F Is for Feminist

Long live the troll-slayer: A tribute to Shauna Hunt and others like her

Kaity Cooper — Thu, 14 May 2015 14:56:57 +0000

This week cybermisogyny once again made headlines with the on-air harassment of CityNews reporter Shauna Hunt.

Vote YES for women in Metro Vancouver’s Transit Referendum

Kaity Cooper — Thu, 07 May 2015 14:53:24 +0000

With only three weeks left to vote in the Metro Vancouver Transit and Transportation Referendum, less than 30 per cent of residents have cast their ballots. If you're a procrastinator like me and that referendum package is hiding somewhere underneath last month’s bank statements, this reminder is for you. In case you haven't decided how you intend to vote, here is my take on the referendum, from a feminist perspective.

Male field hockey players trade in shorts for sexy skirts

Kaity Cooper — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 15:21:19 +0000

It might surprise you to learn that in the progressive city of Vancouver there remains a recreational athletic league that prohibits women from wearing shorts. The league is the Vancouver Women's Field Hockey Association; the uniform a lycra miniskirt.

The Vancouver Women's Field Hockey Association operates on public fields rented by the City of Vancouver and is the only women's field hockey league in the Greater Vancouver Region. In this league the rule is: wear a skirt or don't play, and I can tell you from experience it is strictly enforced.

Cyber-misogyny: The new frontier for hate

Kaity Cooper — Fri, 19 Dec 2014 17:39:07 +0000

On August 3, 2013, 14-year-old Hannah Smith hanged herself in her bedroom. In the weeks leading up to her death, Hannah was subjected to cruel taunts and insults about her weight and a family death on Ask.fm, a question and answer social networking site that allows anonymous participation. According to Hannah’s father, she went to Ask.fm to look for advice on the skin condition eczema. Instead, she got bullies on Ask.fm urging her to drink bleach and cut herself.

Last week, I started a series about the different ways sexism is impacting girls and women today and how feminism can be utilized to help them. This is the second post in that series. This post is about cyber misogyny.

In defence of the 'F' word: Why we need feminism now more than ever

Kaity Cooper — Thu, 11 Dec 2014 20:05:29 +0000

I started blogging a few months ago because I'd had enough of the smear campaign against feminism that has been underway for many years. The #WomenAgainstFeminism phenomenon on Tumblr, wherein women post photographs of themselves holding signs that state why they do not need feminism, like, "I don't need feminism because my self-worth is not directly tied to the size of my victim complex," is one example. Or the recent Time magazine article which included "feminist" in a list of annoying words that readers could vote to ban from public discourse.

Vancouver field hockey players forced to wear skirts for (at least) another year

Kaity Cooper — Thu, 04 Dec 2014 17:58:24 +0000

If you'd have told me when I was 12 and writing my first speeches about equality for my local Rotary Club that my first real experience of discrimination would be at the hands of a field hockey league, I'd have thought you were joking. Then again, if you'd have told me when I was 12 that at 28 I would be forced to play a sport I love wearing a spandex miniskirt I would not wear to the bar, I probably would have had a similar reaction.

As some of you will already know, I have taken on the mandatory skirt for women field hockey players as somewhat of a pet project. For those of you who don't already know, here it is in a nutshell.

In business, as in politics, women's voices matter

Kaity Cooper — Tue, 25 Nov 2014 17:51:40 +0000

I recently attended a talk by the Right Honourable Kim Campbell, Canada's first and only woman Prime Minister. The talk was called, "Women's Voices: What difference do they make?" It was about women's unique life experiences and the consequences of ignoring women’s perspectives in politics, business and media.

I had never heard Campbell speak before, so I was eager to attend. I was disappointed to see that few Vancouverites felt the same way. Despite Vancouver’s population of over 600,000 people, the auditorium at Simon Fraser University’s Harbour Centre was only half full. To be fair, the event was not effectively promoted. Nonetheless, I was dismayed to see poor attendance for a talk about the importance of women's voices.

But I digress.

Conservatives looking to add contempt of court to record

Kaity Cooper — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 18:21:37 +0000

In March 2011, Harper's Conservatives became the first government in the history of the Commonwealth to be found in contempt of Parliament. That historic moment came about after Harper's then-minority government refused to disclose sufficient information about the cost of several big-ticket items such as the law-and-order agenda, corporate tax cuts and the plan to buy stealth combat jets.

Lest we forget: Harper's war on Canadian rights and freedoms

Kaity Cooper — Tue, 11 Nov 2014 17:33:18 +0000

Today is Remembrance Day, a day we remember the men and women who have served and continue to serve our country during times of war, conflict and peace; men and women who sacrificed their lives "for their homes and families and friends, for a collection of traditions they cherished and a future they believed in."

We often take for granted the values and freedoms we enjoy as Canadians: the freedom of speech, the freedom to dissent, the right to privacy, the right to choose our government. Canadians who went off to war, did so in the belief that those values were being threatened. And so they went to fight in distant lands to defend those values.

Four things you need to know about the 2014 Vancouver civic election

Kaity Cooper — Mon, 10 Nov 2014 23:38:27 +0000

Advance voting for Vancouver's 2014 Civic Election is now open. If you didn't know about the election, you are probably not alone. If my newsfeed is any indication, Vancouverites know way more about Toronto’s mayoral candidates and recent election than our own. This is not a new phenomenon. In Vancouver’s last civic election, voter turnout was abysmally low at 34.6 per cent. That is even worse than the turnout for our last provincial and federal elections at 58 per cent and 61.1 per cent respectively.