First of all, fuck cancer. Fuck cancer right to hell.
Doctor Kate McInturff is (fuck your past tense) a national treasure. She hates that I call her that and said that it would send Nicholas Cage after her, but it’s true. She is incredible.
It’s hard for me to form a sentence let alone be articulate, but I really want you to know how amazing Kate is because she’d be the last person to tell you herself.
So, between sobs, here it goes:
I've been attending and organizing protests since late 2003. By 2007-2008, I was leading them.
That means I've spent a solid 15 years talking to the media.
In the last decade, I've averaged 100s of them a year.
Even though I originally applied to Carleton for journalism and media studies, I hated it and switched to Women's Studies and Canadian Studies.
I have zero formal media training. Zero.
But practice makes perfect and I've had a lot of practice.
And as any ballerina or stand-up comedian will tell you - making it look easy is a sign of being good at your job.
Unfortunately, we live in a culture that views visibility as currency. We think "paying people in exposure" is a legitimate form of payment and we think that every time we see someone in the media, that's a cheque in their pocket.
Nah, babe. Not even close.
This is what being a media source really entails:
Are you dealing with a PTSD diagnosis and a broke ass bank account?
I feel you.
Here are my best tips.
2K16 was such a garbage fire that it's taken me 10 whole days to muster the courage to revisit it.
Today is Canada's National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Womyn.
It happens on this date to commemorate December 6th, 1989 when 14 university womyn were murdered at school by a man who hated "feminists" and thought that his own rejection from the school was because womyn had taken his place in the STEM program.
Does this sound familiar?
Dear Margaret Atwood,
Maggie. Can I call you Maggie? We need to talk.
I'm so fucking discouraged.
[Warning: This post contains discussion of sexual violence and intimate partner violence]
It's Sexual Assault Awareness Month in Ontario and right on cue, Jian decides he is going to agree to a Peace Bond in return for having his charges dropped.
If you're here, reading this, you know that already.
But it seems that what many of you don't know is what a Peace Bond is or what the process is like. I know that because Google was bumping with searches for the words "Peace Bond" this week and I got asked a million times by a million different people to explain it to them.
If you want a brilliant legal perspective on what a Peace Bond is and its use in sexual assault trials, listen to the latter half of my radio show, recorded May 10th, with feminist lawyer Pamela Cross. You can listen here.
Because I am a woman. Because I have been raped. Because I was in an abusive relationship. Because I've worked with sexual assault survivors. Because I'm an empathetic person who gives a shit about the well being of the world. For all these reasons: Jian Ghomeshi's trial of the century has been really, really tough.
I thought the worst of it was over. That we'd have to endure another "Not guilty" verdict this summer. That we'd have to endure the trolls screaming "SEE! BITCHES LIE!" and then we'd all go back to the daily grind of trying to end rape culture.
But I got thrown for the most major of loops with the news that he would be signing a Peace Bond.
I tried to get a Peace Bond and it was the most humiliating experience of my life.
[TRIGGER WARNING: This post talks about violence against womyn. Exercise self-care, folks.]
The law fails womyn. We actively enable abusers.
We've known this for generations but 2K16 seems determined to drive it home.
Bill Cosby is suing. The Jian Ghomeshi trial is a fucking mess. And now, we're trying to set Kesha free.
We need to #FreeKesha. We need to free all the Keshas, because girl is not alone.
But if enduring countless media interviews this year has taught me anything, it's that the average person does not understand abuser dynamics.
[Obvious trigger warning]
I think a lot about rape. But I rarely think about my own.
Thinking about rape is literally my job. I'm a sexual violence expert with a focus on public education. I spend my days, training people on how to prevent rape; talking to the media about better ways to talk about sexual violence; advocating for sexual assault survivors through the government and justice system; encouraging folks to build communities of accountability.
Most of my walking hours are spent thinking about rape in all its nuance and complexity.
But my own rape? Until recently, I had pushed it to the back of my brain or chucked in the pile of "Horribly traumatic things I've survived and never want to think about."