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Mother Outlaws Speakers Series

Toronto Feminist Mothers Group

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MOTHER OUTLAWS PAST EVENTS:

The Music of Leaving Book Launch

Book Launch for The Music of Leaving
in Barrie.

Barrie - Friday, November 28, 2014 - Click to Find Out More


Please join Linda Rosenbaum for the launch of her new book
Not Exactly As Planned

Neoliberalism

November 18, 2014
6:00 - 8:00

Click here for details.

 

April Demeter Press Launch

January Book Launch

Click here or flyer above for the flyer as a PDF.

 

Chasing Rainbows Launch

Have Milk Will Travel

Have Milk, Will Travel
edited by Rachel Epp Buller

July 2013
Panel Discussion/Book Launch

Demeter Press
June Gala Book Launch


Date: Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm
Location: Pantages Hotel, 3rd Floor, Toronto, ON


 

March Book Launch

PLEASE JOIN US FOR A CELEBRATION OF INTERNATIONAL WOMENS DAY!

Book launch of Rupture by Clementine Mottigan

519 Church Street, Room 201
Friday, March 8, 2013
7:00 pm – 10:00 pm

 

February Book Launch

PLEASE JOIN US FOR A CELEBRATION OF MOTHERHOOD
LITERATURE & SCHOLARSHIP!


Book launch of Demeter’s first novel and memoir
& Journal of the Motherhood Initiative

Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen Street West, Toronto
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
7:00 pm – 10:00 pm

Mother Outlaws June Event
“Mapping Motherhood” The Greetings From Motherland Community Art Project
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
6:30 pm - 9 pm

Women’s College Hospital, Boardroom E252
76 Grenville Street, Bay and College (Scent free environment)

Greetings From Motherland (http://www.greetingsfrommotherland.com) is a community art project that gathers mothers and caregivers together to create honest representations of motherhood through workshops and participatory events. In this presentation, Artistic Director Mindy Stricke will share the evolution of the project, her process of collaboration, and stories and art from completed and in-progress works. The audience will also be invited to contribute to the Motherland Postcard Rack, an evolving participatory installation from the project.

Mindy Stricke is a photographer and community artist whose work involves multi-disciplinary collaborations and installations that challenge traditional boundaries between artists and non-artists, between artists and audience and between process and product. Her portraits and other work have been exhibited throughout North America and have been featured in international publications including the New York Times, Time Magazine, Newsweek, Voce and in the Smithsonian Institute Photography Initiative exhibit Click! Photography Changes Everything.


Click here to download the flyer

 

Sluts, Grrrls, Mamas: The New feminist activism
A Panel Discussion on Slutwalk Toronto, Grrrlvirus: Get
Infected, and Motherhood Initiative/Mother Outlaws
Wednesday, April 18th, 2012
7:00 pm – 10: 00 pm
Cummings Auditorium, Main Floor, Women’s College
Hospital
76 Grenville Street, Bay and College

Click here for the flyer.

 

FEM CAB 2012
Thursday, March 29th at 8pm Harbourfront Centre, Brigantine Room

Please join MIRCI and Mother Outlaws at Nightwood Theatre's annual FEM CAB- the
only cabaret in town where performers of every discipline come together in an irreverent and boisterous celebration of women and feminism.
ANDREA O'REILLY is one of the scheduled performers!
For further information see here

Download the March Events flyer here.

 

International Women's Day Celebration- 'Practices of Mothering'

Thursday March 8th 530- 8pm
Grad Cafe , 167 South Ross Building, York University
* Organized by Grad Student Association, York U

A celebratory evening with guest speaker Dr. Andrea O'Reilly , Mohawk spoken word artist Kahsenniyo Wilson, and a great local musical act 'Lesbian Song Club".
Free food, a drink ticket, and childcare re-imbursements provided.

 

Mother Outlaws Contingent in the Annual IWD Toronto March !!!
Saturday March 3rd, 2012
Please join us for the IWD Toronto March...wear your Mother Outlaws Tshirts, bring your partners and children!!!
For meet up info, please contact Linn Baran at linnbaran@sympatico.ca.

 

Wednesday, February 29th, 2012
630 pm - 9 pm
Women’s College Hospital, Boardroom E252
76 Grenville Street, Bay and College (Scent free environment)
Motherland/Borderland
Mothering, Migration and Transnationalism

“An Iraqi Jewish feminist mother walked into a bar: Dwelling in contradictions"
This presentation will consider the complexities of reconciling multiple competing identities with both the labour and identity of motherhood. In considering the inherent contradictions between different identity markers, the futility of the stable and singular subject will be exposed and an appetite for confusion will be borne.
May Friedman, Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, Ryerson University and co-editor of Growing up Transnationalism: Identity and Kinship in A Global Era


“What’s in a Last Name? Patriarchy, Inter-Ethnicity and Maternal Training”
This presentation will examine how inter-ethnicity affects the gender identities and performances of inter-ethnic children, particularly through how one’s last name is passed down in a patrilineal fashion while mothers still do the majority of cultural training, socialization and raising of children. Using her own experience as an inter-ethnic woman descended from British and Armenian immigrants to Canada, the presenter will use the lens of empowered mothering discourse to suggest a way to change parenting practices for ethnically hybrid children with such asymmetrical understandings of their cultural heritage.
Sarah Sahagian, PHD Student, Women’s Studies, York University


“South Asian Mothering and Migration”
For a mother who has gone through the process of migration to a new country, the negotiation of one’s mothering identity is more intense as the markers that would have defined her sense of self are no longer present. She must redefine herself while simultaneously making decisions about how she wants to mother her children. This process is further exacerbated by isolation, loss of social supports, distance from family, lack of familiarity with language and social customs in new country and changes in social class or status. This presentation will delve into this discussion more deeply through an exploration of the experiences of South Asian Mothers drawing on academic research, interviews and personal experience.
Jasjit Sangha, Visiting Scholar with the Center for Women’s Studies, OISE/University of Toronto


“Transnational Mothering in an Era of Globalization: Chinese-Canadian Immigrant Mothers Decision-Making When Separating from their Infants”
The phenomenon of maternal-child separation as a result of transnational lifestyles remains poorly understood. What motivates women to leave their children, how mothers think that they will experience the time apart, and what the repercussions of such disruptions are all need to be examined. In this study, Chinese Canadian immigrant mothers explored their decision-making process as related to separating from their infants, with a central theme emerging of “tolerated ambivalence” as mothers shared their heartbreak at trading proximity with their children for better economic chances in their country of immigration. The lack of adequate child-care possibilities in their new country, combined with the power of their culture of origin will also be discussed as central to reaching their decisions.
Yvonne Bohr, Assistant Professor, and Natasha Whitfield, PhD Student, Clinical Developmental Psychology, York University

“From Russia with Love”
The personal narrative of one woman who came to Canada to work under the Live-In Caregiver program while her son remained in Russia will be presented alongside the narrative of a community worker engaged with family supports and committed to assisting such mothers in their transnational mothering and caregiving work.
Olga Malina, Caregiver in Toronto and mother of son residing in Russia, with Patricia Hunt, Program Manager, South Riverdale Child Parent Centre and Executive Director of Family Supports Institute Ontario

Download the flyer here.

 

Tuesday November 22, 2011
6:30 pm - 9pm
Women’s College Hospital
Boardroom E252
76 Grenville Street (Bay and College),
Toronto

(Scent free environment)

Click here to download the flyer.

Portrait of the Artist as a Mother: Visualizing the Unspoken

This event will include artists featured in Demeter Press titles, The M Word: Real Mothers in Contemporary Art  and Mothering Canada: Interdisciplinary Voices.

Books will be available for sale

The three  visual artists in this panel - through their individual practices in photography, drawing and video,  seek to challenge the myth of motherhood as celebration and  open up a dialogue around the aspects of this transition that are, in a variety of ways, unspoken.  Seeking to address the complexity of one’s relationship to the role of mother, each artist focuses on how apprehension, taboo, loss and disappearance intermingle with the celebratory aspects of this transition. They challenge the stereotypes and critique the societal pressures to conform to an ill-fitting mold that somehow still remains intact and supported.
Panel Introduction :  Judith Mintz,  Phd. Candidate, Women’s Studies, York University

Featured Artists
Jennifer Linton

Jennifer Long

Lindsay Page

 

 

Feminist Mothering and Maternal Pedagogies
Both In and Outside the Classroom

Wednesday, October 19, 2011
7:00-9:30 pm
The Pantages Hotel, Hall 1/2
200 Victoria Street, Toronto
Free !!!

Download the Flyer!

In honor of MIRCI's international conference on Mothering, Education and Maternal Pedagogies (October 20-22, The Pantages Hotel), the following panel will present three personal narratives that illustrate how a feminist mothering identity influences one's parenting pedagogies in the home as well as in diverse educational settings.

Queering Feminist Mothering: Reflections of a Feminist Mother Living With and Learning From a Queer Son

Fiona Joy Green will share some of her personal and philosophical challenges, along with some of her most treasured insights and gifts of the past 23 years as she reflects on how her feminism has both informed and been influenced by parenting a gay son.

Fiona Joy Green, PhD, is a feminist mother, and Chair of the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Winnipeg. Her research and teaching interests include: feminist and maternal pedagogy; feminist mothering; gender socialization, identity and performance; and female genital cutting/cosmetic surgery. Her research on feminist mothering can be found in her books Practicing Feminist Mothering , Feminist Mothering in Theory and Practice, 1985-1995: A Study in Transformative Politics , Maternal Pedagogies: In and Outside the Classroom, and The 21st Century Motherhood Movement .



It's boy! It's a girl! It's a travesty!
Questioning sex disclosure and gender assignment

In the wake of the global media frenzy about our choice as parents to maintain the privacy of the sex of our baby, Storm, and to celebrate the diverse expression of gender within our family, our talk will raise questions about accepted parenting practices which rob children of agency and fail to promote feminist objectives. Challenging patriarchy, gender-based violence and bullying, homophobia and transphobia, depends on tackling the structural imbalance of power within families and freeing young people to make their own meaningful choices.

Kathy Witterick and David Stocker, Toronto parents, educators and activists

Kathy Witterick's career in violence prevention facilitation and promoting healthy child development nation wide culminated in the launch of her consulting business but doesn't hold a candle to her current challenging pursuits: unschooling and mothering three children, writing a book about radical parenting with her partner David and supporting new mothers in her community as La Leche League Leader.

David Stocker teaches at a Toronto Alternative School based on social justice for grades seven and eight. He is the author of a book called MaththatMatters: A Teacher Resource Linking Math and Social Justice. He deeply enjoys parenting Jazz, Kio and Storm with his partner Kathy.



Teen Moms: How They Have Enriched My Personal and Professional Life

On Feb. 3, 1995, a bi-racial 15-year-old gave birth. Believing that she didn't have the financial or emotional resources to properly nurture her child, this young woman put her child up for adoption. That child is Deborah Byrd's son. Ten years later, she created a service-learning course that allowed her and her Women's and Gender Studies students to learn from, support, and mentor pregnant and parenting teens at a large public high school....the high school at which her son is currently a junior. In her talk, she will share some of the complex ways in which her teaching and scholarship have both influenced and been influenced by her rearing of an adopted, mixed-race child.

Deborah Byrd, Associate Professor of English and Women's and Gender Studies at Lafayette College, publishes on feminist and service-learning pedagogy, mentoring programs for pregnant and parenting teens, and 19th- and 20th-century writers. Debbie also collaborates with local non-profits on community-based research projects designed to support and empower low-income families.

 

Tuesday September 20 , 2011
630 pm- 9pm
Women’s College Hospital, Boardroom E252
76 Grenville Street (Bay and College), Toronto
(Scent Free Environment)

The 21st Century Motherhood Movement

This panel will address several motherhood organizations featured in the ground breaking 2011 anthology by Demeter Press that highlight maternal advocacy, activism, and social change.

The keynote address will discuss the challenges and possibilities of maternalism, detail the strategies of 21st century maternal activism, and affirm a much-needed mother-centered theory and politics of feminism.

Copies of this book will be available for sale at the event.
See here for more information: http://www.demeterpress.org/21CenturyMotherhood.html

Maternal Activism as Matrocentric Feminism
Andrea O'Reilly
Associate Professor in the School of Women's Studies,
York University and Founder/Director of MIRCI

Mother Outlaws: Building Communities of
Empowered Feminist Mothers in the Mother'hood

Linn Baran

Empowering Women to Become Mothers:
Midwifery in Ontario, 1990-2010

Judith Mintz

Toronto Feminist Mothers
Tania Jivraj and Rebecca Lee

Single Mothers by Choice: No Time to Wait for a Perfect Partner
Veronika Novoselova

Changing the World One Mother at a Time:
The International Mothers and Mothering Network

Melinda Vandenbeld Giles

 

Tuesday June 21, 2011

6:30 pm- 9pm
Women's College Hospital
Boardroom E252
76 Grenville Street (Bay and College), Toronto
(scent free environment)


Young Mothers
Advocacy, Agency and Empowerment

Panel Chair and Introduction: Andrea O'Reilly, Director of MIRCI
Guest panel includes speakers from:
Literature for Life and Yo' Mama Magazine
June Callwood Centre for Women and Families
1900 Sheppard/Humewood House

Linn Baran, Community Outreach Coordinator, MIRCI
linnbaran@sympatico.ca

Click here to download the flyer (PDF Format).

 


 

Tuesday, April 19 , 2011
6:30 pm - 9 pm
Women's College Hospital , Boardroom E252
76 Grenville Street (Bay and College), Toronto
(scent free environment)


Mothers and the Current Child Care Challenge
Election 2011
Research, Activism and Steps Forward

Paulette Senior, CEO of YWCA Canada
"Educated, Employed and Equal : The Economic Prosperity Case for National Child Care"
This presentation addresses how the gender gap has closed in employment numbers and reversed in education without a corresponding social policy response. As such, a national child care plan ensures Canadian prosperity and should become as normalized in our social structure as the public school system .

Carolyn Ferns, Research Officer, Childcare Resource and Research Unit
"Child Care Advocacy in Canada: Learning From the Past, Fighting in the Present, Shaping the Future"
This presentation addresses the importance of policy research to child care advocacy, how the media frames child care and how to make our voices heard in the current federal election.

Rachel Langford, Director of the School of Early Childhood Education, Ryerson University
"What Happened when the Canadian Child Care Movement went Professionial from 2001 to 2010?"
This presentation will offer preliminary findings eerging from an investigation into the impact of ECEC professionalism on the Canadian child care movement over the last decade and explore what this professionalization has meant for the movement, its objectives, and child care activists.

Panel Chair: Patricia Hunt, Executive Director, Family Supports Institute of Ontario

Linn Baran, Community Outreach Coordinator, MIRCI
linnbaran@sympatico.ca

Click here to download the flyer (PDF Format).


Lives lived together and apart:
A mother-daughter conversation 15 years later
"Maternal Absence and Family Reconfiguration".


Tuesday March 22 , 2011
6:30 pm - 9pm
Women's College Hospital , Boardroom E252
76 Grenville Street (Bay and College), Toronto

Click here for more information.


 

 

Mamapalooza Toronto and the Association for Research on Mothering (ARM)/Mother Outlaws present Event

Sunday, May 10th at Bread & Circus Theatre
Kensington Market, Toronto
1:00 pm – 5:00 pm

We will be having rock bands, poets, and artists perform their work and passion related to women and mothering.


THE ASSOCIATION FOR RESEARCH ON MOTHERING, DEMETER PRESS & MOTHER OUTLAWS present:

eaker Series Events

Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Mothering, Religion and Spirituality

The Ralph Thornton Centre
765 Queen Street East,
3rd floor (Queen/Saulter, East of Broadview Avenue)
7:00pm- 9:30 pm
Free!

Featured Speakers:

` Spiritual Mothering: A Journey of Awakening`
Christine Jonas-Simpson
, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Health, School of Nursing at York University and an Adjunct Researcher with the Women’s College Research Institute in Toronto.

"Ancient Birth Goddesses and their Symbols"
Johanna H. Stuckey
, University Professor Emerita in Humanities, Women's Studies, and Religious Studies, York University.

"Motherhood in the Christian Tradition: What Virgins, Martyrs, Mystics & Reformers have Taught us about Motherhood"
Becky R. Lee
, Associate Professor, York University.

TITLE TBA
Helen Ziral
, Adult Education; Collaborative Program in Women and Gender Studies at OISE/UT

ARM journals and Demeter Press book titles will be available for purchase.

Please join us at this special event!!!


November 18
To launch our current journal, Mothers and Daughters,
The Association for Research on Mothering (ARM) presents…
The 10th instalment of our 2008 Mother Outlaws Speaker Series

Feminist Mother Lines: Connections and Dis/Connections

An Evening of Discussion, Poetry and Visual Art
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
The Ralph Thornton Centre
765 Queen Street East (Queen/Saulter, East of Broadview Avenue)
7:00pm-10:00pm
Free!

Featured Speakers:

Linn Baran (Host and Mother Outlaws Coordinator),
“Mother Outlaws: Connecting with a Feminist Community in the Mother’hood”

Fiona J. Green (Chair of the Dept. of Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Winnipeg), “Matroreform: Feminist Mothers and their Daughters Creating Feminist Motherlines”

Laura Lewis (Professor in the School of Social Work at the University Of Western Ontario), “Accessing the Mother Within: Midlife Daughter’s Use of Maternal Belongings in Mourning their Lost Mother”

Tamara Toledo (Chilean born Toronto visual artist, curator and educator),
“My Mother- My Guardian Angel: The Uncertainty of Exile and Memory”

In addition, the evening will include a celebration of poetry by, about and for mothers…
“mother lines”
..including the winners of ARM’s 2008 Literary Contest on the theme of mothers and daughters.

ARM journals and Demeter Press book titles will be available for purchase

Please join us at this special event!!!

York's Association for Research on Mothering speaker series on tonight, YFile, November 18, 2008

October 23
VIOLENCE, MILITARISM AND SOCIAL JUSTICE PANEL

Thursday, October 23, 2008
Junior Common Room 014 (lower level),
McLaughlin College, York University (Keele Campus)
7:00pm-9:00pm Free! Open to Public!

Featuring: Sarah Ruddick (author of Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace)
Flavia Cherry ((Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action (CAFRA)
Tiisetso Russell (OISE/University of Toronto)

 

“Maternal Activism/Activist Mothering Panel”

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Featuring:
Enola Aird (The Motherhood Project) and Pegeen Reichert-Powell (Columbia College)

“New Frontiers in Maternal Activism”
The mothers’ movement in the United States is currently aimed at gaining increased societal support for mothers and the work of nurturing children.  The agendas of mothers’ groups are, understandably, focused principally on issues of work and family.  But a dazzling array of new issues raise fundamental questions that should concern  mothers. This presentation will discuss two new arenas that call for activist mothering: the commercialization of childhood and the commodification of human beings.

Enola G. Aird is an activist mother.  A graduate of Barnard College and Yale Law School, she is a Visiting Scholar at the Judge Baker Children's Center in Boston, Massachussetts, and Founder and Director of the Motherhood Project, based at the Institute for American Values in New York City.  Working with members of the Motherhood Project's Mother's Council, she has helped launch a mothers' campaign against the commercialization of childhood, design a large-scale national study of mothers that pointed to key elements of a mothers' agenda for social change, and convene a national symposium of mothers across the spectrum to help pave the way for an end to the media-generated "mommy wars."  She is currently working to help bring mothers' voices into the national and international conversation about new technologies that could alter the human species.  She is the mother of two children.

"The Mothers' Movement Moving Forward"
In this talk, I borrow an activist’s vocabulary from the Industrial Areas Foundation, a network of local citizen groups, to consider how the principles and practices of these groups might inform mothering activism. Specifically, I focus on four terms—power, relationships, self-interest, and disorganizaton—to think about a way forward for the mothers’ movement.

Pegeen Reichert Powell received her Ph.D. in English from Miami University (Oxford, OH), and is now a faculty member in the English Department at Columbia College Chicago. She is co-editing with Jocelyn Fenton Stitt a collection of essays about mothering, Mothers Who Deliver: Feminist Interventions in Interpersonal and Public Discourse (under contract with SUNY Press). In addition to mothering studies, her research interests include pedagogy, critical discourse analysis, and retention in higher education.

June 18

The Association for Research on Mothering and Mother Outlaws are proud to announce:
Navigating work and family: Dad's experience

Dr. Kerry Daly provides us with an interesting look at the unique challenges men encounter in their efforts to harmonize both their work and family lives. His lecture will also focus on how fathers navigate through parenting dynamics, the culture of masculinity as well as workplace policies and practices.

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

Kerry Daly is the Associate Dean of Research in the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences, a Professor in the Department of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition and is one of the founding directors of the Centre for Families, Work and Well-Being all at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. He received his PhD in Sociology from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario. He is Director of the Father Involvement Research Alliance CURA project, a Canadian national organization of researchers, practitioners and policy makers. His current research interests focus on the changing practices of fatherhood, the way that families negotiate and navigate time pressures in their lives, and the challenges families face in trying to harmonize their work and family life. He is married and a father of 2 young adults.

Thursday, May 8
Carework and Caregiving Panel and Launch of ARM Journal Vol. 10.1 , “Carework and Caregiving”
Contributors include: Margrit Eichler, Patrizia Albanese and Willa Liu; Magdalena Ortega Suarez; and Judi Thacker-Magee.


(M)Other (a performance)
Performance by Beth Osnes

When:
Saturday, April 26: 7-10pm

“Stunningly beautiful”— Dance Magazine

(M)other explores what it might take to get the people of one nation to authentically care about the children and families of other nations. Seven mothers from seven nations from around the world are required by their governments to swap their six month old babies with another mother from another nation for one month. What follows is an intimate look at these mothers’ experiences and their eventual realization of their interconnectedness.

“…rich, clever and empowering.” - Daily Camera

March 8, 2008

Mother Outlaws will be marching in the Toronto IWD March on March 8th.ll meet outside OISE auditorium after rally - just before 12. Rally begins at 11Am Oise address is 252 Bloor St (at St.George Subway Station) AFTER the rally...LOOK FOR OUR BANNER IN B/W.


February 26, 2008

The Association for Research on Mothering
invites you to their monthly Mother Outlaws speaker’s series

 “Mother Outlaws recognize that mothers and children benefit when the mother lives her life, and practices mothering, from a position of agency, authority, authenticity and autonomy”

It Can’t Just Be One Day
What Families Really Want…What Families Really Need

With the introduction of the statutory holiday, "Family Day" on the third Monday of February,  it  would appear that  our current government is acknowledging the importance of families in all their diversity.
However, reports from the field of anti-poverty activism reveal there are many current issues that  families face which our current  government does not actively support.. This evening’s guest panel will address issues of social inclusion while discussing the real barriers that many  families face in their daily lives. Together,  we hope to explore ways to overcome these barriers and increase the community capacity and social inclusion of all mothers with young children in current  social policy decision-making.

Guest Panel:

Deborah Konecny,  Program Coordinator, Families are Important Resources, Family Service Association of Toronto

Ann Decter, National Coordinator (Campaign 2000) and author of the recent report on homeless families -“Lost in the Shuffle”

Linn Baran , Community Outreach Coordinator, Mother Outlaws, Association for Research on Mothering

Tuesday, February 26  6:30- 9:30 pm
Ralph Thornton Centre, 765 Queen Street East (east of Boadview), 3rd Floor
For more information and to RSVP , please contact: linnbaran@sympatico.ca


January 29, 2008

Please join us for the next Mother Outlaw meeting:
Tuesday, January 29th - 7-10pm
at a member's home in Beaches/East end of Toronto

Please RSVP to Mother Outlaws Coordinator, Linn Baran - linnbaran@sympatico.ca for directions and more information.

“This is what a Feminist Mother Looks Like”

In 2007, feminists experienced an unprecedented onslaught of backlash. The media would have us believe that feminism once again became the "F word" no-one wanted to acknowledge nor discuss , not to mention claim as their guiding principles. However, mothers who strongly identify as feminists have a lot to say (and share) on important issues. Please join other “Mother Outlaws” at this Feminist Motherhood Speak Easy and OUT.

***Attendants are asked to share with others their answers to the Feminist Motherhood Meme (c/o of Blue Milk Mother)

  1. How would you describe your feminism in one sentence? When did you become a feminist? Was it before or after you became a mother?
  2. What has surprised you most about motherhood?
  3. How has your feminism changed over time? What is the impact of motherhood on your feminism?
  4. What makes your mothering feminist? How does your approach differ from a non-feminist mothers? How does feminism impact upon your parenting?
  5. Do you ever feel compromised as a feminist mother? Do you ever feel you’ve failed as a feminist mother?
  6. Has identifying as a feminist mother ever been difficult? Why?
  7. Motherhood involves sacrifice, how do you reconcile that with being a feminist?
  8. If you have a partner, how does your partner feel about your feminist motherhood? What is the impact of your feminism on your partner?
  9. If you’re an attachment parenting mother, what challenges if any does this pose for your feminism and how have you resolved them?
  10. Do you feel feminism has failed mothers and if so how? Personally, what do you think feminism has given mothers?

http://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2007/10/29/what-does-a-feminist-mother-look-like/

Monday, November 12, 2007

Please join us!
Book Launch Celebration

White Ink:
Poems on Mothers and Motherhood

edited by Rishma Dunlop, published by Demeter Press White Ink

Monday, November 12, 2007
7-10 pm
Gladstone Hotel Ballroom, Gladstone Hotel,
1214 Queen St. W., Toronto

Poetry readings, refreshments served. Cash bar

http://www.demeterpress.org/whiteink.html

Edited by poet Rishma Dunlop, White Ink is a unique collection of poems on mothers and motherhood, by some of the finest poets of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Unsentimental, unflinching, and edgy, White Ink registers the social and political changes, as well as the imaginative pulse, of recent history through the figure of the mother: a powerful, recurring, and central symbol in contemporary poetry. Spanning multiple cultures, ethnicities, genders, and languages, White Ink is a landmark anthology.

Poets and translators include Ann Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Alicia Ostriker, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Joy Harjo, Sharon Olds, Gwendolyn Brooks, Gwendolyn McEwan, Rosemary Sullivan, Patrick Lane, Lorna Crozier, Allen Ginsberg, Irving Layton, Priscila Uppal, Bronwen Wallace, Maxine Kumin, Sandra Gilbert, Grace Paley, Brenda Hillman, John Barton, Samuel Menashe, Richard Teleky, Margo Berdeshevsky, Marilyn Hacker, Steven Heighton, John Terpstra, John Barton, C.D.
Wright, Cherrie Moraga, Natasha Trethewey, Rita Dove, Adrienne Rich, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Nicole Brossard, Annie Finch, Beth Ann Fennelly, Mimi Khalvati, Marie Ponsot, Mahmoud Darwish, Susan Musgrave, Susan Holbrook, Fady Joudah, Naomi Shihab Nye, Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, Deema Shehabi, Claudia Rankine, Liesl Jobson, Clarinda Harriss, Ingrid de Kok, Gabeba Baderoon, Carolyn Forché, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Cati Porter, Diane Lockward, Judith Arcana, Judith Montgomery, Wanda Coleman, Celia Lisset Alvarez, Philip Levine, Jean Valentine, Sina Queyras, Meena Alexander, Goran Simic, Yerra Sugarman, Nina Bogin, Agha Shahid Ali, and many others.

Rishma Dunlop is the author of three acclaimed books of poetry: Metropolis (2005), Reading like a Girl (2004), and The Body of My Garden (2002). She is co-editor with Priscila Uppal, of Red Silk: An Anthology of South Asian Canadian Women Poets (2004). Her radio drama, “The Raj Kumari’s Lullaby,” was commissioned and produced by CBC Radio. Her awards include the Emily Dickinson Prize for Poetry in 2003 and she was a finalist for the CBC Canada Council Literary Awards in 1998. Her work has been funded by The Ontario Arts Council, The Toronto Arts Council, and Canada Arts Council. Her essays, poetry, reviews, and keynote lectures have been published internationally in literary and scholarly journals. Rishma Dunlop is the Coordinator of the Creative Writing Program in English at York University, Toronto.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

“Raising Outlaws--Beyond the Boundaries of "The Good Mother"
by Mary Kay Blakely (University of Missouri-Columbus)

Wednesday, October 17, 2007
7-9 pm
Courtyard Marriott Hotel, room TBA
475 Yonge Street, Toronto

Free to ARM members.
$20 regular admission.
$10 for students/seniors/unwaged.

September 26, 2007

“Othermothering: Challenges and Rewards"
by Wanda Thomas Bernard
(Dalhousie University)

Wednesday, September 26, 2007
6:30-8:30 pm
Room 004, Harry Leith Room (basement level)
Atkinson College, 96 Pond Rd
(Pond Rd and Sentinel at main campus)

August 14, 2007

A MOTHER OUTLAWS’ DINNER and THEATRE EVENT

A feminist revival of Caryl Churchill‘s TOP GIRLS.

Tuesday, May 15th, 2007

The Association for Research on Mothering (ARM) and Mother Outlaws
are hosting a panel in celebration of Mother’s Day and International Day of Families

“Unbecoming Mothers:
Redefining Motherhood and Family for the 21st Century”

FEATURING:

CHAIR: Andrea O’Reilly, Founder/Director ARM/Demeter Press, Mother Outlaws

Joanna Radbord, lesbian feminist mother, lawyer with the firm of Martha McCarthy & Company.
Lesbian Mothers and the Law

Andrea O’Reilly, Associate Professor, Women’s Studies, York University, author of
Rocking the Cradle: Thoughts on Feminism, Motherhood and the Possibility of Empowered Mothering“Worth it in the end”: The Rewards and Risks of Feminist Mothering

Diana Gustafson, Assistant Professor, Social Science and Health in the Faculty of Medicine and affiliate faculty in the Women’s Studies Program at Memorial University, author of Unbecoming Mothers: the Social Construction of Maternal Absence.
“To be or not to be”: Questioning the Decision to be a Non-Resident Mother

D. Memee Lavell-Harvard, President of the Ontario Native Women’s Association, co-editor ‘Until our Hearts are on the Ground’: Aboriginal Mothering, Oppression, Resistance and Rebirth
The (Ab)Original Mother Outlaw: Celebrating Traditional Aboriginal Culture as a Source of Modern Feminine Power

*this panel is the first in a year-long “Speakers Series” of Mother Outlaws feminist mothers’ group. Please join us!

Monday, April 23, 2007 - 7-10 pm

“Mothering and Activism / Activist Mothers”

Discussed the challenges involved in being both an activist and a mother.

What does it mean to put feminist theory into practice in our lives as mothers and community activists interested in social justice?

Shared resources and strategies for grassroots organizing and how we can make the connections between our own personal activist work and the larger mothers movement.


International Women’s Day Event (March 8, 2007)

Nightwood Theatre's FemCab: The Five Minute Feminist Cabaret


Thursday, February 22, 2007

The Mommy Wars : The Rhetoric and the Reality

A Screening and  Panel Discussion about the broader social, economic and cultural significance of  the  personal choices and constraints mothers experience in balancing their working lives  with their caregiving responsibilities.  Of particular interest to participants was how the opt –out myth has become a powerful news story  that is being deployed in current and regressive social policies affecting families.

Guest Panel:
Linn Baran, Mother Outlaws Coordinator (Moderator)
Michelle Melles, Senior Segment Producer, Sex TV-City TV
Andrea O’Reilly, Director of ARM, Professor, Women’s Studies, York University
Brenda Cossman, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

Click here to see some pictures of the event.


Monday, January 29, 2007 , 7-10 pm

"Mothering For Schooling"
Discussion of the extensive and often "invisible" mothering work that is involved in maintaining the infrastructure of local public schools. Special guest speaker was Annie Kidder, director of People for Education (pictured above).

 

 

Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement
140 Holland St. West,
PO 13022
Bradford ON L3Z 2Y5