The belief that homophobes and those who commit hate crimes against gays are lashing out against their own homosexual feelings is not new. But a new study has offered valuable evidence to the speculation. The study links feelings of homophobia with repressed same-sex attraction. It also adds new insight by showing the role strict, homophobic parents have ...
Achmat Dangor’s novel Bitter Fruit begins in post-apartheid South Africa, when Silas spots the police lieutenant who raped Lydia nearly twenty years before. The novel follows the lives of the former activists, now married and seemingly settled into middle class life with a teenage son and a close circle of friends. The central themes are ...
A big debate around modern weddings is the question of whether anyone changes their last name after marriage and if so, who should do so and to what. The origins of this tradition lie in the designation of wealth distribution — marriage was the conduit of wealth to spouses and women changed their names as ...
Just because a law against selling one’s eggs or sperm was enacted in Canada eight years ago doesn’t mean that it’s been either recognized or enforced. According to the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, “No person shall purchase, offer to purchase or advertise for the purchase of sperm or ova from a donor or a person ...
Anne Fine’s Fly in the Ointment takes me quickly through the life of Lois, whose son is dead after a lengthy stint of heroin use and whose husband has left her without saying goodbye. Indifferent to the dull, unpleasant husband and grieving for her son, Lois interrupts her second life of solitude and simple pleasures ...
Last week a member of Canada’s Parliament did the unthinkable. No, she didn’t infringe on anyone’s rights, didn’t offend any minorities or start any wars. NDP MP Sana Hassainia brought her 3-month-old son to work. Gasp! Don’t women, especially female politicians, know that you’re not supposed to remind people that you have a uterus! Controversy started when ...
My first encounter with Kitchen, Banana Yoshimoto’s 1988 novel (translated into English in 1993 by Megan Backus) was in the late 90s when I discovered a copy wedged into the corner of a library shelf. It’s a small novel; only 150 pages. Yoshimoto’s language is simple, with short sentences describing action in unromantic language. Despite ...
Good news for a change. Check out Little Bones’ analysis of the Forced Marriage Act recently enacted in Scotland. Yesterday the Forced Marriage (Protection and Jurisdiction) (Scotland) Act, passed in March by the Scottish Parliament, came into force. Based on Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the act aims to protect vulnerable ...
Being single around the holidays opens people up to an interrogation about their sex life from bothersome relatives. There is also pressure at office parties, potluck dinners, and New Year’s Eve parties. But alone no longer translates into lonely. People are slower to pair off than ever before because, quite honestly, being single is fun! ...
Many women are putting kids on the back burner until they get an education and career. The consequence? Some women are left childless. But there’s new evidence that educated women, for the most part, are actually having more kids. Canada is the odd woman out. While women in the US are getting an education without ...
The latest film in the American Pie series, American Reunion, contains a shocking scene – male full-frontal nudity including...
Dear Madame X, I have just started seeing this girl. She seems great, but she recently told me she...
Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved arrived in my hands via a public library, when I was a broke teenager with...
My attention was drawn this week to an article about the reaction at a Canadian university to proposals to...
Airport security. Bloody nuisance. Also a conspiracy designed to subjugate women. Allow me to elaborate. Despite flying quite a...
The Cannes film festival has kicked off this week with controversy over the lack of films made by women...
Dear Madame X, I seem to be only attracted to men who are macho assholes. I like them at...
When A Clockwork Orange was published in 1962, the term sexualized violence wasn’t in use. The distinction between sexualized...
