstrual cycle." The menstrual cycle......