Ontario Feminist Blogs

For years now there has been a huge surge of people creating and sending out false emails meant to scare women. I’m sure you’ve seen them: the lead in lipstick is going to kill you, Tampax Pearls tampons increase your chances of getting Toxic Shock Syndrome, more women are victims of abuse on Superbowl Sunday than any other time of the year…and the list goes on. The thing is most (if not all) of these emails are false. What bothers me is the huge majority are aimed at women. Have you ever heard of an email warning about men’s products or male diseases? Has anyone you know ever gotten an email with the subject “JOCK STRAP COMPANY PUTTING HARMFUL POISONS IN PRODUCTS.” I doubt it.

The reason I’m writing this is because there is another round of stupid emails going around about the “burundanga”: drug soaked business cards. The email tells a story about a woman at a gas station who accepts a business card from a man offering painting services. She notices he follows her out of the station. Then she starts to feel dizzy and nauseous. She honks the horn to alert passersby. The men drive off when she does this.

Well, it’s not true. And what’s worse is that the originator is currently passing it around as a Press Release email from the Niagara Police Services (my hometown, incidentally). Someone, thinking it was real, passed it around to my Woman’s Group on Thursday and posted it a few places to warn women. The thing is: it’s a hoax. 100% not true. It sure as hell looks real, but nope.

http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/burundanga.asp

Things like this are just another way of “putting us in our place.” It tries to make us passive “victims” of society. We need to fight this nonsense.

One of the first things you can do is check out this site:
http://www.snopes.com

When snopes.com first came online, it was a fun site designed for people to learn about those stupid urban myths you hear about all the time…like you can burn your tongue off my sticking it in Coke. More recently it has become a resource for people to check out those bullshit emails that keep getting sent around. Check it out!

Posted in Guest Posts Tagged: Burundanga, Drug Soaked Business Cards, E-Mail, Fake or False, Guest Writer, Hoax, Lead in Lipstick, Niagara Police Services, Passive Victims, Scare Tactics, Snopes.com, Stay, Superbowl Sunday, Tampax Tampons and TSS, Technology, Urban Myths, Women's Products

So sorry for not posting at all lately! We just wrapped up a huge fundraising event at work so I have been insanely busy until today. Now it is time for summer vacations so we are not likely to slow down too much, but I will do my best to recommit to posting about once a week, if not, more often!

Posted in Feminism Tagged: Blog Entries, Busy, Fundraising, New, Non-Profit Agencies, Time

This is really starting to piss me off…. why is it okay for white men to allow their experiences and beliefs to influence the way they do their job, but if anyone else does the same they are being “reverse racists”? WTF!? is right! There is no such thing as being reverse racists – you cannot be racist against white people, because we have privilege.

I am so sick of this crap! I think Sotomayor is going to use her experience to benefit all women especially women of colour, however, I do not think it will be direct. Sonia will be a responsible and professional person in the role I am sure.

I think this is a good moment to request that everyone examine their own racist baggage and white privilege. If you have no idea what I am talking about please visit this site.

Posted in Kick-Ass Womyn, Privilege/Oppression, Racism Tagged: Latina, Mad Minutes, Racism, Reverse Racism, Sonia Sotomayor, White Privilege, Women, Women of Colour