The Girl Conference- The White Tiger

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A few weeks ago I went to London with a few girls from my school as we attended The Girl Conference held by The White Tiger Company. The conference was filled with several main topics that included:

• A Girl's Right to Stay Safe



• Drug Induced Sexual Assault



• Sexual Assault Awareness Skills



• Preventing Date Rape



• Growing up with Domestic Violence
  and



• Healthy Dating Relationships

The White Tiger Company teaches women's self-defence. They started to have 'girl' conferences around Ontario to raise awareness about violence against women, and empower women with education on healthy relationships, saftey, and effective ways to protect theirselves against violence.

This girl conference was made as a commemoration for the 14 women tragically killed on Dec. 6th of 1989 at Ecole Polytechnique. On that day, those 14 women were shot to death by one man, who hated women. He actually yelled "you're all a bunch of feminist! And I hate feminists!" After these murders he then decided to end his own life as well.

This tragedy sparked a campaign called the White Ribbon Campaign, which is reflective of the violence against women that takes place in our communities.

At the girl conference there were a couple speakers who bravely shared their personal experiences of violence and abuse. These stories were unbelievable and hit the audience hard in the heart. One women shared her experience about being kidnapped, raped and stabbed - a traumatic event that has effected the rest of her life; and the other speaker shared her history of domestic violence and having to witness it growing up.

Since the White Tiger group is a self-defence group, one of the other presentations was a woman senior instructor, who taught us a few handy self defense moves. She showed us how to get out of a choke hold, areas to aim for during an attack , and stances to take while being confronted with violence. Although this teaching is very important and serious, the instructor made it fun and exciting. I myself would love to enroll in some classes; and in fact soon enough I will.

Finally, the day closed with two singer-songwriters who played keyboard and sang. Not only were their performances beautiful, but they were very original and inspiring. They gave a strong message to the women who participated in the conference, so that we could leave with a sense of power and understanding, rather than pain and hurt that was felt at other times during the conference.

Overall this was another great experience for me, and my fellow school mates. I know that I felt like a stronger woman when I left the room; and a luckier one at that, and I'm sure all the women felt a little better, too. So to The White Tiger Group, and The Girl Conference, thank you -for educating young women, to empowering them.

Toujours de RebELLES 2008

On October 11, 12, and 13 history was in the making! Montreal held Canada's first pan-Canadian feminist conference -where women from every province and territory gathered to learn, share, experience, and stand up for social change! As you can see by the banner, this gathering was called "Toujours RebELLES - Waves of Resistance".

Through various workshops, activities, debates and discussions, over 500 women who participated shared experiences, struggles and ideas. We networked amoungst eachother and made links of solidarity that have strengthened and revitalized the young feminst movement in Canada.

Jessica Yee, who brought me there, presented a speech about Indigenous women and their history of 'feminsim'. She talked about recognizing how the mainstream media has introduced feminism as an exclusive movement, and that we need to erase mainstream media and search for a plurality of backgrounds. We also had three international speekers make speeches about the state of their country and how feminism needs to be international. We had a women from Brazil, a women from the The Philippines, and one from Africa, who shared their personal experiences suffering.

The whole gathering was very organized. The organizers accomodated breakfast and lunch everyday. The only thing participants needed was to buy a dinner each night! All the meals were very filling vegetarian dishes, and the organizing committee went out of their way to ensure vegans got a proper meals as well. Everyone was given paper documents outlining some history of the feminist movement, resources, and workshops about feminism.

I'm very glad that I volunteered to be apart of the Manifesto Comittee. Our job was to create a document that could be used as a political tool for women to bring back into their communities. We joined different workshops and recorded the concerns and opinions of our groups, and met during lunches, after preliminaries to put our information together. Through numerous backgrounds, beliefs, locations, philosophies and ideas -we had to search for one voice.

The Manifesto was writtten in different 'chunks' -explaining who 'we' are as feminist, what our perseptions and ideas are, what and who have left us oppressed, and steps of action to take for social change. It was so hard to be inclusive of the various types of struggles in different geographical locations, but the team worked very hard to sum up the activity that took place that weekend.

We presented our Manifesto in the prelimary on the last day, and here everyone had a chance to discuss any changes that needed to be made, or anything that needed to be added, ect. After someone made a statement, we would have a vote to change that part of the Manifesto, or keep it the same. It was a long process, but after a few hours it was finally done.

Here's a photo at the preliminary, where the women at Toujours RebELLES got together for a BIG HUG!

A copy of the Manifesto can be found on the Toujours RebELLES website: www.rebelles2008.org

Feel free to check it out, change it up for different audiences, and use it! Send it to your best friend, your classmates, even your MP!

Make a difference in your community. Ask lots of questions, and take action in your everyday life! Revolution starts in you.

Let's Begin, Shall We?

Feminism isn't strickly 'women having equal rights as men'. It isn't about burning bras, rallying in the streets, or bitching about anything and everything thats offensive to women. Feminism has been stereotyped by the media; and the movement has grown and developed alot since the 'bra burning' wave that everybody refers to when the word "feminism" is.
Right now our society is in, what some would call, the 'third wave' of Feminism. It's about breaking stereotypes and recognizing common struggles through the pressure of traditional gender roles, religious fundamentalism. Feminism is about equality amoung the sexes, and recognizing and respecting the rise of 'trans positive' people. It's also about recognizing that feminism has been steretyped by the women in power, white women, that in fact excluded other races, cultures, sexualities and identies from the movement; but we've worked hard to erase this, and encourage variety and allies into the movement. Feminism is constantly growing and striving for a pluralty of different voices, opinions and backgrounds.
So why feminism and not humanism? Well, we need to recognize that women globally have been and still are being treated and forced into deplorable conditions. This is a global issue that not only effects the women, but the communities they live in. Women's bodies everywhere are being exploited: violence is normalized, sexual abuse is eroticized, and women's reproductive rights are either completely absent, or disrespected. We've been so desensitized to 'pain', physically and physcologically, that we can't see the problem, because we've become the problem.
Feminism is important in today's society to break stereotypes of what genders still "can and can't do" or "should or shouldn't do". It's about recognizing hypersexualization in T.V shows, commercials, radio advertisments, billboards and the subjection of women in the media.
Girls are taught from a young age to be in constent competetion with one another. Gender roles have been so stressed and pressured for women that eating disorders have become almost a religion; and are women are LITERALLY dying to be thin, or having surgerys, injections, taking pills, or modifing their image in other unhealthy ways to ensure an 'appropriate' shape for society.
Even more importantly, feminism is needed to show solidarity to women in other countries who aren't just "fighting for their rights" but they are fighting for survival.